On 12 October 2026, students from the Department of Islamic History and Culture organised a beef kichuri cookout at the campus of Jagannath University in Dhaka (Bangladesh). The event was held close to the University’s on-site Hindu temple which prompted complaints from Hindu students. Following intervention by university authorities, the event was moved away from the temple, however reports had emerged of the group using brinks from the temple site to create a stove to cook the beef and rice (kichuri). After demonstrations by Hindu students that evening and calls for action but the management of the temple, university offices issued an announcement on 14th October requesting no animals are slaughtered on campus on grounds of standards of hygiene.
This announcement was met with objections from a section of students, who claimed this was a restriction on their right to hold the beef feast. A group of students then planned another beef festival as an act of protest on Friday 16th October; the first day of Durga Puja (one of Bangladesh’s most important Hindu festivals). Student connected to far-right Islamist groups, Islami Chhatra Shibir and Khilafat Chhatra Majlis, collected money to purchase a cow which was provocatively paraded onto campus with anti-Hindu slogans before being slaughtered and cooked near the principal’s office.
One of Bangladesh’s most prestigious academic institutions, Jagannath University was established in 1858 by Hindu founders.
Tanvir Rahat, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons