In this age, while Bangladesh is still trying to up its game on achieving the status of a ‘Digital Bangladesh’, the ugly face of cyber crime is also showing itself not quite so discreetly. While the use of the digital medium has developed in the last decade, the scope for crimes to take place in the digital forum has also increased.
Besides the real world, now the digital forum also has its fair share of criminals who misuses the digital platform purely for harassing the persons against whom they have some personal vendetta.
That is exactly what happened when on 26 September 2015, GM Akbar Kabir filed a case against Mohon Kumar Mondol, Executive Director, Leaders, in Shamnagar Police Station, Shamnagar, Satkhira under case no. 36/09/2015. According to the informant’s short description– Mohon Kumar, the accused, posted a facebook status stating, “Why does one have to spend lacs and lacs of Taka and go to Mina just to throw stones at the Shaytan? Go and stone the Shaytan living beside your house and mine.”
This statement deeply hurt the religious sentiment of the informant. The informant filed a case against him in the Shampur Police Station so that legal steps are taken against him. On that day itself, the police arrested the accused Mohon Kumar Mondol and sent him to jail custody. On 03 October 2015, the investigating officer of the case presented a charge-sheet under the Section 57 of the Information and Communication Technology Act. This case was submitted before the Cyber Tribunal, Dhaka, Cyber Case No. 118/2015, for the trial. The accused has sought legal assistance from the lawyers of the Ain o Salish Kendra (ASK), and thereafter presented a Vokalotnama supporting Mohon to the Court. Mohon defended himself, denying the informant’s allegation and the aforementioned status, and mentioned that he was a victim of the conspiracy of the informant. Mohon also claimed that his facebook account was hacked by the informant. Based on this, a plea of bail was sought in favour of the Mohon on 28 October 2015. The Court fixed the hearing date on 29 November 2015. On the day of the hearing, the Court accepted the bail of accused Mohon. The case was pending before the court for various days. The witness-examination has been completed. The argument continued for several days. And finally, on 07 January 2019, the arguments of the cases were completely submitted. Finally, on 20 January 2019, the date fixed for judgment, the Court declared Mohon Kumar Mondol innocent.
In this case, ASK supported Mohon because a false allegation was brought against him and also because he belongs to a religious minority community. Section 57(2) of the Information and Telecommunication (ICT) Act was used to harass Mohon. This controversial section has been widely misused to harass persons from religious minority groups since the amended of the Act in 2013. Since then, ASK as a human rights organisation, has been raising its concerns regarding this section. It is due to such misuse of this provision which results in the ASK supporting victims like Mohon.
The Litigation Programme, which operates under the strategy of Legal Aid and other Supported Services, is sponsored by the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA).