Bail issue of jailed Hindu monk Chinmoy Kishna raised in Bangladesh high court, government issued notice
By Our Correspondent
Agartala, February 4, 2025
The long and illegal confinement of Hindu monk Chinmay Krishna has yet again come to the fore with the Bangladesh high court issuing notice to the interim government asking why Chinmoy should not be granted bail. The High Court today issued a rule questioning why former International Society for Krishna Consciousness (Iskcon) leader Chinmoy Krishna Das should not be granted bail in a sedition case which is as yet unsubstantiated. A High Court bench of Justice Md Ataur Rahman and Justice Md Ali Reza issued a two-week rule regarding his bail.
Advocates Apurba Kumar Bhattacharya and Prabir Ranjan Haldar moved the bail petition in court on behalf of Chinmoy Krishna, while Additional Attorney General Anik R Haque and Additional Attorney General Arshadur Rouf appeared for the state. The background of the case is that on October 25, 2024, Chinmoy Krishna Das had led a large gathering of the Sanatan community in Chittagong to protest the targeted persecution of Sanatan minorities.
A few days later, on October 31, a sedition case was filed against him over allegations of dishonoring the national flag. But interestingly the case had been filed by a local BNP leader and a corporator who had since been expelled by his party for unauthorized action. As per Bangladesh law a sedition case has to be filed by the state through anyone of its agencies. Eighteen others were also named as accused in the case.
Significantly, making a mockery of the legal process the Chittagong metropolitcan case refused to grant bail to Chinmoy Krishna on lame excuses and amidst protests by communal and fundamentalist Muslim lawyers of the court on two earlier occasions. Sources from Bangladesh said that the issue of illegal confinement of Chinmoy Krishna has already created ripples at the international level and the matter is expected to be looked into by the high court from a purely legal and constitutional prism and not from the prism of political correctness even in the existing lawless state of Bangladesh under the illegitimate interim regime. The issue will come up in high court after two weeks.