A total of 16 individuals have been hit with a lawsuit under the section 57 of Information and Communication Technology Act 2006, over allegations of making seditious statements in Facebook and conspiracy to overthrow Sheikh Hasina led Awami League government.
At the centre of it all happens to be the popular social media ‘Facebook’. The defendants allegedly expressed “seditious and conspiratorial” opinions within the aforementioned social media platform. Our correspondent states that there were several ‘vile and provocative’ comments made against Prime Minister Hasina and her father, in particular, the father of the nation Sheikh Mujibur Rahman of course. The names of those accused in this lawsuit are as follows: Primary defendants Kasem Sarder, Dilip Chandra Sarkar, Mohammad Hafizur Rahman, Toiyeb Ali, Nihar Ranjan Sarkar, Zafar Hawlader, Azgar Bepary, Yousuf Chokder, Sajib Khan, Rajib Khan, Dipak Majumder, Palash Kumar Das, Samir Kumar Shil, Kamal Das, Sudeb Mandal.
It was a frantic end to what has been another hectic week in Madaripur, culminating in this extraordinary piece of news, no doubt reverberating across every corner of Bangladesh by now. A high profile defamation lawsuit indeed, the merits of which are set to be contested in the Metropolitan Magistrate Court No.22, Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court, Dhaka. For those of our readers wondering, the lawsuit is in accordance with section 57 of the Information and Communication Technology Act 2006. The date it was filed is 27th February 2017.
It is to be noted that 6 accused has already been arrested by the Rajoir Thana Police on the 26th. Our correspondent got in touch with some defendant to discuss the allegation. Mr Sajib Khan, accused no.9 in this lawsuit informed us that, “I have no connection with this lawsuit, neither I have posted such post on Facebook. I am an active BNP member. I think they have filed this case intentionally against BNP members/supporters so that they can’t express their opinion out of fear. This is very unfortunate that we are living in an independent country and it should be a democratic country which will allow freedom of expression, but this autocratic government has gone the opposite direction.” Mr Sajib Khan and Rajib Khan, both are brothers and accused in this lawsuit. Mr Nihar Ranjan Sarkar, accused no. 5 of this case was shocked to know about the lawsuit and when contacted he said, “Although I am a supporter of BNP, I was not involved in any of the activities that they have mentioned in the case. In fact, I am currently living in the UK and I do not have any affiliation with such activities. I believe the Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League government has taken this strategy to scare its opposition party (BNP) members and supporters to corner them with such controversial act of law so that they remain quiet.”
Our court correspondent also got in touch Bangladesh Foreign Ministry, querying whether the foreign ministry has been keeping tabs on this situation or whether they are trying to trace the whereabouts of the accused individuals. He has declined any information and were instead referred to the Home Ministry by a very irate spokesperson. Our correspondent was not even able to get through at the Home Ministry.
This left us having to seek out the CID headquarter, in charge of conducting primary investigations over the charges brought in this lawsuit. Although we were declined an interview with the chief investigating officer, one of the on-duty officers did speak to us and stated “that the investigations are still in their infancy. There is also a strong possibility that the CID could get involved here given the sensitive nature of this matter. The media shall be updated accordingly”.
We will try and gather more information about this lawsuit, so stay tuned.
