India on Friday requested Bangladeshi authorities to assure a fair trial for detained Hindu monk Chinmoy Krishna Das Brahmachari. He was taken into custody by Dhaka Police on November 25 in relation to a sedition case. His bail appeal was dismissed on Thursday, January 2.
Randhir Jaiswal, the official spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs, at a weekly media briefing said, “We urge a fair trial.” India’s response turns up a month after the monk, who was leading a demonstration against injustices against Hindus in violence-hit Bangladesh, was detained by the Dhaka Police’s Detective Branch on November 25, 2024, on allegations of disrespecting the Bangladeshi flag at a protest that he had addressed in October, as per the Bangladeshi media.
Earlier, his bail application was denied by Bangladesh’s Chittagong’s Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court on November 26. Two other monks who went to meet Das in detention were also put behind bars on November 29. Das, earlier in November 2024, in an interview remarked that the sedition case was an effort to finish off the leadership pioneering the protests for minority rights in Muhammad Yunus’ regime.
Chinmoy Das as a prominent voice for minorities, particularly Hindus, after the fall of Sheikh Hasina’s regime, which led to widespread atrocities on minorities in Bangladesh. Several cases of violence against minorities in Bangladesh have been filed in the past couple of months after the deposition of former Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina.
Bangladesh has been surrounded in unrest since June 2024 due to massive protests, which initially began as agitation over quotas in government jobs but soon changed into anti-government.
