Daily Sangram editor remanded in digital security case

A Dhaka court has granted police three days to grill in custody Sangram Editor Abul Asad in a digital security case after the newspaper published a report describing a war crimes convict ‘a martyr’.

Police produced him in the court of Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Mamunur Rashid on Saturday after the case was started against Asad and two others under the Digital Security Act.

Hatirjheel Police Station Inspector Golam Azam sought a five-day remand for the editor while defence lawyer Abdur Razzaq argued that his client could be quizzed at the jail gates as he was an elderly person and sick.

Freedom fighter Mohammad Afzal started the case with the police on Friday night, Inspector Azam said. The case also names the newspaper’s Chief Reporter Ruhul Amin Gazi and Deputy Editor Sadat Hossain.

The newspaper published a report on Dec 12 describing Jamaat-e-Islami leader and hanged war criminal Abdul Quader Molla as ‘a martyr’.

Molla, infamously known as 'the butcher of Mirpur', was hanged on Dec 12, 2013 after conviction by the International Crimes Tribunal.

The newspaper, widely recognised as a mouthpiece for Jamaat, commemorated the day on Thursday with a report carrying the headline: “Today is the sixth death anniversary of martyr Abdul Quader Molla.”

The report sparked heated protests as a group of activists of Bangladesh Chhatra League, the student front of the ruling Awami League, burnt copies of the newspaper.

Protesters subsequently besieged and vandalised The Daily Sangram’s office in Dhaka on Friday before handing the editor to police.

“We can’t make compromises on independence and sovereignty. We will resist whoever speaks against independence or the Liberation War,” Md Al Mamun, a leader of the pro-liberation platform “Muktijuddho Mancha”, told bdnews24.com.

He said the Sangram office was used as a temporary facility by the Jamaat and its student front Islami Chhatra Shibir, citing documents found there.

Mamun demanded cancellation of the newspaper’s declaration and threatened to stage more protests if the demand is not met.