Think later, punish now

One evening in Dhaka, a man shouted “chor, chor” and “dhor, dhor”, and within seconds a crowd appeared with the efficiency of a flash sale. Nobody knew what had been stolen, by whom, or whether anything had been stolen at all. But Bangladeshis do have a special talent: give us half a rumour, one injured sentiment and a roadside audience, and we can produce a full moral verdict before the police have found their sandals. We may be the only people who can turn confusion into confidence so quickly. That, in essence, is mob culture. It begins where trust in institutions ends. When people stop believing the police will act, the courts will move, or justice will arrive before retirement, they begin to treat instant outrage as a valid legal procedure. Add social media, political tribalism, religious provocation and our national addiction to public drama, and the mob becomes an institution of its own. Cheap, fast, emotional and tragically popular.

The consequences are no joke. Ain o Salish Kendra (ASK) recorded at least 197 deaths in mob attacks in Bangladesh in 2025, up from 128 in 2024. Netra News, analysing ASK data, found 228 deaths across 2023 and 2025 classified as potential mob violence, of which 176 appeared to involve either spontaneous mob attacks or killings later framed that way.

Here is the uncomfortable part: this culture does not remain on the street. It enters the office wearing a tie.

In corporate life, mobs do not carry bamboo sticks. They carry forward emails, selective leaks, meeting-room silence and whispered consensus. The target is not beaten in public but slowly stripped of credibility. One person is labelled “difficult”, “negative”, “not aligned” or, the evergreen classic, “not a team player”. Then the crowd takes over. The allegation becomes evidence simply because enough people repeat it. The International Labour Organization (ILO) describes mobbing, or workplace bullying, as a situation in which an employee or group of employees becomes the target of persistent, systematic and prolonged negative actions by superiors or colleagues, leaving the victim feeling vulnerable and helpless. Another ILO publication defines bullying as repetitive or systematic negative and insulting behaviour directed at a worker.

So yes, the corporate version of mob justice is real. It is simply better dressed. This is not a peripheral problem. A joint survey by the ILO, the Lloyd’s Register Foundation and Gallup found that almost 23 percent of people in employment globally have experienced violence and harassment at work. A 2024 survey by the Workplace Bullying Institute found 32 percent of adults in the United States reported being directly bullied, while 72 percent said they were aware of workplace bullying. We have upgraded from mob justice to spectator justice. In Bagerhat, a dog was dragged away by a crocodile while people watched. Nobody needed to throw a punch. Indifference did the job. We are becoming a society that can turn even helpless suffering into live content.

Why does this mindset thrive? Because mobs offer three emotional rewards: speed, belonging and impunity. You do not need evidence, only energy. You do not need courage, only company. And you do not need accountability, because guilt becomes beautifully divisible. To break this culture, Bangladesh needs something unfashionable: functioning institutions, swift and visible justice, punishment for mob leaders, and leaders in politics, media and business who refuse to convert rumour into verdict. Companies need due process, documented performance systems, protected disagreement and managers who can distinguish between whistleblowers and troublemakers.

Otherwise, we will continue to produce two kinds of mobs: one at the street corner and another in the boardroom. One uses fists. The other uses minutes of the meeting. Both are united by the same philosophy: think later, punish now.

The writer is the founder of BuildCon Consultancies Ltd and BuildNation Ltd