HC to decide on residents' info collection by DMP on March 13

The High Court yesterday fixed March 13 for passing an order on a writ petition filed for seeking its order on the government to stop collecting information about landlords and tenants by Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP).

The bench of Justice Moyeenul Islam Chowdhury and Justice Md Iqbal Kabir set the date after concluding hearing the petition, Jyotirmoy Barua, the petitioner and a Supreme Court lawyer, told The Daily Star. 

Jotirmoy submitted the petition on March 3 to the HC praying to it to ask the authorities concerned to preserve those information which have already been collected and not to use the information until a specific law is formulated to this effect. He said there is no legal basis of collecting such information about tenants from their landlords, terming it a "violation" of rights to privacy.

The DMP on February 29 announced that it had been collecting “identification information” about landlords and tenants since November last year and asked all to provide the information by March 15.