“We condemn this incident 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,” – Randhip Jaiswal, Indian MEA Spokesperson
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On Thursday, April 17th, 2025, Shantana Roy received a phone call that might have seemed strange to some but, as her husband was the Vice-President of the local Puja committee, it didn’t seem out of the ordinary – a man on the other end of the line asked if her husband, Bhabesh Chandra Roy was home. Thinking someone wanted to come and see him in connection a matter related his position as Hindu community volunteer in Basudebpur village in Dinajpur District, a village around 280 km Northwest of Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka, she told the man that he was, indeed, at home.
Four men on two motorcycles roared to their home within half an hour. They entered, grabbed Roy, and dragged him from the couple’s home. The assailants took him to neighbouring Narabari village, according to witnesses. People in the village say that that he was tortured and beaten so intensely that when his unconscious body was brought back in a van and dumped outside his home, he was most likely already dead. The hospital to where he was rushed for treatment pronounced him dead on arrival. Why this horrific act was perpetrated on Roy is as yet unknown to family, friends, and the wider community. It appeared like so many hate-driven crimes carried out against prominent Hindus in Bangladesh since Sheikh Hasina was forcibly removed from power in a coup d’état by the army, in response to an alleged colour revolution, which Hasina has blamed on the Biden Administration.
It is not as if Roy had been an outspoken activist like the priest, Chinmoy Das who was arrested (by most accounts unjustly) in Bangladesh, last year. However, news outlets have started to refer to Roy as an “activist.” The implication is that his activities may have put him in danger. The reality is, like many members of the Hindu community, he was a volunteer for the organization that holds Durga Puja celebrations (the most significant Hindu ritual for most Bengali speaking Hindus on both sides of the Indo-Bangladesh border).
The Indian government had what the media reports were “sharp words,” for the Bangladesh ‘interim’ government led by Muhammed Yunus who is ironically a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize (the author notes that such honours cannot be withdrawn or cancelled once granted even if the recipient acts in a manner contrary to the promotion of peace).
Specifically, India’s official spokesperson, Randhir Jaiswal of the Ministry of External affairs took to the microblogging platform “X” (formerly Twitter) posting, “We have noted with distress the abduction and brutal killing of Shri Bhabesh Chandra Roy, a Hindu minority leader in Bangladesh. 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,”
Jaiswal added: “We condemn this incident 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,”
However, India is in a position to use its growing global influence to counter minority violence in Bangladesh with more than “sharp words.” India could impose sanctions on Bangladesh and advocate the same with friendly Western “strategic partners” such as the United States.
Although the former US Administration operating under the aegis if not the direct hand of President Joe Biden, now exposed in two books to have been suffering symptoms of dementia during the period leading up to erstwhile Prime Minister Shiekh Hasina’s ouster, would not have likely been receptive to such a cause, Hasina having accused the administration of fomenting a CIA-led colour revolution to remove her.
However, his successor, Donald J. Trump has made public statements condemning violence against minorities in Bangladesh and admonishing the Biden Administration for not acting against the Bangladesh coup plotters to ensure stability in the region. His newly confirmed Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, a Hindu American of Somoan heritage from Hawaii, has also been critical of the Bangladesh government for its complicity in killing minorities in the country.
Last year, Gabbard told NDTV that, “The long-time unfortunate persecution and killing and abuse of religious minorities – Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, Catholics and others – has been a major area of concern for the US government and President Trump and his administration”.
She added: “This continues to remain a central focus area of concern…with the threat of Islamist terrorists and…the global effort of these different groups that are rooted in their same ideology, their same objective, which is to rule and govern with an Islamist caliphate… This obviously affects people of any other religion, other than one that they find acceptable, and they choose to carry this out through very violent and terroristic means.”
However, the Trump administration has been the only Western government to publicly condemn the violence. The Governments of the UK, those in the EU, and Canada have remained silent – perhaps fearful of inciting their own Muslim populations.
Indeed, last year, the BBC ran a report with the headline stating that “far right groups” were making false claims about Hindu deaths. The article also rubbished a Hindu Temple attack, despite there having been 408 attacks and desecrations of Hindu temples, documented as of November, 2024. (More have followed.) The BBC has a long history of running pro-Islamic, anti-India/anti-Hindu reports.
The local police have stated that an autopsy was complete as of yesterday but declined to state the cause of death. Perhaps, due to the sheer number of injuries, it was difficult to determine, which one was the death blow. “Beaten to death,” would surely have sufficed.
Shantana Roy has said she recognized at least one of the kidnappers. Bangladesh newspaper, The Daily Star quoted Abdus Sabur, officer-in-charge of Biral Police Station, as saying that preparations were underway to file a case.
The Coalition of Hindus in North America has called the violence under the watch of the Yunus government to be an escalation in the “slow-drip” genocide against Hindus that has been taking place in Bangladesh for decades.
The Global Calcuttan Magazine 
