Bangladesh sedition arrests over Tagore portrait defacing

Police arrested four people on sedition charges in Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka, on Sunday over allegations they defaced a portrait of Nobel laureate and writer Rabindranath Tagore.

Senior police officer Sheikh Zahidul Islam told AFP the four were accused of smearing black ink on the portrait on Saturday. The painting had been put on the walls of a prominent fine arts institution a week earlier as part of Dhaka's urban beautification project.

Sheikh Zahidul Islam said the suspects had sought to “create instability in society and incite religious unrest.” Sedition carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment in Bangladesh.

Police said those arrested belonged to the Rashtra Sanglap Forum, a nationalist group that has campaigned against what it describes as Indian influence in Bangladesh.

Tagore won the 1913 Nobel Prize in Literature and wrote Bangladesh's national anthem, “Amar Sonar Bangla.” His legacy has come under scrutiny in Bangladesh in recent years because of perceived ties to India, and some activists called for the anthem to be replaced after the 2024 student-led uprising that toppled former prime minister Sheikh Hasina.

Dhaka's ties with New Delhi have worsened since Hasina fled Bangladesh and sought refuge in India. Tagore, who died in 1941, was born in Calcutta, now Kolkata, under British rule and was close to Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi.