A man named Palash Shah was severely beaten in Gopalganj town after being labelled “homosexual”. The incident took place on 29 October 2026. A group called “Samakami Protirodh Andolon, Gopalganj” (Anti-Homosexual Resistance Movement, Gopalganj) was involved in the attack. After the beating, two members of the group, Md. Abdullah Molla and Usman Kazi, posted about the incident on their own Facebook profiles.
According to the information received, the extremist mob searched the messages on his personal mobile phone and called him out of a shop. They then beat him with kicks and punches and by pulling his hair, leaving him bleeding. They also put a garland of shoes around his neck and paraded him around the market to humiliate him. The mob then handed him over to the police. The police took no action against the extremist mob and instead detained the victim.
Md. Abdullah Molla posted a video of the beating on his Facebook profile with the caption, “Another homosexual kot in Gopalganj town, how did I do, guys?” (original Bengali: “গোপালগঞ্জ শহরে আরেকজন সমকামী কট, কি চান্দরা কেমন দিলাম?”). In a comment on the same post, he wrote, “The serial series will keep going” (original Bengali: “ধারাবাহিক সিরিজ চলতেই থাকবে”).
Md. Abdullah Molla is known as the muezzin of Gopalganj District Model Mosque and Islamic Cultural Centre, and his Facebook profile also mentions this occupation. He also led the earlier attack on 23 October on the home of transgender woman Rajat Shuvro in Gopalganj, carried out in the name of a search. Two days after that attack, on 25 October, he posted on his profile announcing that he had reached 10,000 followers.
After the beating of Palash Shah, Usman Kazi also posted about the beating on his Facebook profile. Earlier, on 24 October, he had posted a video message on the Facebook page of “Samakami Protirodh Andolon, Gopalganj”, threatening to drive LGBTIQ+ people out of Gopalganj and calling on others to join in. He also shared the same video on his own profile.
“Samakami Protirodh Andolon, Gopalganj” became public on 8 October 2026 with the launch of a Facebook page. The group’s head and founder is Sarzil Tibro. The page called for people to provide area-wise information about gay people, and cited an incident of burning a person to death as a precedent while calling for “resistance”.
Evidence
