On December 31, 2024, at least two Indian news outlets published reports speculating that Hindus were being discriminated against in the Bangladesh Civil Service (BCS) exams. Bengali news outlets Zee24Ghanta and Ei Samay wrote articles and shared posts on X (formerly Twitter) claiming that authorities in Bangladesh had scrapped an earlier notification on civil service appointments and issued a fresh list in which 168 people were reportedly left out, most of them Hindus.
The X handle of Zee24Ghanta (@Zee24Ghanta) on December 31 posted that a new list of BCS recruitees was issued on December 30, which overwrote an October 15 notification on selected candidates. The post clearly says a majority of the 168 names dropped from the new list of recruitees were Hindu candidates who had cleared the exam. (Archive)
Zee24Ghanta also posted this on their Facebook page, garnering close to 2,000 reactions and around 180 shares, at the time this article was written. (Archive)
Ei Samay's report also said that most of the excluded candidates were Hindus, citing unconfirmed sources. The publication also added that several Hindu organisations in Bangladesh were also questioning the move. These organisations alleged that denying Hindus jobs as civil servants even after passing the exam was proof that the Bangladesh government biased against the minority community. Below is a screenshot of the relevant part of the article in English version:
The claim was further amplified by Bengal BJP leader Dilip Ghosh. An Instagram post on January 1 from his account (@dilipghosh64) says, "Recently, the Yunus government has issued a informal Fatwa to exclude Hindus from government jobs. In a shocking development, 168 candidates, predominantly Hindu, who appeared on the final merit list for the Bangladesh Civil Service (BCS) in October 2024's gazette notification, were dropped from the final selection." (Archive)
Rabindra Ghosh, lawyer of jailed Hindu monk Chinmoy Kumar Das, also claimed that omitting Hindu candidates was an "unconstitutional" move by the Bangladesh government.
Meanwhile 'Voice of Bangladeshi Hindus' (@VHindus71) also shared the viral claim on X, calling it "systemic discrimination" by the authorities. (Archive)
Fact Check
To check the veracity of the claims, Alt News closely analysed both the notifications — the first one released on October 15 and the revised one issued on December 30 — published by Bangladesh's ministry of public administration. Going by candidates' full names, we estimate that at least 124 of the over 200 dropped candidates were Muslims. This means that the majority of those excluded from the list were actually Muslims, and not Hindus.
Also, a third notice was issued by the ministry on January 2, enlisting reasons for excluding some names in the revised list. In this notice, the ministry said that this was in accordance with Rule 4 of the BCS Recruitment Rules, 1981, wherein police agencies carry out personality assessments of selected candidates to ensure that those employed in these services had a "clean image".
Of the 2,163 candidates named in the first list, 227 did not clear this check. the notice specifed that apart from this, 40 others were excluded as they did not show up for the medical examination. So, in total, 267 were dropped in the new list, according to the third notice.
On January 9, Bangladesh news outlets reported that the ministry as well as intelligence agencies were planning to further review reports regarding the 227 candidates who were excluded and come to a final decision.
A week before that, on January 2, Bangladesh's Chief Adviser's Press Wing also issued a statement rubbishing claims that the Bangladesh government discriminated against any citizen based on religion.
Thus, to sum up, reports by media outlets that the Yunus Mohammad-led Bangladesh government opposed employment of Hindu citizens for government jobs are false and misleading.
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