On 12 October, the Human Rights Support Society (HRSS), a Bangladeshi rights organization, reported that between July and September of this year political violence in Bangladesh caused 17 deaths and injured 1,227 people across 183 separate incidents.
This represented a 12 percent increase in the number of incidents compared to the same period in the previous year.
Mob violence also rose sharply from 98 to 137.
The data suggest that the Bangladeshi state has been unable to fully stabilise and normalise the law‑and‑order situation in the country since the revolutionary mobilisation of 2024.
The transition from the authoritarian framework previously associated with Sheikh Hasina and the Awami League to a new democratic system has encountered a number of challenges.
According to data released by the human‑rights organization Ain o Salish Kendra, deaths attributed to mob violence rose sharply, increasing from 51 in 2023 to 128 in 2024 and reaching 197 in 2025.
Police reported that the number of registered murder cases rose from 3,023 in 2023 to 3,786 in 2025.
In addition, reports of extortion, political clashes and armed violence have heightened concerns over the deteriorating law‑and‑order situation in Bangladesh.
Following the collapse of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's authoritarian government in August 2024, public anger turned toward law‑enforcement agencies. Attacks left 450 of Bangladesh's 639 police stations inoperable, and roughly 30 percent of police posts remained temporarily vacant.
Building trust in the police forces was a daunting task.
Public confidence in the police has been low from the outset, owing to the colonial policing culture inherited from East Pakistan and later embraced by Bangladesh.
Successive regimes initially used the police as a tool not so much to enforce law and order as to stifle dissent.
Political connections and corruption determined professional advancement within the police force.
As a result, the Bangladesh police were hardly a professional force.
Ahead of the 2024 national election, almost 10,000 opposition activists were detained, and politically motivated prosecutions, enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings have become recurring tools of repression.
Police authorities were reportedly involved in almost 708 enforced disappearance cases.
Some also threatened women with rape if they didn’t fall in line.
The government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina employed the police to undermine its opponents, and an increasing number of officers became instruments of the regime. Advancement within the force consequently depended more on loyalty to the government and its agenda than on hard work or merit.
A total of 349 police officers were presented with awards, including an officer who was singled out for his role in arresting photographer Shahidul Alam after the journalist criticised the government.
This broken and untrustworthy ecosystem could not be fixed in a few days, weeks or even months.
When the anti‑Hasina demonstrations concluded, residents took to the streets to maintain order as the police and the broader law‑and‑order apparatus collapsed. The breakdown left the security infrastructure in disarray.
Even routine policing has become a challenge in Bangladesh.
Officers who previously operated with strong political backing now face considerable risks when intervening in confrontations.
The interim administration has intervened to re‑establish the law‑and‑order framework and to get police stations operating again, but public confidence in the police remains low.
The police force altered both the colour of its uniforms and its logo on two separate occasions, yet these superficial changes had little effect on public perception of the police.
Then came initiatives to rebuild the police force.
A member of the Police Reform Commission, established after 2024, told The Diplomat that the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) government has not taken the commission’s police‑reform recommendations seriously.
It has not taken a single step towards reforming the police force, he said.
As a result, public perception of the police force has not improved much.
A survey conducted by the International Republican Institute found that 52 % of respondents disapproved of the police’s performance, while 45 % expressed approval.
Among the public institutions surveyed in Bangladesh, the police force received the lowest level of public approval. A further factor contributing to the country's poor law‑and‑order situation is the shifting structure of political authority at the grassroots level.
Throughout the Awami League’s fifteen‑year tenure in government, local political and economic power has been largely confined to highly organized networks linked to the ruling party.
Control of transport terminals, markets, construction contracts, land and other economic assets was frequently exercised through internally negotiated, mutually established political patronage networks.
So the division and the hierarchy were clear.
The fall of the Awami League disrupted this hierarchy.
Individuals and groups that had previously been excluded from local power structures have begun competing for positions and resources that were formerly controlled by those networks.
A contest for the prospective successor to the throne was openly discussed. Local political competition became entangled with disputes over extortion, property, markets and territorial influence.
In May, the Dhaka Metropolitan Police reported that it had identified 1,280 active extortionists operating in the capital, including 148 who were armed criminals.
Across the country, 600 incidents of political violence were recorded between August 2024 and December 2025. The clashes resulted in 158 deaths and more than 7,000 injuries, many of which involved struggles over local dominance and economic resources.
These rivalries have continued after the BNP formed the government in February this year.
HRSS recorded 183 incidents of political violence between July and September of this year. Of those, 69 were internal conflicts within the BNP, while 92 involved clashes between BNP members and other political groups.
Competing factions vying for influence within the same political organization have emerged as a significant source of conflict and violence at the grassroots level.
Since 2024, Bangladesh has been caught in a persistent cycle of conflict, with rival political factions vying for control of local authority.
The government appears unable to rein in the police, which are themselves weak and lack the moral authority to address the problem.
And most significantly, in this process, conflicts are reinforcing each other.
It is time that the BNP government wakes up to the grave law and order situation in the country.
Its immediate task should be to rebuild police authority without restoring political control over policing.
The Police Commission Ordinance, which was adopted in December 2025 with the intention of strengthening oversight and accountability, has since ceased to have effect.
This means that the legal framework designed to regulate police conduct is no longer operative, leaving oversight mechanisms unenforced.
If the police lack institutional independence, they risk becoming dependent on political patronage once more, and competition for local resources continues to fuel violence.
Establishing law and order in Bangladesh will need more than increasing police deployment or arresting individual criminals.
Rebuilding public trust, insulating law enforcement from political influence and preventing local groups from converting political connections into coercive economic power will be required.
Otherwise, the nation could replace one politically controlled system with another, failing to establish the rule of law that the July uprising pledged.
Why it matters
Rising political and mob violence highlights the urgent need for structural police reforms and depoliticized law enforcement to stabilize Bangladesh's post-transition security landscape.