Bangladesh court grants bail to Chinmoy Krishna Das, but release remains blocked

Dhaka: Despite securing bail in two cases, prominent Bangladeshi Hindu leader Chinmoy Krishna Das remained behind bars, with his release blocked by two other cases, local media reported.

A High Court bench comprising Justice KM Zahid Sarwar and Justice Sheikh Abu Taher granted bail on Sunday after hearing two separate bail petitions filed by Chinmoy, the spokesperson for the Bangladesh Sammilito Sanatani Jagaran Jot, in the cases.

The cases were registered at Kotwali Police Station in Chattogram on November 26, 2024, over allegations of vandalism and obstructing police personnel from performing their duties.

Speaking to Bangladesh’s leading newspaper The Daily Star, Chinmoy’s lawyer Apurba Kumar Bhattacharya said the Hindu leader who has been behind bars since November 25, 2024, is accused in six cases, including murder and sedition.

Kumar said that although Chinmoy has obtained bail in five of the cases from the High Court and lower courts, the Supreme Court’s Appellate Division has stayed the High Court order granting him bail in the sedition case.

Chinmoy was arrested in Dhaka on November 25, 2024, and sent to jail the following day after a Chattogram court rejected his bail plea. On December 11, the same court again refused bail in the case.

His arrest sparked massive protests by the Hindu community in Bangladesh and across the globe.

Bangladesh has witnessed escalating violence against minorities, especially Hindus, during the eighteen-month tenure of former Muhammad Yunus-led interim government, with such incidents continuing under the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) administration.

Meanwhile, leading global advocacy organisation, Coalition of Hindus of North America (CoHNA), condemned the continued imprisonment of Chinnmoy, describing it as a “travesty” and “government-sponsored persecution”.

“Continued travesty in Bangladesh. A Hindu monk who campaigned for the basic security and Human Rights of minorities in his country has now been in prison for close to 2 years. A textbook example of government-sponsored persecution – where he is accused of a murder that occurred after he was already in police custody,” CoHNA posted on X on Monday

“At the time of his arrest, a Nobel Prize awardee was ruling Bangladesh. Today an elected government is in power. But no matter who rules, the persecution of Bangladeshi Hindus never lets up. That’s why they have gone from 22 per cent of the population in 1951 to 8 per cent today,” it added.

Calling the relentless violence against Hindus across Bangladesh a “slow genocide” that global human rights groups and the media have allowed to unfold under their watch, the CoHNA questioned whether the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) was tracking the situation in the South Asian nation.

IANS