Special Correspondent
The Bangladesh Cyber Tribunal yesterday allowed the Counter-Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit of police 30 more days to complete the probe in the Digital Security Act case filed against cartoonist Ahmed Kabir Kishore and nine others. Judge Mohammad Ash Sams Joglul Hossain of tribunal allowed the time after Md Afchhar Ahmed, a Sub-Inspector of the CTTC unit and also Investigation Officer (IO) of the case, submitted an application seeking 30 days more time to complete the investigation.
The tribunal also directed the IO to submit the report by April 15 after a complete investigation into the case.
In the petition, the IO said after taking over the charge for further investigation, he had sent letters to the police stations concerned requesting to send full and correct names and addresses of the accused. But they were yet to give any reply. Moreover, he needs to find the Facebook links and messages of the accused, for which more time is needed.
During Monday’s hearing, accused Minhaj Mannan Emon, Managing Director of BLE securities and Shareholder-Director of Dhaka Stock Exchange, was present in the court while Kishore and Rashtrochinta activist Didarul Islam Bhuiyan were absent due to illness. Another accused, writer Mushtaq Ahmed, died on February 25 in Kashimpur jail.
A total of 11 people, including Kishore, Mushtaq, Didarul and Minhaj were prosecuted under the DSA by RAB-3's Assistant Director Abu Bakar Siddique on May 6 last year.
Others charged in the case include Swedish-Bangladeshi journalist Tasneem Khalil, Hungary-based entrepreneur Zulkarnain Saer Khan Sami, US-based journalist Shahed Alam, Germany-based blogger Asif Mohiuddin, Ashik Imran, Shapan Wahed and Philip Schuhmacher.
Earlier, on February 10, the tribunal ordered further investigation into the case after a petition was submitted by Public Prosecutor Nazrul Islam Shamim and asked it to submit the probe report to it by March 23.
