Sheikh Hasina gets Mamata bug, jails man for mocking her in a song

Dhaka: A 25-year-old Bangladeshi man has been sentenced to seven years in jail for composing a song mocking Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her father Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and spreading it via mobile phones. Bangladesh’s newly constituted Cyber Tribunal handed down the sentence to Tonmoy Mollik, who runs a music CD shop in Khulna district, for composing the satirical song on Bangabandhu and Hasina. [caption id=“attachment_1729735” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Sheikh Hasina. AP.[/caption] A fine of 10,000 Taka was also imposed on Mollik yesterday. Another co-accused Rafiqul Islam, a customer of Mollick who played the song using a loud speaker, was aquitted in the case. Mollick’s business involved copying music from computers to memory cards for money. He composed a parody on Bangabandhu and Hasina and gave it to his customers. The song was circulated among many people. Tonmoy and Islam were arrested on October 26, 2013. A case under the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Act was filed against him. The Tribunal was constituted last year under the ICT Act and this was the fourth verdict since its inception, officials said. Mollik, however, can file an appeal challenging the sentence before the High Court. Police said nearly 300 cases are now being investigated under the ICT Act. A university professor and a former army major among others are also being investigated for their “derogatory posts” on social networking websites against the Bangladesh’s premier. Before the tribunal was set up, a sessions court in Dhaka on June 27, 2013 sentenced former Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology teacher Hafizur Rahman Rana to seven years imprisonment under the same law on charge of publishing “fake, obscene or defamatory” information in electronic form against Hasina. PTI