Mohammad Ali Arafat@MAarafat71
All you want to know about Odhikar Case Details:
Five days after Hefazat e Islami rioters, joined by Jamaat –e-Islami cadres, ran riot in the capital on May 5, 2013, controversial rights body Odhikar published a report on website claiming 61 people were killed in the face of police intervention under the name of “Hefazat’s rally in Bangladesh and trampling of human rights”. That report was riddled with alarming disinformation including fake images of clashes elsewhere and doctored images of corpses, as revealed by media reports. But following publication of this report by Odhikar emboldened those radical groups demanded a ban on girls education and threatened to upend communal fabric.
Amid media exposes of loopholes in the report, the Information Ministry sought for details with evidence pertaining to the investigation from Odhikar on July 10, 2013. In a span of seven days on July 17, Odhikar authorities officially declined to submit findings with evidence and remained hell bent to dodge respective authorities.
In the face of outright denial from authorities to substantiate the report, Ashraful Islam, then a superintendent of Detective Branch, Ashraful Islam, lodged a general diary with Gulshan police station that resulted in arrest of Adilur Rahman and recovered three laptops from Odhikar’s office. After conducting forensic, law enforcers unearthed the entire list of 61 people Odhikar claimed died.
After conducting investigation for several months, Ashraful Islam, on 04/09/2013 submitted a complaint with a Dhaka court against two Odhikar officials –Mr. Adilur and Nasir Uddin Elan for resorting to falsehood and fabricated document to tarnish the image of the country. Taking into cognizance of the investigation, the Court forwarded the case before another court under Dhaka Cyber Tribunal on September 9, 2013, resulting in initiation of legal course of action.
Further assessment into the complaint submitted revealed a disinformation galore in the Odhikar prepared report. For instance, at least four people (Md. Al Amin, Jahidul Islam Sourov, Sohel and Jasim Uddin) who Odhikar declared as dead, found to be alive. Names of five dead people surfaced twice while one who died from cardiac arrest placed as victim of police action. Moreover, six names were added in the list as dead who happened to die in a separate incident while no detailed identity has been given against seven people. On top of 11 people remained traceless.
Summing up all these discrepancies, it was revealed fake identities were provided against 34 people out of 61 in the report by Odhikar. Based on such alarming discrepancies, it can be said that this cooked up work was done with a singular objective of antagonizing public against law enforcers and defaming the image of the country on global arena.
In response to a plea, pressed by Mr. Adilur, before court, legal proceeding remained suspended for three years but afterwards the trial process began in cyber tribunal on September 5, 2021. Following two years of legal procedure, the court fixed September 14, 2023 for announcing the verdict.
Adilur Rahman Khan and Nasir Uddin Elan, the two Officials of Odhikar, charged under ICT Act 2006, section 57 for spreading falsified information, availed ten years to prove themselves innocent and defend their works but the duo did not withhold their motivated work under the grab of human rights.
In a word, the duo has failed to provide evidence to support their claims despite having sufficient opportunities to do so.
