Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) has arrested two people, Khalid Bin Ahmed, 30, the admin of YouTube channel SKTV, andMd Hizbullah, 21for allegedly spreading anti-state rumours.
RAB 1 arrested them during a drive in Uttara’s Sector 13 on Friday night. They also found two monitors, one CPU,one tab, two voice recorders, and other related materials during their raid.
RAB 1 Commanding Officer (CO) Lt Col Sarwar Bin Kashem, during a press briefing at RAB’s media centre in Karwan Bazarconfirmed the matter,claiming that Khalid is involved with Jamaat-e-Islami's student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir,and his father Nur Ahmad is also involved in Jamaat's politics.
He also said Khalid is a business student and starteda channel on YouTube named SK TV with his brother Golam Mawla Nahid in 2016. Since then, he has been uploading provocativeanti-state videos from the channel. Hizbullah, who is a student of a private university, helped Khalid as an associate.
Lt Col Sarwar said SK TV's admin Khalid provided voice-overs for several videos and Hizbullah collected controversial pictures, videos, and information from social media. Together, theycreated videos consisting of the collected materials and uploaded them to their channel.
The RAB 1 CO also said a controversial video wasrecently uploaded onto the SK TV channel regarding former chief justice SK Sinha. They also published a video on the channel about the quota reform and safe roadsprotests, which was edited to contain inflammatory connotations using clips taken out of context.
“They took real video footagesfrom various television channels and replaced the audio with their own in order to create out-of-context, inflammatory materialto provoke people and create confusion,” he said.
The CO said SK TV has a large number of subscribers, and has constantly tried to defame the government and spread anti-state criticism using rumours against prominent people at home and abroad.
In response to a question, Lt Col Sarwar said that initial investigation has revealed evidence of the involvementof Khalid and Hizbullah in the SK Sinha video, and added that they were looking into whether the two had other associates.
“Such activities are being monitored online every day,”he claimed, adding that action would be taken against them soon.
