Eleven Supreme Court lawyers to participate in bail hearing of former ISKCON priest Chinmoy Krishna Das
Dhaka: According to The Daily Star, eleven Supreme Court attorneys will attend the bail hearing for former ISKCON priest Chinmoy Krishna Das on Thursday.
The legal team will defend Chinmoy in a sedition case stemming from accusations of insulting Bangladesh’s national flag, under the leadership of barrister Apurba Kumar Bhattacharjee.
“We have come to Chattogram under the banner of Ainjibi Oikya Parishad, and we will move for Chinmoy in the court for his bail,” attorney Apurba Kumar Bhattacharjee said in an interview with The Daily Star. Chinmoy has already given me the Vakalatnama. I don’t need permission from any local attorneys to relocate the case since I’m a member of both the Chattanooga Bar Association and the Supreme Court.”
Due to the prosecution’s delay petition and the lack of a counsel to defend Chinmoy, the Chittagong court had previously scheduled a bail hearing for January 2 on December 3, 2024.
The sedition accusations against Chinmoy Krishna Das for allegedly flying a saffron flag above Bangladesh’s national flag in Chittagong on October 25 are the cause of the turmoil in Bangladesh. Protests over his detention on November 25 led to violent altercations between his supporters and police outside the Chattogram Court Building on November 27, which claimed the life of a lawyer.
With further arrests, the situation deteriorated. Two monks, Adipurush Shyam Das and Ranganath Das Brahmachari, were arrested on November 29 after visiting Chinmoy Krishna Das in detention, according to ISKCON Kolkata. During the disturbances, protesters damaged an ISKCON center in Bangladesh, according to Radha Raman, the organization’s vice president.
Concern about rising violence and extremist rhetoric in Bangladesh was also expressed by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), which emphasized that it has continuously brought up the subject of targeted assaults on minorities with Dhaka.
Veena Sikri, the former Indian High Commissioner to Bangladesh, published an open letter on Chinmoy Krishna Das in December 2024.
According to the letter, “Chinmoy Krishna Das, formerly with the globally renowned ISKCON, together with his colleagues in the Sanatani Jagran Jote, put forward an 8-point demand on behalf of the religious minorities of Bangladesh, seeking the enactment of a minority protection law in Bangladesh, with a ministry for the protection of minorities, a special tribunal for trial of cases of minority persecution, including compensation and rehabilitation of victims, a law to recover and protect temples (Debottar), proper enforcement of the Vested Property Return Act, and upgradation of the existing (separate) Hindu, Buddhist and Christian Welfare Trusts to Foundations.”
