Police have submitted the charge-sheet against three people, including cartoonist Ahmed Kabir Kishore, in a case filed under the Digital Security Act (DSA) in 2020.
The other two accused are writer Mushtaq Ahmed and Rashtrochinta activist Didarul Islam Bhuiyan.
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On May 6 last year, Abu Bakar Siddique, assistant director of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) 3 filed the case against 11 people with Ramna police station on charges of spreading rumours and carrying out anti-government activities under the Digital Security Act (DSA).
Sub-Inspector (SI) Md Nizam Uddin, general recording officer of Dhaka Chief Metropolitan Magistrate’s court, confirmed the matter to Dhaka Tribune on Monday.
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“The investigation officer (IO) of the case, Sub-Inspector Jamshedul Alam, submitted the charge-sheet on Thursday,” said SI Md Nizam Uddin.
The IO, however, dropped the names of eight others accused in the case – Swedish-Bangladeshi journalist Tasneem Khalil, who runs Netra News; US-based journalist Shahed Alam; Germany-based blogger Asif Mohiuddin; Minhaj Mannan Emon, managing director of BLE Securities and shareholder-director of Dhaka Stock Exchange; expatriate Zulkarnain Saer Khan; Ashik Imran; Shapan Wahed and Philip Schuhmacher – due to a lack of evidence
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Kishore and Mushtaq have been in prison for the past nine months, while Minhaj and Didar were granted bail by the court last September.
Kishore was arrested in May 2020 after his cartoons, “Life in the Time of Corona,” satirizing the country’s response to Covid-19, were posted on Facebook in March and April. He was charged under the 2018 Digital Security Act (DSA) for spreading false news and misinformation on the country’s Covid-19 response.
