Police have been given three days to quiz Enamul Haque on the charge of cloning major news sites, including Bangla Tribune.
Judge Rajib Hasan of Dhaka’s Chief Judicial Magistrate Court handed the order on Sunday (Nov 25) after hearing the case filed under the ICT Act.
Investigation officer of the case SI Mizanur Rahman told Bangla Tribune, “Police produced Haque in the court in a case filed with Kamlapur Railway police and sought a 10-day remand.
“The defence’s counsel filed for a bail, which court dismissed and granted police three days to quiz him,” said Rahman.
On Saturday (Nov 24), Rapid Action Battalion arrested Haque, a Bangladesh Agriculture University graduate who is doing his PhD at a Korean university, for his alleged involvement.
Enamul’s family, however, reported to police on Nov 23 that he went missing from Dhaka’s Ashkona late on Nov 21, when left for the airport to a catch a flight to Korea.
“Enamul Haque cloned at least 22 news sites, including Bangla Tribune, Prothom Alo and BBC Bangla,” RAB-2 Company Commander Mahiuddin Faruqi told Bangla Tribune on Saturday.
According to the RAB officer, he used his Master Card credit card to buy the domains from Bangladesh and uploaded the cloned sites from Korea.
A major portion of the revenue earned from the websites goes to the Jamaat-e-Islami’s student affiliate, Islami Chhatra Shibir, said the RAB officer.
Charges under the Digital Security Act was brought against him with the Kamalapur Railway Police.
Enamul, who hails from the northern district of Pabna, is doing his Ph.D. at Kyungpook National University in Korea after graduating from the Bangladesh Agriculture University.
On Nov 14, Bangla Tribune received a rejoinder on a news report which was never published, when it was found that the content was uploaded on a clone website, “banglatriibune.com” (note the additional “i” in the URL).
The cloning site used several contents published by Bangla Tribune with a fake news report on BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami’s election negotiations as the lead news.
On the night of Nov 16, Prothom Alo decried its own clone “prothomaalo.com.”
On Facebook, screenshots of a BBC Bangla clone from the URL “bbc-bangla.com” soon started making the rounds.