Bangladesh rejects India’s allegation over Hindu leader’s death

Bangladesh has rejected New Delhi’s charge that the recent killing of a Hindu leader was part of a “pattern of systematic persecution” of minorities in that country.

The body of Hindu community leader Bhabesh Chandra Roy (58), a resident of Basudebpur village of Dinajpur district in north Bangladesh, was recovered on Thursday night. His son has claimed Roy was allegedly abducted from his home in the village, about 330 km northwest of Dhaka, and beaten to death.

“It is unfortunate that Roy’s death has been described as part of a ‘pattern of systematic persecution’ of Hindu minorities under the interim government,” interim government chief Muhammad Yunus’ press secretary Shafiqul Alam told the state-run Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha (BSS) news agency late Monday.

Alam, who is currently accompanying Yunus to an international conference in Qatar, said Bangladesh is not a country where one would find government-sponsored systematic discrimination against minorities.

Rather, he claimed, the Bangladesh government protects the rights of all of its citizens irrespective of religious denominations.

The Bangladesh reaction came days after India condemned the alleged abduction and killing of the Hindu minority leader in Bangladesh and called on the interim government in Dhaka to live up to its responsibility of protecting the minorities.

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

Roy’s family had lodged a case with the Dinajpur police after his murder against four named suspects and several unnamed individuals.