Quota reform protest

200 Facebook accounts listed for fuelling protests

200 Facebook accounts listed for fuelling protests

Dhaka, Apr 14 (Just News): The Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime Unit of police has identified 30 social media ‘propagandists’ in the country for fuelling protests in Dhaka and elsewhere for reform of quota in government jobs.

A case was file with Ramna police station on April 11 against unnamed suspects in this regard under the Information and Communication Technology Act by cyber security wing sub-inspector SM Shahjalal, said officials concerned.

‘We have identified 30 social media ‘propagandists’ while over 200 Facebook accounts have been listed in this connection,’ said counter-terrorism unit’s cyber crime wing additional deputy commissioner Najmul Islam.

The investigators found that rumours over a Dhaka University student’s death sparked huge agitation, prompting a ‘violent attack’ on the house of vice-chancellor M Akhtaruzzaman.

At about 12:30am on April 9, there was a rumour that a student was killed in police attack during the protests.

Many students alleged that they faced unusual interruption of mobile-phone internet minutes after the ‘news of death’ posted by many online activists including war crimes trial campaigner Ganajagaran Mancha spokesperson Imran H Sarkar.

At about 12:50am, Imran, who has nearly 1.5million followers on Facebook, had posted a status alleging that one student was killed in police firing. The post was spread very fast.

Later, at 1:51am on April 9, he corrected the information and said that the news related to death was not verified.

Similarly, on April 11, false information of ‘severing tendon of a female student at Sufia Kamal Hall’ of Dhaka University spread on Facebook.

Including the latest, a total of five cases have been filed against unnamed protesters who were pretesting for reduction of quota in public service recruitment to 10 per cent from the existing 56.

On April 11, four cases were filed with Shahbagh police station against a huge number of unnamed people on charge of vandalism, arson and obstructing law enforcers from performing their duty during protests in Dhaka.

Shahbagh police station officer-in-charge Abul Hassan said that none were arrested in the cases.

The protesters demanded withdrawal of the cases.

Vice-chancellor Md Akhtaruzzaman claimed said that the cases had no connection with the protests.


(Justnews/ys/0005hr)