Images of a man on a hospital bed with his head wrapped in bandages and an endotracheal tube in his mouth are being circulated widely on social media with the claim that the person in the photos is an advocate who was brutally attacked for representing detained monk Chinmoy Krishna Das Brahmachari in Bangladesh.
Das, a spokesperson of the Bangladesh Sammilito Sanatani Jagran Jot, and associated with the Bangladesh chapter of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), was arrested by the Dhaka Metropolitan Police on November 25. He was taken in for allegedly disrespecting the Bangladeshi national flag and is reportedly facing sedition charges there.
Das’s arrest sparked protests in which at least one person was killed. After his arrest, New Delhi had issued a strongly-worded statement condemning the detention of a “religious leader presenting legitimate demands” while perpetrators of “cases of arson and looting of minorities” homes and business establishments, as well as theft and vandalism and desecration of deities and temples” remain at large.
On December 3, Das’s bail hearing was postponed to January next year as there was no lawyer representing him, according to a report by The Indian Express.
A day before this, Radharamn Das (@RadharamnDas), who is the vice president and spokesperson of ISKCON Kolkata, posted a picture on X (formerly Twitter) with a caption that read, “Please pray for Advocate Ramen Roy. His only ‘fault’ was defending Chinmoy Krishna Prabhu in court. Islamists ransacked his home and brutally attacked him, leaving him in the ICU, fighting for his life.”
Please pray for Advocate Ramen Roy. His only ‘fault’ was defending Chinmoy Krishna Prabhu in court.
Islamists ransacked his home and brutally attacked him, leaving him in the ICU, fighting for his life.#SaveBangladeshiHindus #FreeChinmoyKrishnaPrabhu pic.twitter.com/uudpC10bpN
— Radharamn Das राधारमण दास (@RadharamnDas) December 2, 2024
The post has garnered over 115,000 views thus far.
The same picture was shared by another X user, Baba Banaras (@RealBababanaras). “Heartbreaking Raman Roy – An advocate who was fighting the case of Hindu spiritual Leader Chinmay Kishan Das is attacked by radical Islamists in Bangladesh. He is critical. Pray for him,” this person wrote.
Heartbreaking
Raman Roy – An advocate who was fighting the case of Hindu spiritual Leader Chinmay Kishan Das is attacked by radical Islamists in Bangladesh.
He is critical. Pray for him.#AllEyesOnBangladeshiHindus#HindusUnderAttackInBangladesh #SaveBangladeshiHindus pic.twitter.com/RmGzpBZoRL
— Baba Banaras
(@RealBababanaras) December 3, 2024
Radharamn Das’s post was also amplified by X handle RT_India (@RT_India_news). “Advocate Ramen Roy, who is defending detained Hindu monk Chinmoy Krishna Das, was attacked in his home and is ‘fighting for his life” in an intensive care unit, ISKCON spox Radharamn Das said,” this handle posted, citing the ISKCON Kolkata spokesperson.
Lawyer Defending Hindu Monk “Brutally Attacked”- ISKCON
Advocate Ramen Roy, who is defending detained Hindu monk Chinmoy Krishna Das, was attacked in his home and is “fighting for his life” in an intensive care unit, ISKCON spox Radharamn Das said.#BangladeshCrisis |… pic.twitter.com/FozEbjfJ9s
— RT_India (@RT_India_news) December 3, 2024
The tweet has over 16,300 views.
The claim was widely shared across social media platforms.
Click to view slideshow.
Several Indian news publications also put out articles based on Radharamn Das’s X post, reporting and amplifying the claim that Chinmoy Krishna Das’s advocate Ramen Roy had been attacked and beaten up for defending the detained monk in court, adding that he was critical. Below are some examples:
Click to view slideshow.
Fact Check
To verify whether the peson in the image was indeed Ramen Roy, Alt News ran a keyword search that led us to a report by The Business Standard (TBS) from December 3. The headline reads: “Injured Ramen Roy isn’t Chinmoy’s lawyer, Jagran Jote debunks ISKCON Kolkata claim”.
The report said that advocate Ramen Roy currently undergoing treatment in the Intensive Care Unit of a private hospital in Dhaka was not defending Chinmoy Krishna Das Brahmachari in any legal case, according to a spokesperson of the Bangladesh Sammilito Sanatani Jagran Jot.
Prasenjit Kumar Halder, a key organiser of the Bangladesh Sammilito Sanatani Jagran Jot, a coalition advocating the rights of the Hindu community there, denied the claim made by the ISKCON Kolkata spokesperson Radharamn Das and others.
Halder clarified that Ramen Roy had been an advocate and was injured on the evening of November 25, following the arrest of Chinmoy Krishna Das. However, this was before any legal proceedings began.
“Members of the Sanatani community gathered in front of the detective branch office on Minto Road after hearing about Chinmoy’s arrest at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport. Around 300-500 people from our community protested his arrest. At the request of the police, we later moved to Shahbag Intersection to hold a rally,” Halder said.
“Suddenly, a group of people attacked us with sharp weapons, injuring at least 20 protesters, including myself. Advocate Roy was severely attacked on the head and was critically injured. We quickly rescued the injured, including Roy, and took them to Dhaka Medical College Hospital,” he added.
“All those injured, except Roy, left the hospital after receiving initial treatment. Roy underwent surgery and was admitted to the ICU. As his condition worsened, he was transferred to Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University Hospital. He is currently in critical condition and being treated in the ICU at a private hospital in Dhaka,” he continued.
Gauranga Das Brahmachari, another organiser of the Bangladesh Sammilito Sanatani Jagran Jot, told TBS that the name of the detained monk’s lawyer was Subhashish Sharma, not Ramen Roy.
A number of Bangladeshi media outlets published reports clarifying Roy was not Das’s advocate. Kaaler Kontho did a report with the headline, “রমেন রায় চিন্ময় দাসের আইনজীবী নন, হামলার ঘটনাও পুরনো” (Ramen Roy is not Chinmoy Das’s lawyer, incident of attack not recent). The report quotes the president of Chittagong district bar association as saying, “The information circulated in the Indian media claiming an attack on Chinmoy Krishna Das’ lawyer Ramen Roy is not correct. There is no lawyer by this name in Chittagong.”
Dainik Ittefak, too, made the same point.
This report also quoted family members of Roy who refuted claims of the former’s home being looted or ransacked.
Last month, Alt News had debunked another viral claim — again, widely misreported by major publications — that deceased lawyer Saiful Islam was Chinmoy Krishna Das’s lawyer and was killed in protests following his arrest.
To sum up, the viral claim that advocate Ramen Roy — the man in the viral photo — is Chinmoy Krishna Das Brahmachari’s lawyer and was assaulted for representing him is baseless and false. Roy is neither Chinmoy Krishna Das Brahmachari’s lawyer, nor was he was “brutally attacked” during the monk’s court hearing. Roy was injured during protests following Chinmoy Krishna Das’s arrest.
The post Intubated man in hospital bed not Chinmoy Das’s lawyer; photo of man injured in Shahbag falsely viral appeared first on Alt News.
This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Ankita Mahalanobish.
Ankita Mahalanobish | Radio Free (2024-12-13T09:43:33+00:00) Intubated man in hospital bed not Chinmoy Das’s lawyer; photo of man injured in Shahbag falsely viral. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2024/12/13/intubated-man-in-hospital-bed-not-chinmoy-dass-lawyer-photo-of-man-injured-in-shahbag-falsely-viral/
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