Defamation case against three people including the editor of Prothom Alo in Habiganj
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Prothom Alo editor Motiur Rahman and two reporters of the newspaper have been filed a defamation case in Habiganj court seeking compensation of Tk 50 crore. Syed Humayun Kabir, the executive director of a local NGO named People’s Association for Social Advancement (PASHA) filed the case as a plaintiff.
After the hearing, Senior Judicial Magistrate Court Judge Tanzina Rahman directed the District Detective Police (DB) Officer-in-Charge (OC) to investigate and submit a report by July 30.
বিজ্ঞাপন
In this regard, Pasha’s lawyer Shahidul Islam told Prothom Alo, “Due to news coverage, Pasha and Pasha’s executive director have suffered a loss of Tk 50 crore. We have filed a case for redressal. The court has assigned the responsibility of investigating the case to the DB Police.
In the RG of the case, the plaintiff mentioned that the People’s Association for Social Advancement (PASHA) located in Barampur of Chunarughat Upazila of Habiganj has been conducting activities with the registration of the Department of Social Services. They have worked as observers in national and local elections in association with the Fair Election Monitoring Alliance (FEMA) and the NGO ‘Vrati’. Following this, the Election Commission approved Pasha to appoint 1,559 observers when he applied for observation in the 13th National Parliament election in 2025. When they started their activities, Prothom Alo published a report on February 6 with the title ‘One individual is giving dice to 10,000 election observers’.
বিজ্ঞাপন
Referring to the report, it is said in the RG of the case, People’s Association for Social Advancement (PASHA) located in Barampur village of Chunarughat Upazila of Habiganj is a nominal NGO. It has no project of its own. Its executive director himself is everything. He has no staff. The executive of the organization has been conducting activities by showing his office at his house. The report also says that in the past Pasha used to rent a house and work in Habiganj city. At that time, when various complaints were raised in the name of giving jobs to women, Pasha left his position in protest of the local residents. It is also said that Pasha sold observation cards for very little money. Due to the publication of this report in Prothom Alo, the long-earned reputation of the institution (Pasha) has been destroyed. As a result of this false news, the Election Commission canceled Pasha’s entire appointment. This caused a financial loss of 7 crore 39 lakh 13 thousand rupees to the organization and the reputation of the organization was damaged to the tune of approximately 50 crore rupees to various donor organizations and various organizations in the country and abroad.
The RG of the case also stated that, apart from this, Prothom Alo published an editorial on February 7 titled ‘Namsarvaswa election monitoring: It will question the election’. This made the dice seriously questionable to various well-wishers.
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