A Dhaka court has handed down a three-year jail sentence to a university teacher for posting a Facebook status wishing the death of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
Dhaka Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Nazmul Haque Shyamal yesterday delivered the verdict in a sedition case tried in absentia against the convict – Mohammad Ruhul Amin Khandaker.
Ruhul, a lecturer at the Institute of Information Technology of Jahangirnagar University, was also fined Tk10,000; he will have to spend six more months in jail if he fails to pay the fine.
The teacher was punished for wishing the death of the prime minister in a Facebook post on August 13, 2011, written in reaction to the road accident that killed filmmaker Tareq Masud, ATN News CEO Mishuk Munier and three others.
In his post, he wrote: “Sheikh Hasina has been providing driving licence without tests. Result of providing driving licence … everybody dies, but why does Sheikh Hasina not die?”
The court also issued a warrant for the arrest of Ruhul, who has been on the run since the case was filed in 2011.
“As the accused has been at large since the beginning of the trial, his conviction will be effective when he surrenders before the court,” the judge said.
Ruhul was appointed temporarily as a JU teacher in 2008, but he left for higher studies in Australia the following year.
Additional Public Prosecutor Md Anwarul Kabir Babul told the Dhaka Tribune that the convict was still residing abroad.
After the teacher made the remarks against Hasina on his Facebook post in 2011, Chhatra League JU unit leader Sheikh Shariful Islam lodged a general diary with Ashulia police station on August 18, 2011.
A university probe committee later found the allegations true and recommended the teacher’s punishment, while the police in its own investigation of the GD also found the claims to be true.
The sedition case against Ruhul was then filed by Assistant Superintendent of Police (Savar circle) Md Manwar Hossain on October 2, 2011.
The charge sheet in the case was filed by ASP (Dhaka range) Abdus Salam, also the investigation officer of the case, with the Chief Judicial Magistrate Court in Dhaka on October 21, 2012.
In 2012, the High Court also sentenced Ruhul to six months in jail for not complying to an order summoning him to the court.
On April 23, 2014, the Dhaka court framed charges against Ruhul in his absentia under sections 124 (A) and 506 of penal code.
A total of 12 prosecution witnesses including Ruhul’s colleagues at the department gave depositions in the sedition case.
The latest verdict follows the 2013 sentencing of a Buet teacher, who was given a seven-year jail sentence for a Facebook post threatening to kill Sheikh Hasina.
