Dhaka, April 20 -- New Delhi has sought to link the death of a Puja Udjapan Parishad leader in Dinajpur's Biral Upazila to the persecution of the Hindu minority, calling it a "systematic murder".

"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," the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal wrote on X on Saturday.

A man named Bhabesh Chandra Roy, 52, died in Biral on Thursday. He served as vice-president of the Biral Upazila unit of Bangladesh Puja Udjapan Parishad.

Indian newspaper the Hindustan Times wrote, "Bhabesh's death by ...