Sunny placed on remand for online threats

Bangladesh spinner Arafat Sunny was arrested from his Amin Bazar residence yesterday morning. A 23-year-old woman, who claimed to be Sunny's wife, accused the bowler of threatening her online and had filed a case against the bowler under the Information and Communication Act (ICT) earlier this month.

According to the case statement filed by Nasrin Sultana on January 5, 2017 at the Mohammadpur Police Station, Sunny threatened to reveal indecent photos of Nasrin on Facebook. Sunny, while speaking to the police, denied the allegations and said that they were all made up.

In the case statement Nasrin claimed to be in a relationship with Sunny for the last seven years and also said that the couple got married on December 4, 2014. However, according to Nasrin's statement, neither of the families knew about their wedding. Nasrin claimed that despite her repeated requests Sunny refused to take her home.

She also said on that on June 12, 2016, Sunny opened a fake Facebook account using his phone number and sent her indecent photos of herself on Facebook messenger and also threatened to reveal them. He reportedly did the same on November 25, 2016.

Upon primary investigation, police officials have said that they did find some of Nasrin's claims true. They believe that Sunny and Nasrin were in fact in a relationship.  The police however, believe that there is still plenty of investigation to be done and that they would not be able to make any further comments.

Sunny's brother Rana Faysal, while speaking to The Daily Star, dismissed Nasrin's claims.

“She is trying to set him up. She has planned this for a long time,” he said. Rana said that Sunny has been married since 2010 and has been living at his home with his wife. “The problem was that this girl [Nasrin] was always after Sunny. She came to the house one day and created a huge ruckus.”

Sunny was placed on remand for one day yesterday. During the remand hearing Nasrin's lawyer produced documents of Sunny and Nasrin's wedding.

This is not the first time that a criminal case has been filed against a Bangladesh cricketer. Right before the World Cup in 2015, Bangladesh pacer Rubel Hossain was accused of rape but was eventually acquitted.

More recently, a case was filed against former Bangladesh Test pacer Shahadat Hossain, who was accused of beating his house help. Shahadat too was found not guilty and was let go after a short period.