Seven sued under DSA

Seven people, including editor of a Bangla daily and chief-editor of a news portal, have been sued under Digital Security Act on charge of publishing and circulating false, defamatory and offensive information.

They are Bangladesh Pratidin Editor Naem Nizam; its publisher Moynal Hossain Chowdhury; news portal Bangla Insider chief-editor Syed Borhan Kabir; and admin, narrator, videomaker and technician of Facebook page Viral Protidin.

Barrister M Sarwar Hossain filed the case with the Cyber Tribunal of Dhaka yesterday, court sources said.

On August 17 last year, Sarwar took part in the hearing of a no-confidence petition filed against the final report that cleared Bashundhara Managing Director Sayem Sobhan Anvir from charges of abetting suicide of a college student.

After a hearing yesterday, Justice Mohammad Ash Sams Joglul Hossain recorded the complainant's statements and directed Criminal Investigation Department (CID) to submit a report before the tribunal by March 15, after investigating the case.

According to case documents, Naem Nizam and Moynal Hossain Chowdhury on September 7 and 8 last year published two reports on the complainant in Bangladesh Pratidin willingly, which contained false, defamatory, offensive and objectionable information.

Syed Borhan Kabir on September 8 that year published a report about the complainant in his online portal, containing the same information.

Eight videos, which contained false, defamatory, offensive and objectionable information about the complainant, were published and circulated by the Facebook page.