DSA case: Tithy Sarker gets 5 years with probation
A Dhaka tribunal today sentenced Tithy Sarker, a suspended student of Jagannath University (JnU), to five years imprisonment in a DSA case filed for making derogatory comments about religion on Facebook.
However, the court has granted her probation of one year on eight conditions, Mamun Sikder, stenographer of the tribunal told The Daily Star.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. Judge AM Julfiker Hayet of the Cyber Tribunal of Dhaka delivered the verdict in presence of Tithy at the courtroom.
During the probation, she will be allowed to stay at her home. However, a probation officer will monitor her activities, Mamun said.
If the office gives a satisfactory report on her, the court will reconsider her penalty, added Mamun.
During the trial, six prosecution witnesses testified in the case.
On October 23, 2020, some screenshots of Tithy's Facebook posts and comments hurting people's religious sentiment went viral on social media.
On the same day, she filed a general diary (GD) with Pallabi Police Station, claiming that her Facebook ID was hacked.
However, the posts had triggered protests at JnU where students demanded punishment for her.
Tithy was suspended from her post as the office secretary of Bangladesh Chhatra Odhikar Parishad's JnU unit on October 23. She was also suspended from the university.
However, she went "missing" on October 25, 2020. Her family told journalists that she went missing in the morning that day after leaving her Pallabi home for the local police station.
Her elder sister Srity Rani Sarker had filed a missing person's report with Pallabi Police Station on October 27, 2020.
Later, on November 12, Criminal Investigation Department officials said that she faked her own abduction to divert attention from the allegations that she had hurt religious sentiment.
"After leaving her Pallabi home on October 25, Tithy contacted her boyfriend Shiplu Mallik and went to Bagerhat where they got married. They came back to Dhaka on November 9. Tithy later went to an in-law's house in Narsingdi," Deputy Inspector General Jamil Ahmed told a press conference at the CID office in the capital's Malibagh.
The couple was shown arrested in a case filed under the Digital Security Act with Paltan Police Station on November 2, 2020.
On November 11, 2020, police arrested Tithy from the Madhabdi area of Narsingdi and Shiplu from the Kaptan Bazar area in the capital.
On May 19, 2021, Investigation Officer Mehedi Hasan, also a sub-inspector of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of police, pressed charges against the couple.
On November 4, 2021, the tribunal framed charges against Tithy.
That day, the tribunal also discharged Tithy's husband Shiplu Mallik from the charges of the case scrutinising the case documents and other relevant elements.
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