Bangladeshi court rejects Hindu monk’s bail petition

Police personnel patrol at the Chittagong court premises during the bail petition hearing. Pic/AFP

A court in the southeastern port city of Chattogram on Thursday denied bail to Hindu monk and former ISKCON leader Chinmoy Krishna Das in a sedition case. A group of 11 lawyers stood for him with a bail petition during the hearing for which Das appeared virtually.

Das, formerly with the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) and now a spokesperson for the Bangladesh Sammilita Sanatani Jagran Jote organisation, was arrested at the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka on November 25 on sedition charges for allegedly "desecrating" the Bangladesh flag. He was brought to Chattogram where the court sent him to jail rejecting his bail petition the next day.

"The allegation of disrespecting the national flag is baseless, as it was not a national flag. We informed the court that this case cannot proceed," top defence counsel Apurba Kumar Bhattacharya told journalists after the hearing.

This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed, agencies. Mid-day accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability, trustworthiness, reliability and data of the text. Mid-day management/mid-day.com reserves the sole right to alter, delete or remove (without notice) the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever