Ajoy Roy (1 March 1935 – 9 December 2019) was a Bangladeshi professor of physics at the University of Dhaka, but was best known for his prominent role in Bangladesh's human rights activism and freethinking.
He was also the member of advisory board of the Mukto-Mona, an internet forum of freethinkers, rationalists, sceptics, atheists and humanists of mainly Bengali and South Asian descent.
Later he became a member of the Planning Commission to the Government of Bangladesh during the liberation war and worked as a general secretary of East Pakistan Teachers' association in Kolkata.
[8] When Pakistani freethinker Dr. Younus Shaikh was in prison and awaiting the death penalty for alleged blasphemous remarks regarding Muhammad in 2000, Ajoy Roy organised the 'Save Dr. Yunus Shaikh Committee' and held meetings, processions, seminars, road side demonstration and staged demonstration against Pakistani president General Pervez Musharraf in front of the Pakistan High commission at Dhaka.
[9] Following the 2001 general elections, there was a wave of violence and oppression towards the minority Hindu community, Ajoy Roy took active stand to help the victims.
[10] Roy translated the first chapter of Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion into Bengali[11] and took active role to introduce Aroj Ali Matubbar, the rationalist, peasant-philosopher of Bangladesh[12] in the west.