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Sharif Osman Hadi was a leading figure during the uprising toppled former prime minister Sheikh Hasina in 2024.
Published On 18 Dec 2025
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Updated: 7 minutes ago
Sharif Osman Bin Hadi, a leader of Bangladesh’s 2024 student-led uprising who was flown to Singapore for treatment after being wounded in an assassination attempt, has died, Singapore officials said.
“Despite the best efforts of the doctors … Hadi succumbed to his injuries,” Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement on Thursday.
According to a report by Bangladeshi daily Dhaka Tribune, Hadi, who was being considered as a potential candidate for the Dhaka-8 constituency in the country’s national elections next February, was shot in the head on December 12 in the capital, Dhaka, while travelling in a battery-powered auto-rickshaw.
The attacker shot him from a motorcycle, and Hadi was rushed to Dhaka Medical College Hospital for treatment.
Local physicians told the Dhaka Tribune that his brain stem was damaged and he was evacuated from Bangladesh to the Singapore General Hospital (SGH) neurosurgical intensive care unit on December 15 for further treatment.
Hadi, 32, was a senior leader of the student protest group Inqilab Mancha and has been an outspoken critic of India, an old ally of former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and where the ousted leader remains in self-imposed exile.
Announcing his death on Facebook late on Thursday, Inqilab Mancha said: “In the struggle against Indian hegemony, Allah has accepted the great revolutionary Osman Hadi as a martyr.”
Police have launched a hunt for the attackers who shot Hadi, releasing photographs of two key suspects and offering a reward of 5 million taka (about $42,000) for information leading to their arrest.
According to a report by Bangladeshi newspaper The Daily Star, the country’s police and border guards have arrested at least 20 people linked to the incident so far, but investigations into the murder are ongoing.
Condolences have poured in from leaders and political groups across the country.
The country’s interim government head, Muhammad Yunus, expressed his condolences and said his death “is an irreparable loss for the nation”.
“The country’s march towards democracy cannot be halted through fear, terror, or bloodshed,” he said in a televised speech on Thursday.
The government also announced special prayers at mosques after Friday prayers and a half-day mourning on Saturday.
“We are deeply saddened by the death of Sharif Osman Hadi, spokesperson of Inqilab Manch and independent candidate for Dhaka-8 constituency,” the acting chairman of the Bangladesh National Party (BNP), Tareq Rahman, said on Facebook.
In a press statement to local media reports, the National Citizen Party (NCP) said it was “deeply saddened” by Hadi’s death and expressed condolences to his family.
Protests break out across Bangladesh
According to local media reports, hundreds of angry protesters took to the streets of Dhaka and other parts of the country immediately after the news of Hadi’s death.
One group of protesters gathered outside the head office of the country’s leading Bengali-language Prothom Alo daily in Dhaka’s Karwan Bazar area. They then surged into the building, according to online portals of various leading media outlets.
A few hundred yards away, another group of protesters pushed into the premises of the Daily Star and set fire to the building, according to footage from the country’s Kaler Kantha newspaper.
Soldiers and para-military border guards had deployed outside the two buildings but did not take any action to disperse the protesters.
Yunus, the 85-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner leading Bangladesh until the February 12 elections, said on Saturday that Hadi’s shooting was a premeditated attack carried out by a powerful network, without providing a name.
He said “the objective of the conspirators is to derail the election”, and added that the attack was “symbolic – meant to demonstrate their strength and sabotage the entire electoral process”.
