A student-led uprising toppled Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government in August 2024, and she fled to India.
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus took charge days after Hasina’s fall.
Since then, the country’s Hindu Christians and other minorities have repeatedly expressed their concerns about their security to the government.
Hasina’s Awami League was barred from participating in the elections.
Winning 212 of 300 seats
The BNP-led alliance secured 212 of the 300 parliamentary seats, while a right-wing Jamaat-e-Islami-led alliance won 77 seats in the Feb. 12 elections.
On Feb. 17, Tarique Rahman, 60, was sworn in as the prime minister of the South Asian country and promised to restore political stability and rebuild investor confidence.
Several Christian groups — the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Bangladesh, the United Forum of Churches Bangladesh and the Bangladesh Christian Association — in separate statements Feb. 15 congratulated the government.
President of the Bangladesh’s bishops’ conference, Archbishop Bejoy Nicephorus D’Cruze of Dhaka, congratulated BNP on its victory in the elections.
Hopes for ‘putting the country first’
In a Feb. 15 statement, the prelate hoped that new leaders will be “putting the country first,” will be “a haven of comfort, security, and hope,” including “helping to improve the quality of life of the country’s backward and minority communities.”
Christians in Bangladesh, which has a population of 180 million, make up less than 0.5%, but have made significant contributions in education, health care and development, church leaders say.
“Although small in number, we Christians have always made special contributions to the development of the country and the nation,” Archbishop D’Cruze said in his statement.
‘Hope to strengthen your hands’
“While continuing this trend from our current position, we hope to strengthen your hands through our participation in education, healthcare, development, and constructive work, as well as service activities for the poor and needy,” he added.
Despite the Bangladesh Constitution’s promise of equal rights for all religions, only the Quran was read out at the swearing-in ceremony of ministers and members of Parliament on Feb. 17.
While religious leaders see the BNP win as hopeful to strengthen dialogue in a country known for being anti-minority, especially anti-Christian incidents, the country’s Islamist party rose as the main opposition force for the first time.
Crackdown on Jamaat-e-Islami party
The Jamaat-e-Islami party was subjected to a crackdown during Hasina’s 15-year rule, banned and its top leaders hanged or jailed, according to Al-Jazeera.
The crackdown followed convictions by Hasina’s controversial tribunal, which tried suspects for their alleged role in crimes committed during Bangladesh’s war of independence from Pakistan in 1971.
A leader of the Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council, who asked not to be named, told OSV News that the fundamentalist type of religion practiced by Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami is “unsafe” for the country’s minorities and that they want to establish Islamic rule, which is a threat to the country’s religious minorities.
‘Preventing rise of religious extremism’
“The BNP should run the country with an eye on preventing the rise of religious extremism and based on fairness and security for minorities,” the leader added.
The country’s constitution, which guarantees equal rights to people of all religions, is not reflected in reality. Religious minorities are often subjected to various forms of state oppression, especially with regard to land issues and alleged insults to Islam.
Between August 2024 and November 2025, at least 2,673 attacks on religious minorities — including killings, rapes, and the destruction of homes and places of worship — were reported by the Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council.
Following similar attacks in October 2025, hand grenade explosions in November occurred at the Dhaka Cathedral and St. Joseph’s School and College.
The following month, a Muslim group threatened several Catholic educational institutions and individuals in Dhaka through a letter, which described attacks on cathedrals, churches, chapels and missionary institutions.