New Delhi: Days after the arrest of Hindu monk Chinmoy Krishna Das on charges of sedition led to protests, a Hindu priest identified as Shyam Das Prabhu, who is said to have visited Das in jail, was detained Friday from Chattogram.
It was not immediately clear whether Prabhu has been arrested.
Radharamn Das, a vice president and spokesperson of ISKCON Kolkata, first shared the news on ‘X’. “Another Brahmachari, Sri Shyam Das Prabhu, was arrested by Chattogram police today,” he wrote in a post on Friday night. In another post Saturday, Radharamn Das shared a picture of a priest captioned, “Does he look like a terrorist?”
ISKCON, however, has yet to issue an official statement confirming Prabhu’s detention or his association with the religious organisation. Dhaka-based media outlets, too, have yet to report on the arrest.
On 25 November, police in Bangladesh had arrested Chinmoy Krishna Das, a Hindu monk formerly associated with ISKCON, from Dhaka airport in connection with a case filed by a now-expelled leader of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). Das and a few others stand accused of insulting Bangladesh’s national flag during a rally on 25 October.
Das was denied bail by a Chittagong court Tuesday.
Authorities in Bangladesh also froze bank accounts of 17 individuals linked to ISKCON, including Chinmoy Krishna Das, for 30 days. Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU) issued a directive Thursday suspending transactions involving these accounts and sought detailed reports on said transactions, The Daily Star reported.
Das’s arrest invited widespread condemnation. Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal in a weekly press briefing Thursday voiced India’s apprehensions, highlighting the “surge” in extremist rhetoric and violence targeted at minorities in the neighbouring country.
“We are concerned at the rise of extremist rhetoric, increasing violence, and provocations. These developments cannot be dismissed as media exaggerations,” he said, calling on the Muhammad Yunus-led interim government to fulfill its responsibility to protect all minority communities.
On the ongoing legal proceedings involving Chinmoy Krishna Das, Jaiswal emphasised that India expects a fair and transparent process, which respects the legal rights of all those involved.
Meanwhile, followers of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) have vowed to continue advocating for the protection of religious minorities in Bangladesh.
A global prayer initiative is scheduled for 1 December, during which millions of ISKCON followers across over 150 countries will gather to pray for the safety of Hindus and other minorities in Bangladesh.
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