Facebook-based social campaigning page Moja losss?, which recently became vocal against sexual attacks on women at the TSC on Pohela Boishakh, has announced that they will change its entire admin panel following death threats.
“After receiving multiple death threats from various political entities, we have decided to move back to Toronto. Bangladesh does not seem to be the right place for social awareness efforts, it often gets misinterpreted,” the satirical page said in a post on Monday night.
“We will leave the page to a complete set of new admins who will take over the page in a week or so and turn this into just a troll page.”
They alleged that some groups of people had questioned their “neutral stance.”
The page, started as an entertainment page two years ago, became popular with their jokes and commentaries on social issues. It often worked as crime busters by circulating photos of crime scenes and suspects, having helped find a car-jackers’ gang and a hit-and-run driver.
Following the April 14 sexual assaults of women and children, the page first started campaigning to identify Latif Rony, who was spotted as a member of the gang that molested a teenager on February 21 on Dhaka University campus, by uploading a photo of the incident and Rony’s Facebook profile.
Soon they circulated some photos of April 14 and identified some faces, mostly as leaders and activists of DU unit Bangladesh Chhatra League, the ruling party’s student wing.
The page, now having over 542,000 fans, also set a new cover photo on April 17 with a call to resist Chhatra League portraying them as wolves.
They faced severe criticism for those photos, especially for a photo that asked fans to boycott the TSC on the next Pohela Boishakh.
On Sunday, the page updated a status claiming that they were being threatened. However, when contacted, they did not respond to queries from the Dhaka Tribune.
Monday’s decision to withdraw the current administrators, led by Chowdhury Shaheb (pseudonym), frustrated many fans who requested them not to give up upon threats.
Moja losss? replied: “We used to receive threats all the time from individuals of Jamaat/Shibir/BNP/League. But this time we are moving out due to flags raised by ‘higher officials.’”