Bangladesh

Fire in Sreepur bazar burns a mosque, jute and cotton warehouses

Four Fire Service units took nearly two hours to bring the pre-dawn blaze at No. 2 C&B Bazar in Channapara under control. No casualties were reported and investigators have not yet said what caused it.

ScrollBeat DeskPublished: 22 Oct 2026, 16:27Updated: 22 Oct 2026, 16:28

File photo: Fire Service and Civil Defence units at the scene of a vehicle fire on Airport Road in Dhaka in January 2017. Representative image, not from the Sreepur bazar fire. Photo: Shadman Samee/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0. Shadman Samee / Wikimedia Commons

A pre-dawn fire at a village bazar in Gazipur's Sreepur upazila burned a mosque, two warehouses and a row of shops before firefighters brought it under control on Thursday morning, the Fire Service said.

The fire broke out at No. 2 C&B Bazar in Channapara village, inside Sreepur municipality, at about 3:30am. Residents told local reporters they saw flames coming from a warehouse used to store jhut, the jute waste that is sold on to mills and used in padding, yarn and low-grade fabric.

Nurul Karim, station officer of Sreepur Fire Service, said the station took the first call at about 3:55am and sent two units. The fire had already spread through the tightly packed market, so a third unit from Sreepur and a unit from Rajendrapur Modern Fire Station were called in. The four units brought the blaze under control at 5:48am, almost two hours after the first call.

By then the fire had gutted the jute waste warehouse, a cotton warehouse, a sanitary ware shop, several chicken shops, a scrap dealer's shop and the bazar's mosque, according to the Fire Service account carried by Ittefaq and Jago News.

Karim said there had been no immediate report of anyone killed or injured. The market was empty at that hour, which limited the risk to people, but the warehouses were full of combustible material and the lanes between the shops are narrow, the conditions that let a fire move quickly through a bazar of this kind.

The cause of the fire has not been established. Karim said the damage would be assessed and the origin investigated. Traders who lost stock said they were waiting for the Fire Service's estimate before they could say what the losses amount to.

Jute waste is one of the most flammable goods traded around Gazipur's textile belt, and warehouses holding it are common in and around the district's markets. A fire in a jhut store can smoulder for hours inside bales and spread to neighbouring shops through shared tin roofs and timber partitions.

What remains unclear is how the fire started, whether the mosque and the warehouses shared an electricity connection, and what the total loss will be. The Fire Service has not released a damage figure, and no case has been filed.

Sreepur municipality and the district administration are expected to inspect the site before the market reopens. The bazar's traders, many of whom keep their stock in the same building they sell from, face the usual problem after such a fire: proving what they had before it burned.

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NEXT STORY World

Netflix to stream Hoichoi's Bengali series in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu

The deal covers every Hoichoi series that premieres over the next two years, plus 14 existing shows including Mohanagar. The first new title, a folklore horror series, arrives on 6 November.

ScrollBeat Desk22 Oct 2026, 17:18Open this article

One of the office buildings at Netflix's headquarters campus in Los Gatos, California, photographed in 2018. Netflix announced a licensing partnership with the Bengali streaming platform Hoichoi on 22 October 2026. Coolcaesar / Wikimedia Commons

Netflix and Hoichoi, the Bengali-first streaming service, will bring Hoichoi's series to Netflix in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu, the companies announced in Mumbai on Thursday. The deal covers every Hoichoi series that premieres over the next two years, which will appear on Netflix in the three languages at the same time as their Bengali release on Hoichoi.

Netflix will also carry 14 existing Hoichoi titles: Madam Inspector, Sampurna, Lajja, Eken, Anjaan Saaye, The Curse of Parnashavari, Bloodlines, The Adventures of Daadi & Jagga, Raat Abhi Baaki Hain, Achinta: Trial By Law, Shaadi Ka Siyappa, Queens, Parineeta: A Love Story and Mohanagar. The catalogue runs from crime thrillers and detective stories to folklore horror, courtroom drama and romance.

Two of the titles have Bangladeshi directors. Mohanagar is the Dhaka-set crime series directed by Ashfaque Nipun, and Shaadi Ka Siyappa was directed by Amitabh Reza Chowdhury, according to Dhaka Tribune. Both are already part of Hoichoi's catalogue.

The first new release under the deal is The Cursed Temple of Kauriburi, a folklore-inspired horror series starring Jeetu Kamal, Solanki Roy and Paoli Dam. It premieres on 6 November, with more titles to follow over the coming months. Beyond licensing, the two companies will co-produce original series that rework selected Hoichoi stories, with Hoichoi Studios making the adaptations. They have not said which stories will be adapted or when those shows will appear.

Hoichoi launched in 2017 as the first venture from SVF's new media arm and is run by co-founder Vishnu Mohta, who is also an executive director of SVF. The platform says it holds more than 2,000 hours of programming, including over 100 original series, films, shorts and documentaries, and that it reaches more than 250 million Bengalis worldwide. It moved into theatrical production in 2023 by setting up Hoichoi Studios.

For Netflix, the agreement is part of a wider push to add licensed programming alongside its own productions. Variety reported that the company has struck similar deals with the French broadcaster TF1 and with Brazil's Globo, and that Netflix describes its global audience as close to one billion people. In India, regional-language films and series have become a growing battleground as streaming services compete for subscribers outside the big Hindi market.

The immediate effect is that Bengali series made in Kolkata and Dhaka will be available in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu to viewers in India, potentially widening the audience for their actors, writers and directors. It does not mean Netflix subscribers in Bangladesh will receive the new language versions: the announcement describes the Netflix releases as being for audiences across India and does not say whether they will be offered on Netflix in Bangladesh.

Several details remain unclear. The companies did not disclose the financial terms of the deal, the full list of series due in the next two years, or how many original adaptations Hoichoi Studios will produce. It is also not known whether the 14 existing titles will be dubbed into the three languages, remade, or offered with subtitles, and whether the partnership changes what Hoichoi shows in Bangladesh.

The deal lands at a time when Bengali-language series have built a following beyond their home markets. Hoichoi's catalogue includes Dhaka-set dramas such as Mohanagar as well as shows made in West Bengal. Netflix's move tests whether those stories can travel further once the language barrier is lowered for viewers in southern and western India.

For now, the first test comes on 6 November with The Cursed Temple of Kauriburi. More titles and the first co-produced adaptations are expected in the months that follow, and both companies say further details will be announced later.

Sources & further reading

Netflix and hoichoi join forces to bring acclaimed stories, new premieres and adaptations to audiences worldwide — Netflix Netflix, Bengali Streamer Hoichoi Partner to Bring Series to Hindi, Tamil and Telugu Audiences — Variety Netflix partners with 'Hoichoi' to bring Bengali hits to wider audience — Dhaka Tribune

NEXT STORY Politics

Seven Qawmi-based Islamic parties form new alliance under Hefazat mediation

The platform, named 'Samamana Islami Dal', was announced after a meeting at a Khilgaon madrasa. Hefazat-e-Islam says parties now in other alliances have agreed to leave them, and the seven will meet again on 5 December.

ScrollBeat Desk22 Oct 2026, 16:46Open this article

File photo: Hefazat-e-Islam ameer Allama Shah Muhibbullah Babunagari at the 86th International Islamic Conference of Al-Jamia Al-Islamia Patiya in November 2025. The photo is from that conference, not from the 22 October 2026 meeting in Dhaka. Photo: Owais Al Qarni / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. Owais Al Qarni / Wikimedia Commons

Seven Qawmi-based Islamic parties announced a new political platform on Thursday, after a morning meeting at the Makhzanul Ulum Madrasa in Dhaka's Khilgaon, with Hefazat-e-Islam acting as the go-between in months of talks.

The platform is called 'Samamana Islami Dal', a name used before by like-minded Islamic parties. Hefazat-e-Islam Secretary General Maulana Sajidur Rahman told reporters after the meeting that the seven parties had agreed to work together, and that members currently inside other alliances had agreed to leave them and join the new platform. He said the seven would meet again on 5 December.

The parties are Islami Andolan Bangladesh, Bangladesh Khelafat Majlis, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Bangladesh, Islami Oikya Jote, Khelafat Majlis, Bangladesh Khelafat Andolan and Bangladesh Nezame Islam Party.

The announcement closes, at least formally, a process that began on 16 July at the Babunagar madrasa in Fatikchhari, Chattogram, where the parties first agreed in principle to move together. They were asked to submit written proposals by 3 August, and a Hefazat subcommittee reviewed them. Further meetings followed in Dhaka, but the framework was not finalised until Thursday's gathering.

The split the new platform is meant to repair dates from the last parliamentary election. Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Bangladesh contested as part of the BNP-led alliance, while Khelafat Majlis, Bangladesh Khelafat Majlis and Bangladesh Nezame Islam Party were inside the Jamaat-e-Islami-led 11-party alliance. Bangladesh Khelafat Andolan was also in that alliance but ran separately after failing to agree on seat sharing. Islami Andolan Bangladesh and Islami Oikya Jote also contested on their own.

That division carried into this year. Khelafat Majlis said in July it would stop taking part in the 11-party alliance's programmes, and Bangladesh Khelafat Andolan had already distanced itself. Bangla Tribune reported that the aim of the new platform was to contest the coming local government elections together, after BNP and Jamaat each announced they would field candidates on their own in polls held without party symbols.

The talks were not smooth. Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam proposed that the new alliance have no relationship with Jamaat, and Islami Andolan Bangladesh proposed that members enter no understanding with other political groups. Bangladesh Khelafat Andolan and Islami Oikya Jote wanted the Ahl-e-Sunnat wal Jamaat creed written in as the basis of the alliance, while Khelafat Majlis argued against making the exclusion of Jamaat a precondition and Bangladesh Nezame Islam Party opposed conditions on other alliances.

Jamaat has been openly sceptical. In July, its assistant secretary general and 11-party coordinator, Hamidur Rahman Azad, described the Hefazat initiative as part of a "government conspiracy" aimed at weakening the opposition movement. Hefazat's joint secretary general, Azizul Haque Islamabadi, rejected the charge at the time, saying the only objective was to preserve the unity of the Qawmi stream.

Hefazat describes itself as a non-political organisation, yet several of its senior leaders also lead Qawmi-based parties, and it was the ameer, Allama Shah Muhibbullah Babunagari, who began the unity effort. Maulana Sajidur Rahman said on Thursday that Hefazat would keep its own non-partisan role while helping the parties stay together, according to Dhaka Times24.

What the platform will actually be remains unclear. No leadership structure, charter or decision-making body has been made public, and it is not yet confirmed whether it will function as an electoral alliance or as a coordinating forum. Nor is it clear whether every member will formally exit its current alliance, or whether Jamaat will treat the departures as final. The answers matter for the local elections, where the Qawmi parties hope to pool support that was split between rival camps last time.

The 5 December meeting is the next test. If the seven settle their rules on leadership and on membership of other alliances, the platform could become a durable third pole in Islamist politics. If they do not, Thursday's announcement may prove to be another round of talks rather than a new alliance.