BTRC blocks webpage ‘uReporter’ which records BUET students’ torture complaints

The telecom regulators have blocked the webpage launched by the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology two and a half years ago to record complaints of student tortures.

The university’s computer science and engineering department opened the page under the project called “uReporter” on Mar 31, 2017 and it received 166 complaints, mostly about ragging of freshers, until Wednesday.   

The page - http://cse.buet.ac.bd/ureporter/ - became unavailable after the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission or BTRC ordered the International Internet Gateway or IIG operators and Internet Service Providers or ISPs to block it on Wednesday evening.

Spotlight fell on the webpage after the murder of BUET student Abrar Fahad allegedly due to torture by leaders of ruling Awami League’s student front Bangladesh Chhatra League four days ago.

The BCL operatives allegedly bludgeoned Abrar for hours for his Facebook post protesting against a recent deal between Bangladesh and India.

The “uReporter” project’s purpose was to research on people of the Third World by letting them speak out anonymously after being subjected to any form of torture or suppression, Associate Professor ABM Alim Al Islam told bdnews24.com.

The first post it received was from a BUET student who had been called up by seniors and forced to stand up for an hour at midnight.

The project was still limited to BUET students, according to Prof Alim.

Department head Prof Md Mostafa Akbar sent the complaints to the university’s Directorate of Social Welfare a few months ago but could not say whether the authorities acted on them.

In one of the last complaints made on Wednesday, a student of Abrar’s hall alleged those of his batch were beaten up for not joining a political meeting and one of them had his hand broken in the assault.

The other posts were about similar tortures and violent ragging.

bdnews24.com ran a report on such allegations raised by some students and the complaints registered on the webpage.

Meanwhile, an image of a BTRC email sent to the IIG operators and ISPs was circulated on social media through a Facebook page of BUET students.

In the communication, the BTRC asked the internet operators to block the “uReporter” webpage and inform the regulators.

BTRC Senior Assistant Director Md Asif Waheed, who sent the email, did not take bdnews24.com calls for response to queries such as who “directed him to instruct” the IIG operators and ISPs to block the domains.

BTRC Chairman Jahurul Haque did not respond either.

On Thursday, Prof Alim said they had stopped the project “following an internal decision”.

He declined to comment on the reason behind the closure of the project.