India on Saturday strongly condemned the abduction and brutal killing of a Hindu minority leader in Bangladesh and reminded the interim government in Dhaka to live up to its responsibility of protecting all minorities, including Hindus, without inventing excuses or making distinctions.

”We have noted with distress the abduction and brutal killing of 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,” Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said in a social media post on X.

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He said, ”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.”

Roy was a resident of Basudebpur village under Shatagram Union and served as vice-president of the Biral unit of the Bangladesh Puja Udjapan Parishad. He was widely respected within the local Hindu community.

The postmortem of Roy, who was allegedly abducted and beaten to death earlier this week in Dinajpur district’s Biral Upazila, Bangladesh, has been completed, police said on Saturday.

According to reports, Roy had received a phone call around 4:30 pm on Wednesday. His wife, Shantana Roy, told a local daily that the call was allegedly made by the perpetrators to confirm his presence. About 30 minutes later, four men arrived and forcibly took him.

Witnesses said he was taken to Narabari village and brutally assaulted.

That evening, his unconscious body was returned to his family in a van. Locals helped rush him to the Biral Upazila Health Complex and later to Dinajpur Medical College Hospital, where doctors declared him dead.