The Muhammad Yunus-led government on Thursday condemned the brutal death of Amrit Mondal (alias Samrat), a Hindu man lynched in Bangladesh on Wednesday, but also said it was "not a communal attack at all".
Mondal is the second Hindu man to die from mob lynching after the murder of Dipu Chandra Das just days ago.
In this case, however, Yunus's press secretary, Shafiqul Alam, calls the lynching "violent" and "tragic", but also says that it arose from "extortion and terrorist activities".
Calling the 29-year-old a "top terrorist", the statement claimed that a police investigation revealed Mondal and a few members from his gang, the 'Samrat Bahini', had gone to Rajbari to demand chanda (a type of religious extortion) from a local, Shahidul Islam.
This quickly turned into a clash that escalated into the mob lynching that eventually killed Mondal, Alam wrote.
"He was previously accused of multiple serious cases including murder and extortion cases ... These cases also had an arrest warrant against him," the statement added.
The police also arrested Mohammed Selim, another of his gang members, with a foreign pistol and one pipe gun, while the other members managed to flee.
The Yunus government has also called out a "particular segment" for "trying to present the incident as a communal attack by bringing forward the religious identity of the victim".
Calling this "confusing" and "provocative", the statement said that legal action would be taken against those directly or indirectly involved in the lynching.
As for Dipu Chandra Das, a Hindu factory worker who was beaten and burnt by a mob at Mymensingh over allegedly making questionable remarks against Prophet Muhammad, the official government statement only condoled the death, calling it a "heinous criminal act", and saying that 12 people had been arrested in connection with the case.
However, the statement omitted the fact that there was no evidence Das had even made such remarks at all—neither on social media, nor in public—according to Bangladesh's Rapid Action Battalion (RAB).
Later reports even claimed that it had been a workplace dispute that had escalated into the mob lynching, and that the allegedly blasphemous remarks were based on word-of-mouth rumours.