'Systematic persecution of Hindus': India lashes out at Bangladesh over killing of Hindu minority leader

New Delhi: After a Hindu community leader in Bangladesh was abducted and beaten to death, New Delhi on Saturday sharpened its attack against Muhammad Yunus’s interim government in Dhaka, asking it to live up to its responsibility of protecting all minorities instead of citing excuses.

New Delhi condemned the killing of Bhabesh Chandra Roy, a leader of the Hindus of Dinajpur in Bangladesh, stating that the incident followed a pattern of “systematic persecution” of the minority community in the neighbouring country.

Roy, 58, was abducted by four men from his home at Basudebpur in Dinajpur, nearly 330 km northwest of Dhaka, on Thursday, The Daily Star of Bangladesh reported, quoting his wife Shantana. He was taken to Narabari, a nearby village, and brutally tortured. He was later sent back home on a vehicle, unconscious with grievous injuries. His family took him to a hospital where the doctors declared him dead.

He was the vice president of the local unit of the Bangladesh Puja Udjapan Parishad, which was constituted to oversee the celebration of the religious festivals of the Hindus in the Muslim-majority country.

New Delhi stated that it had noted with distress the abduction and brutal killing of the Hindu minority leader in Bangladesh.

“This killing follows a pattern of systematic persecution of the Hindu minorities under the interim government, even as the perpetrators of previous such events roam with impunity,” Randhir Jaiswal, the spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs of the Government of India, posted on X on Saturday.

Yunus had taken over as the chief advisor of the interim government of Dhaka after Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League government had collapsed on August 5, 2024, in the wake of a mass protest against the police crackdown on the students and youths who had been agitating against reservation in government recruitment in Bangladesh. A military aircraft had flown Sheikh Hasina to an Indian Air Force base near New Delhi.

India’s protest against the persecution of Hindus and other minority communities in Bangladesh after the change of government in the neighbouring nation, India’s silence over the request by the interim government of Bangladesh for extradition of Sheikh Hasina or its protest against her virtual addresses delivered from India on recent developments in Bangladesh, including the vandalism and demolition of the historic residence of her father and the founder of the nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, emerged as irritants in the bilateral relations.

Yunus’s interim government on December 10 last year stated in Dhaka that 70 people had been arrested in 88 cases related to attacks against minorities in Bangladesh. Subsequent police investigations in January 2025 had verified 1254 incidents of attacks against the minority communities in Bangladesh.

The Government of India had informed the nation’s Parliament early this month that over 2400 incidents of attacks on minority communities had been reported in Bangladesh from August 5 last year till March 23 this year.

After Hindu monk Chinmoy Krishna Das, the spokesperson of the Bangladesh Sanatan Jagaran Mancha, was arrested in Dhaka on sedition charges on November 25, 2024, New Delhi urged the interim government led by Yunus to ensure a fair judicial process in the case. Das, however, continues to languish in jail, with the court denying him bail.

“We condemn this incident (abduction and killing of Roy in Dinajpur) and once again remind the interim government to live up to its responsibility of protecting all minorities, including Hindus, without inventing excuses or making distinctions,” Jaiswal posted on X.

After the interim government in Dhaka recently sought to cash in on the recent violence in West Bengal in India to counter criticism over the persecution of Hindus in Bangladesh, New Delhi on Friday hit back, asking Yunus’s regime to focus on protecting the rights of the minority communities in its own territory.