Bangladesh’s Rapid Action Battalion has arrested three persons in connection with the killing of a Hindu businessman in the country’s Shariatpur district, Prothom Alo reported on Sunday.

Khokon Chandra Das, 50, died on Saturday, three days after he was assaulted near Keurbhanga Bazar in Damudya upazila of Shariatpur district after closing his shop.

At around 9.30 pm, armed assailants reportedly stopped his autorickshaw, attacked him with sharp weapons and then set him on fire using flammable substances.

In an attempt to save himself, Das jumped into a water body, following which residents rescued him and took him to a hospital. He died during treatment at the National Institute of Burn and Plastic Surgery in Dhaka.

Doctors said Das had multiple injuries, including a serious abdominal wound and burn injuries to his face, head and hands.

Das had named two of his alleged attackers before dying – Sohag Khan (27) and Rabbi Mollah (21). Later, the police identified Palash Sardar (25) as the third suspect.

They were all arrested from Damudya, Prothom Alo reported.

The Rapid Action Battalion said the motive for killing has not yet been identified as the arrested persons have given inconsistent statements during the probe, The Daily Star reported.

“Further questioning would be conducted and details would be shared later,” an unidentified official told the ne.

Das’s death marked the fifth killing of a Hindu man since December, with seven attacks on the community reported during the month, according to Kajol Debnath of the Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council.

Several attacks on minorities in Bangladesh have been reported amid widespread unrest following the death of student leader Sharif Osman Bin Hadi, who succumbed to gunshot injuries at a hospital in Singapore on December 18.

Hadi was a prominent leader in the 2024 student protest that led to the ouster of the earlier government headed by Awami League leader Sheikh Hasina.

On December 26, India condemned the lynching of another Hindu man in the neighbouring country, saying that the “unremitting hostility” against minorities in the country was concerning.

Two days later Dhaka rejected the remarks and described them as “inaccurate, exaggerated or motivated”.

SM Mahbubul Alam, the spokesperson for the Bangladeshi foreign ministry, added that the statements “misrepresent the country’s longstanding tradition of communal harmony”.