The mob and the state

From Bangladesh to India and Pakistan, lynchings have become a grim substitute for justice, but South Asia’s mobs are not simply spontaneous eruptions of rage

- BY NADEEM F. PARACHA

On December 18, 2025, a 25-year-old Hindu garment worker was lynched by a mob of approximately 150 people in Bangladesh's Mymensingh district. Following accusations of blasphemy, the victim was beaten to death.

Mob lynchings in Bangladesh, known locally as gono-pituni, have a long history. But this crisis is not unique to Bangladesh. According to the Human Rights Watch’s World Report 2025, South Asia has emerged as a global epicentre for collective vigilantism, with similar violence frequently reported in India and Pakistan as well.

The recent surge in mob violence across India, Bangladesh and Pakistan is propelled by similar drivers: a decaying public confidence in the judiciary and the rapid spread of digital disinformation. This combination allows ‘street justice’ to effectively supersede state authority. As American political scientist Paul Staniland observed in a 2020 analysis for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, these patterns in South Asia are not recent developments. They are historical continuities. Rooted in colonial-era structures and galvanised by the 1947 partition of India, this culture of vigilantism has simply been recalibrated for the digital age.

The 2017 lynching of university student Mashal Khan in Mardan, Pakistan, serves as a grim illustration of how false allegations (circulated on social media) are weaponised to orchestrate violence. Targeted by a campus mob under the guise of blasphemy, Mashal was brutally murdered, and his death was filmed by mobile phones and then uploaded on social media sites. The plan of the attack was hatched by university staff and Mashal's political rivals who wanted to silence his criticism of administrative corruption in the university.

This tragedy highlights a broader historical pattern in South Asia, where the mob has evolved into a calculated tool for political mobilisation and social policing.