Bangladesh: More legal woes for Chinmoy Krishna Das; Chattogram court orders Hindu monk's arrest in lawyer murder case

In more trouble for Hindu leader Chinmoy Krishna Das, a Bangladesh court on Monday ordered his arrest in a murder case involving the brutal killing of a lawyer outside a court in Chattogram last November.

Das, a former ISKCON leader, is already in jail after he was arrested at the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka on November 25 last year in a sedition case over alleged defamation of the Bangladeshi flag.

The Hindu leader’s arrest had sparked widespread protests, with his followers demonstrating in Dhaka and other parts of the country.

In Chattogram, the protest had turned violent when assistant government prosecutor Saiful Islam Alif was hacked to death.

Das shown arrested in murder case

"He (Das) was shown arrested in the murder case of Advocate Saiful Islam Alif under a court order,” Chattogram Additional Deputy Commissioner Mafiz Uddin told reporters after the virtual hearing on Monday.

Metropolitan magistrate SM Alauddin issued the arrest order after accepting a police petition during the hearing, the court officials said, as per news agency PTI report.

Public prosecutor Mofizul Haque Bhuiyan said the police submitted applications seeking orders to show him arrested in four cases, while the court accepted only one of the petitions related to the lawyer's murder.

Last week, a high court bench had ordered Chinmoy Krishna Das' release on bail, but the Appellate Division’s chamber judge Justice Rezaul Haque stayed the ruling after it was challenged by the state.

The stay order will remain in force until the filing of a leave-to-appeal petition and the release of the full text of the judgment.

“In order to prevent Chinmoy Prabhu from being released, even after being granted bail by the High Court, he was shown arrested in Chittagong court,” said Das' lawyer Apurba Kumar Bhattacharjee, according to an ANI report.

“None of Chinmoy's lawyers were able to appear in the Chittagong court. The prosecution unilaterally did the hearing,” he said.