Actress Nawshaba remanded for four days after Facebook ‘rumours’

Police have received permission to question actress and model Quazi Nawshaba Ahmed in their custody for four days in an ICT case over spreading rumours of deaths among student protesters during the campaign for safe roads.

Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Mazharul Haq ordered the remand on Sunday.

The Rapid Action Battalion transferred the actress to the Uttara West Police Station Sunday after the arrest.

Investigation officer Uttara Police Station SI Bikash Kumar Pal took Nawshaba to court with a request for a seven-day remand.

Her lawyer AHM Imrul Kawser sought bail, asking for the remand petition to be dismissed.

Students and employees at the Awami League Dhanmondi offices had clashed violently on Saturday afternoon.

Amid ‘rumours’ that students had been killed in the clash, Nawshaba went live on Facebook with claims that two students had been killed and that one had their eye gouged out.

She was then detained by the RAB in Dhaka’s Uttara on Saturday.

During an initial questioning, Nawshaba said she had not been at the scene during the Facebook Live stream, but had been at a shooting spot in Uttara. Her stream had made it seem as if she was on the spot.

RAB Media Wing Director Mufti Mahmud Khan said she had made the plea on behalf of someone else.

“Nawshaba acknowledged her mistake and apologised for it on Facebook,” her lawyer AHM Imrul Kawser said. “She did not mean to incite anything.”

Police argued that they need to question her on remand to “find who was involved, who instructed her to make the post and to recover her mobile phone”.