West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday said that auteur Satyajit Ray’s ancestral home in Dhaka was being demolished by Bangladeshi authorities.
Citing local media reports, Banerjee said demolition work on the historic property had already commenced.
“This news is extremely distressing. The Ray family is one of the foremost bearers and carriers of Bengali culture. Upendra Kishore is a pillar of Bengal's renaissance. Therefore, I believe this house is intricately tied to the cultural history of Bengal,” the chief minister said in a post on X.
Banerjee appealed to the government of Bangladesh, led by Prime Minister Mohammad Yunus, and to the people of the country to take urgent steps to preserve what she termed a "heritage-laden house."
She also urged the Indian government to intervene in the matter.
The century-old property, located on Horikishore Ray Chowdhury Road in Dhaka, once belonged to Ray’s grandfather, the celebrated writer and illustrator Upendra Kishore Ray Chowdhury.
The house, considered a prominent archaeological landmark, had long fallen into disrepair after years of neglect, according to The Daily Star. It was previously used as the Mymensingh Children's Academy but had remained abandoned for the past decade.
Bangladesh's department of archaeology has confirmed that the building was constructed more than a hundred years ago. After the partition of 1947, the property came under the ownership of the Bangladeshi government.
Md Mehedi Zaman, children affairs officer in Dhaka, told The Daily Star that activities of the Shishu Academy had been operating from a rented location for years. “The house has been left abandoned for 10 years,” he said.
Zaman added that a semi-concrete building with several rooms would be constructed in its place to resume academy operations. The demolition, he confirmed, is being carried out with the necessary approvals.
When asked why a building of such historical and cultural significance was being torn down, the official stated that it posed a safety risk for children who gather at the compound.
Widely regarded as one of the greatest filmmakers of the 20th century, Satyajit Ray was born into this illustrious family of scholars and artists.
His contributions to global cinema, including masterpieces such as Pather Panchali, Charulata, and The Apu Trilogy, earned him international acclaim and India’s highest civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna.
In 1992, he was also honoured with an Honorary Academy Award by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for his lifetime achievement in cinema — making him the first Indian to receive an Oscar.
