DHAKA: Bangladesh’s high court today handed down six months of imprisonment to a university teacher for disregarding a summons in connection with a Facebook comment he posted earlier wishing Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s death.
“The High Court sentenced him (Muhammad Ruhul Amin Khandaker) six months jail as he ignored the summon ordering his personal appearance over his comments in the Facebook,” deputy attorney general ABM Altaf Hossain told newsmen.
He said the High Court bench comprising judges AHM Shamsuddin Choudhury Manik and Justice Jahangir Hossain, however, was yet to issue any order on the main allegation against the junior professor.
Khandaker, a lecturer of Information Technology at suburban Jahangirnagar University, is currently in Australia on an academic course but the court ordered the foreign office to take immediate steps to bring him back home through diplomatic channel.
The bench also asked police to arrest Khandaker immediately on his return and the university authorities to take punitive action against him according to law, which could result in him losing his job.
Khandaker had posted a status in his facebook account after deaths of leading filmmaker Tareque Masud and journalist Ashfaque Munier Mishuk in a road crash in August last year saying why Sheikh Hasina does not die when many people were dying in road accidents in the country.
“Everyone dies, why not Hasina?” read the status, which Khandaker, however, deleted immediately after students wing of the ruling Awami League staged protests at the Jahangirnagar University demanding his punishment.
The High Court on the same month in a “suo motto rule” or own its own asked Khandaker to explain in two weeks why he should not be prosecuted for his “derogatory comment” and ordered last month his personal appearance to face a “contempt of court” charge as he did not respond to its earlier order.
The verdict came as the attorney general’s office told the court that Khandaker received himself in Australia the home ministry notices notifying him the High Court order for his personal appearance and contempt of court rule but tended to defy the orders.
