A statue of Lady Justice has been reinstalled two days after it was removed from Bangladesh’s Supreme Court premises in the face of radical Islamists’ demand for its destruction.
"The sculpture found a new home, but it will hardly come to the public's notice in the new place,” Mrinal Haque, the sculptor, told reporters on Sunday.
The artwork was reinstated at the annex building at the back of the Supreme Court, a few hundred metres away from the front of the court premises where it was originally installed in December last year.
"I was asked to relocate the statue to the new site," he said.
Authorities on Friday removed the sculpture, a blindfolded woman in a sari holding scales and a sword in her hands, to avert an "untoward situation" after thousands of radical Islamists turned out at demonstrations to demand its removal or demolition.
Left-leaning activists clashed with police in Dhaka after its removal, asking the government to reinstall the statue.
The hard-line Islamist groups thanked Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for accepting their demands, but warned of consequences if the artwork is reinstalled anywhere in Bangladesh.
They say the statue, which represents the Roman goddess Iustitia and the Greek goddess Themis, is an idol, which is prohibited in Islam.
They also demanded removal of similar artworks from across the predominately Muslim country.
Bangladesh has a secular constitution based on British common law, but radical Islamist groups have long campaigned for the introduction of strict Islamic law, or sharia.
More than 90 per cent of Bangladesh's 160 million inhabitants identify as Muslim.
