Punishment scrapped, UNO, OC withdrawn

Staff Correspondent: The High Court (HC) has scraped the two years` imprisonment awarded by a mobile court to Sabbir Shikder, a school student of Tangail, following allegation torturing the boy by a local lawmaker, an OC and a UNO.

The HC also directed the secretaries of establishment and home ministry and inspector general of police to withdraw Sakhipur Upazila Nirbahi Officer (UNO) Mohammad Rafiqul Islam, also an executive magistrate, and officer-in-charge (OC) of Sakhipur Police Station Mohammad Maksudul Alam and place them outside Dhaka division for fair investigation.

The bench of Justice M Enayetur Rahim and Justice Ashish Ranjan Das passed the order on Tuesday noon.

The HC directed the Chief Judicial Magistrate of Tangail to launch a judicial inquiry into the statement given by Sabbir before it on September 27.

The ninth-grader appeared before the HC on September 27 following its suo moto rule.

Following a report published in an English daily under the headline “Boy jailed for FB comment about MP”, the HC on September 20 issued the suo moto rule and asked the UNO and the OC to appear before it on September 27 and explain why a schoolboy was sentenced to two years in jail under the ICT act over alleged threats made to a lawmaker via Facebook.

The HC also granted Sabbir, a student of Protima Bonki Public High School, bail and asked him to appear before it on September 27 with relevant documents to ascertain his age.

Sabbir was sentenced by a mobile court reportedly under the Information and Communication Technology Act for threatening Awami League MP Anupam Shahjahan via Facebook.

risingbd/Dhaka/Oct 18, 2016/Mehedi/Amirul