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Activists from a Bangladesh Islamist group shout slogans as they take part in a protest calling for a statue referred to as a 'Greek goddess' installed at the Supreme Court to be destroyed or removed in Dhaka. File Photo STR/AFP/Getty Images)

Bangladesh authorities reinstalled a statue in the main premises of the country's Supreme Court, two days after it was removed under pressure from Islamists.

Artist Mrinal Haque, who had sculpted the statue of Lady Justice, reinstalled the statue a few hundred meters (yards) from its original location, with help from about 30 workers.

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The work began around 10pm local time on Saturday (27 May) and was completed around 12:45am Sunday.

Haque said he was shocked at the removal of the statue, adding it would have less visibility where it has been reinstalled.

"Thousands of people could see it from where it was originally located," he said.

No one was allowed inside the court area when the statue was being reinstalled. Outside, protesters chanted anti-government slogans and demanded that the work be stopped.

Haque's statue shows Lady Justice as a woman clad in a saree and holding a scale and a sword -- a Bangladeshi version of the Greek goddess of justice Themis, who is usually depicted as a blindfolded lady wearing in a gown.

Islamists oppose idol worship and say the Lady Justice statue, first erected in December 2016, is anti-Islamic and amounts to idolatry.

Supreme Court