A Dhaka court has scrapped the plea of the Counter-Terrorism and Transnational Crimes (CTTC) unit of the police to take cartoonist Ahmed Kabir Kishore in remand in a case lodged under the Digital Security Act (DSA).
Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Mohammad Jasim passed the order on Sunday, rejecting a plea of the investigation agency CTTC to take Kishore on a three-day remand.
CTTC on February 23 filed the petition and the court had set today to hold a hearing on the matter.
Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) filed the case against 11 persons on May 5, 2020, on the charges of spreading anti-state falsehood to tarnish the image of Bangladesh and create confusion from a Facebook page.
The 11 accused in the case are -- Ahmed Kabir Kishore, Rashtrachinta coordinator Didarul Bhuiyan, Minhaj Mannan, Tasnim Khalil, Sahed Alam, Asif Mohiuddin, Zulkarnain Shayer Khan alias Sami, Ashik Imran, Swapan Wahid, Philip Shumakher and writer Mushtak Ahmed, who died in jail recently.
Earlier on January 13, police filed the charge-sheet against cartoonist Ahmed Kabir Kishore, Rashtrachinta coordinator Didarul Bhuiyan and writer Mushtak Ahmed.
Police, however, excluded names of eight accused Minhaj Mannan, Tasnim Khalil, Sahed Alam, Asif Mohiuddin, Sami, Ashik Imran, Swapan Wahid and Philip Shumakher from the charge-sheet, saying the allegations brought against them were not proved. On February 10, Bangladesh Cyber Tribunal had ordered CTTC to further investigate the case and submit the report today.
The court had come up with the order, allowing a prosecution plea to further investigate the case. The prosecution on February 9 also filed naraji (no confidence) petition against the charge-sheet for dropping names of eight accused.
(BSS)
