A 35-year-old man was de­nied bail yes­ter­day af­ter ap­pear­ing in court charged with the mur­der of Po­lice Con­sta­ble Kr­ish­na Ba­na­har.

Mwan­za Joseph ap­peared be­fore Mas­ter Sarah De Sil­va at the South A Mas­ter’s Court on charges of mur­der, pos­ses­sion of a firearm, and pos­ses­sion of am­mu­ni­tion.

Joseph’s at­tor­ney, Vis­han Gir­war, had sent a let­ter to the po­lice on Tues­day morn­ing, say­ing that his client was be­ing un­law­ful­ly de­tained. He called on them to ei­ther charge or re­lease Joseph by 2 pm on Tues­day, giv­en the length of time he had been in cus­tody. While in cus­tody, Joseph was tak­en to hos­pi­tal for a pre-ex­ist­ing med­ical con­di­tion.

Joseph of St Rose Street, Gon­za­les Vil­lage, Guapo, was ar­rest­ed hours af­ter 25-year-old Ba­na­har was killed in a shoot­ing in­ci­dent on No­vem­ber 6.

He was charged by act­ing ASP Ma­haraj.

Ba­na­har was among a team of of­fi­cers from the South West­ern Di­vi­sion con­duct­ing an an­ti-crime ex­er­cise in St Rose Street.  Joseph’s broth­er Hakim Joseph was al­so killed dur­ing the in­ci­dent.  Ba­na­har had five years of ser­vice and was as­signed to the Siparia CID. 

The next hear­ings in­to the mat­ter were fixed for No­vem­ber 5 and 12, 2025.