The state has filed an appeal to the High Court seeking extension of the jail term against Adilur Rahman Khan, editor of human rights organization “Odhikar” and its director ASM Nasiruddin Elan in an ICT case.
Confirming the matter to BSS, Deputy Attorney General Sarwar Hossain Bappi said: "We will mention the matter in the court as regular judicial proceedings are starting in the High Court on Sunday, after the vacation...Later, when the case is ready for hearing, the appeal will be heard by the High Court."
On September 14 this year, a special court sentenced Adilur and Elan to two-year imprisonment in a case lodged under the ICT Act.
The court also fined them Tk10,000 each, and a month more behind the bars in default of the payment.
The case against Adilur Rahman Khan and ASM Nasiruddin stemmed from the publication of a fact-finding report on Odhikar's website regarding the number of casualties during a police operation against Hefazat-e-Islam activists at Shapla Chattar in Dhaka on May 5-6, 2013.
On June 10, 2013, the Detective Branch (DB) of police filed a general diary with the Gulshan police station in this connection, which was later converted into a case.
Detectives arrested Adilur at Gulshan on August 10, 2013 shortly after filing the GD complaining that the rights body on its website ran a false report titled "Assembly of Hefajat-e Islam Bangladesh and Human Rights Violation".
The report tarnished the image of the country, its government and the law enforcement agencies, read the GD.
Odhikar's report claimed that 61 people died in the wee hours of May 6 when the law enforcers flushed several thousand Hefajat activists out of the Shapla Chattar in the capital's Motijheel. The government, however, put the number of deaths at 13.
Briefing the press at the media centre of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) on August 10, 2013, Monirul Islam, the then joint commissioner of DMP, said no lethal weapons were used to drive the Hefajat men out of the Shapla Chattar.
Law enforcers only used tear gas shells, sound grenades and water cannons to disperse the Hefajat men, he added.
Referring to the violent incidents in the Paltan and Motijheel areas between May 5 morning and early hours of May 6, he said a total of 13 people, including police officials, transport workers, and pedestrians, died in those incidents.
On the pictures used in the Odhikar report, Monirul said though the report was based on the incidents of that night, some pictures were of those who had died earlier in the day (May 5), and some were of people who are still alive.
After probing the case, the DB on September 4 of the same year pressed charges against Adilur and Elan.
Detectives on August 11, 2013 raided the Odhikar's Gulshan office and seized three laptops and two desktop computers, which were used to prepare the fake list of 61 dead victims.
