FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
HRCBM questions the timing and legal basis of Haridas Chandra’s midnight arrest and warns that it may reflect retaliatory enforcement influenced by religious intolerance within elements of the state apparatus
July 13, 2026 | San Jose, California / Dhaka, Bangladesh
The Human Rights Congress for Bangladesh Minorities (HRCBM) expresses grave alarm over the arrest of Mr. Haridas Chandra Tarani Das, founder of the Sri Sri Radha Govinda and Kali Temple complex in Palashbari, Gaibandha, following weeks of religiously charged controversy, threats, and public demands concerning the construction of a statue of Lord Ram at the temple.
According to information received directly by HRCBM, personnel identifying themselves as members of the Detective Branch entered the temple premises at approximately 12:30 a.m., instructed Mr. Haridas to collect his mobile telephones and the keys to the temple, placed him in handcuffs, and took him into custody. HRCBM’s Dhaka office subsequently spoke directly with an Assistant Superintendent of Police in Gaibandha, who confirmed the arrest.
At the time of issuing this statement, Mr. Haridas had not yet been produced before a competent court. HRCBM had also not received an authenticated copy of the First Information Report, warrant, case number, arrest memorandum, court order, or complete official information concerning the legal basis for his arrest and his present place of detention.
HRCBM was informed that the arrest may relate to an alleged older case or warrant connected to Uttara, possibly dating from approximately 2018 and involving financial or money-laundering-related allegations. Those allegations have not yet been presented to HRCBM in an authenticated and independently reviewable form.
HRCBM recognizes that no person is above the law and that credible allegations may be investigated through lawful, impartial, transparent, and evidence-based procedures. However, the mere invocation of an old case does not establish that an arrest is legitimate, impartial, or unrelated to the religious and political pressure immediately preceding it.
The Timing Demands an Explanation
If the alleged case was genuine, active, and supported by credible evidence for approximately eight years, the authorities must explain why Mr. Haridas—who lived publicly, operated a visible religious institution, interacted with local authorities, and remained readily accessible—was not arrested earlier.
Why did this purportedly old allegation become actionable only after organized agitation against the temple, demands to stop or remove the Lord Ram statue, and public calls for the arrest of the temple founder?
A delayed arrest does not, by itself, prove that a case is fabricated. Nevertheless, the chronology creates an immediate and legitimate concern that an old allegation may have been selectively revived, repurposed, or used as a pretext to achieve through law enforcement what religious agitators had publicly demanded.
The circumstances also require urgent preservation and independent examination of the original FIR, court registers, warrant records, investigation diary, filing history, police correspondence, and electronic metadata. Such examination is necessary to exclude the possibility that any document was recently created, reconstructed, altered, substituted, or assigned an earlier date.
HRCBM does not present fabrication or backdating as an established fact. It states that the unusual timing, absence of disclosed records, midnight execution, and preceding campaign against Mr. Haridas create sufficiently serious concerns to require an independent judicial and forensic inquiry.
HRCBM had previously warned authorities that the Palashbari temple, its founder, the Lord Ram statue, devotees, and the surrounding Hindu community faced organized pressure, intimidation, calls for removal of religious structures, and demands for action against Mr. Haridas. HRCBM also formally requested police cooperation and protection before this arrest occurred.
A Potential Prisoner-of-Conscience Case
Mr. Haridas has only just been arrested and has not yet been produced before a court. HRCBM therefore considers it premature to make a final and categorical designation that he is a prisoner of conscience before reviewing the case documents, evidence, and judicial record.
Under the recognized human-rights meaning of the term, a prisoner of conscience is a person deprived of liberty solely because of identity or conscientiously held political, religious, or other beliefs, provided that the person has neither used nor advocated violence or hatred in the circumstances leading to detention. The term can apply to a person in police or pretrial detention; a conviction is not required.
The present circumstances, however, raise an urgent concern that Mr. Haridas may be the subject of a potential prisoner-of-conscience case.
In the immediate Palashbari controversy, the conduct that made him a target was not violence, incitement, or an attack upon another community. He founded a Hindu temple complex, undertook construction of a prominent statue of Lord Ram, defended the temple’s religious rights, and refused to surrender to intimidation.
If the alleged financial case is shown to be a pretext used to punish him for peaceful religious activity, Hindu identity, or the visible construction of a Hindu religious monument, his detention would raise the clearest elements of a prisoner-of-conscience case.
HRCBM therefore calls for his immediate release unless the authorities promptly disclose authentic, contemporaneous, credible, and independently reviewable evidence establishing a lawful basis for his arrest and continued detention.
From Chinmoy Prabhu to Haridas Chandra
The arrest of Mr. Haridas recalls the continuing prosecution of Hindu monk Chinmoy Krishna Das Brahmachari, widely known as Chinmoy Prabhu, who became a prominent voice demanding protection, dignity, and equal citizenship for Bangladesh’s religious minorities.
Following his minority-rights advocacy, Chinmoy Prabhu was arrested in a sedition proceeding and subsequently implicated in multiple additional cases. HRCBM maintains that these cases are false, retaliatory, and intended to silence his advocacy and ensure his continued incarceration.
Public reporting during April and May 2026 documented that, even after receiving bail in one proceeding, Chinmoy Prabhu remained imprisoned while facing several other cases, including proceedings arising from the killing of lawyer Saiful Islam Alif.
HRCBM’s position is not that the mere filing of multiple cases proves persecution. The concern arises from the sequence, accumulation, timing, and apparent use of successive proceedings against a visible minority-rights advocate.
The emerging pattern is deeply troubling:
Speak for minority rights, and cases multiply.
Defend a temple, and dormant allegations suddenly become active.
Make Hindu faith publicly visible, and personal liberty becomes uncertain.
Yesterday it was Chinmoy Prabhu.
Today it is Haridas Chandra.
Who will dare to speak tomorrow?
Justice Delayed at Home and Silence Abroad
HRCBM is compelled to question not only the conduct of law-enforcement agencies, but also the prolonged failure of domestic and international institutions to provide meaningful remedies.
Since 2006, HRCBM has pursued public-interest litigation and other legal actions concerning recurring attacks on minorities, religious persecution, land dispossession, forced displacement, killings, sexual violence, and failures of state protection.
According to HRCBM’s records, several such proceedings have remained effectively boxed within Bangladesh’s judicial system—delayed for prolonged periods, not listed for meaningful hearing, or left without effective judicial remedy. When litigation involving life, liberty, religious freedom, and equal protection is repeatedly not heard, procedural inaction itself becomes a form of denied justice.
HRCBM has also submitted documentation and legal materials to the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, requesting examination of the long-running and recurring persecution of Bangladesh’s religious and ethnic minorities within the limits of the Rome Statute.
According to HRCBM’s records, that communication remains without a substantive formal response or communicated determination addressing the evidence submitted.
HRCBM understands that an Article 15 communication is not itself an investigation and that the Office of the Prosecutor must assess jurisdiction, admissibility, gravity, and other legal requirements. The ICC receives such information through its official communications process. Nevertheless, HRCBM believes that an organization submitting extensive documentation of alleged persecution should receive a clear procedural response indicating whether the material remains under assessment, falls outside jurisdiction, has been closed, or requires further evidence.
HRCBM’s recent Commonwealth engagement was similarly disappointing. In HRCBM’s understanding, the structural and longitudinal character of minority persecution was not adequately addressed, while religiously targeted attacks were characterized primarily as communal violence.
When temples are targeted because they are temples, statues are threatened because of the deity they represent, and minority leaders face arrest after defending religious rights, describing the resulting harm merely as “communal tension” risks erasing the identity of the victims and minimizing the state’s responsibility.
HRCBM therefore asks the international community:
Is human rights genuinely universal, or is it selectively recognized according to the identity, geography, influence, and political importance of the victim?
HRCBM’s Immediate Demands
HRCBM calls upon the Government of Bangladesh, Bangladesh Police, the Detective Branch, and the competent judicial authorities to:
- Immediately disclose Mr. Haridas’s place of detention, physical condition, case number, arresting authority, and precise legal status.
- Produce him before a competent court within the period required by law and ensure immediate access to legal counsel, family members, necessary medication, and an independent medical examination.
- Provide authenticated copies of the FIR, warrant, arrest memorandum, court order, and allegations to Mr. Haridas, his family, and his legal representatives.
- Disclose the complete procedural history of the alleged case, including its original filing date, investigating officers, warrant history, court entries, prior attempts to execute the warrant, and the reasons for the apparent delay.
- Preserve all original physical and digital records and permit independent forensic examination to determine whether any document was created, altered, reconstructed, substituted, or backdated.
- Conduct an independent judicial inquiry into whether the arrest was influenced by religious agitation, demands concerning the Lord Ram statue, or public calls for the arrest of the temple founder.
- Maintain full security for the Sri Sri Radha Govinda and Kali Temple, its devotees, priests, religious structures, property, records, and nearby minority households.
- Investigate threats, incitement, intimidation, and calls for collective punishment directed against the temple, Mr. Haridas, and the local Hindu community.
Palashbari is no longer only about one temple founder or one statue. It is a test of whether Bangladesh will protect minority rights when those rights become unpopular.
Harmony obtained through minority submission is not harmony.
Order maintained through selective prosecution is not justice.
And citizenship that disappears when a minority becomes visible is not equality.
HRCBM calls for the immediate release of Haridas Chandra Tarani Das unless the Government promptly establishes a lawful, transparent, credible, and independently reviewable basis for his continued detention.
HRCBM further calls upon the United Nations, diplomatic missions, democratic governments, international human-rights organizations, Bangladesh’s judiciary, the Commonwealth, and the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to closely monitor the case, acknowledge the evidence placed before them, and take meaningful action to protect Bangladesh’s vulnerable minorities.
About HRCBM
The Human Rights Congress for Bangladesh Minorities is an independent, nonprofit, and nonpartisan human-rights organization working to protect religious and ethnic minorities, promote freedom of religion or belief, document human-rights violations, advance access to justice, and strengthen accountability and the rule of law.
HRCBM is in Special Consultative Status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council and is a member of the NGO Coalition for the International Criminal Court.
Media Contact:
Human Rights Congress for Bangladesh Minorities
Email: info@hrcbm.org
Website: www.hrcbm.org
