News Desk :
A Dhaka court has rejected a remand petition for interrogating cartoonist Ahmed Kabir Kishore, who was arrested with writer Mushtaq Ahmed on charges of propagating disinformation against the government on social media in a case under the Digital Security Act, reports bdnews24.com.
Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Mohammad Jasim delivered the order on Sunday.
Kishore was scheduled to appear in court during the remand hearing but he was not produced.
Barrister Jyotirmoy Barua, the lawyer for Kishore, however, expressed his anger over the police’s failure to produce Kishore in court and demanded punishment to those who were involved in the process. He also questioned the jurisdiction of police to file a remand petition after pressing charges against the accused.
At the end of the hearing, the judge rejected the remand application, while there was no application for bail for Kishore.
According to the law, it is mandatory to produce the accused during the remand petition hearing to let the judge observe the person’s physical and mental state.
Police pressed charges against cartoonist Kishore, writer Mushtaq Ahmed and Rashtrochinta activist Didarul Bhuiyan in the DSA case on Jan 13.
The investigation officer dropped the names of eight others accused, including Zulkarnain Shayer Khan alias Sami, DSE director Minhaz Mannan, Germany-based blogger Asif Mohiuddin, Netra News Editor Tasneem Khalil, expatriate Shapan Wahed, Ashik Imran, US-based journalist Shahed Alam and Philip Schuhmacher.
The case was started against 11 people by Deputy Assistant Director Zahirul Islam of RAB-3 with Ramna Police Station.
Kishore and Mushtaq have been in prison for the past nine months, while Minhaj and Didar were granted bail by the court in September last year.
Mushtaq died in jail on Feb 25.
