A special Dhaka court yesterday indicted rights body Odhikar Secretary Adilur Rahman Khan and its Director AKM Nasiruddin Elan for providing distorted statistics regarding the law enforcers’ crackdown on Hefazat-e-Islam activists at Motijheel on May 5.
Dhaka’s Cyber Crime Tribunal Judge KM Shamsul Alam framed the charges against the duo in their presence after dismissing a discharge petition and set January 22 to hear opening statement and record statements of witnesses.
In the discharge petition, the defence counsel demanded that the rights group had published its report based on “authentic information.”
Earlier, the indictment in this particular case under Information and Communication Technology Act 2006 and under a newly-formed special tribunal was deferred three times.
Before framing of the charges, the court asked the accused whether they were guilty or not; both claimed themselves to be innocent.
Adilur, former deputy attorney general during BNP-Jamaat government’s tenure, and Elan are both on bail.
On May 5, law enforcers, in a late night operation, drove away Hefazat supporters from Motijheel’s Shapla Chattar. Odhikar on June 10 published a report claiming that it had collected the names of 61 people killed in the drive. The government refuted that report.
The defence counsel also claimed that police in its report admitted the death of 51 people in that night. So Odhikar did not publish any false news.
He told the Dhaka Tribune: “The court framed the charges mentioning that primary elements of allegation are present. It is a very common practice.”
After the Odhikar report was published, the information ministry asked for the names and details of the 61 “deceased” persons, but Odhikar declined to comply. On August 10, plain clothes police arrested Adilur from near his Gulshan residence and a Dhaka court placed him on a five-day remand for interrogation. But the lower court order was stayed by HC and he was sent to jail.
