A case was filed on Wednesday against the ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s son Sajeeb Wazed Joy and former information and communication technology affairs state minister Zunaid Ahmed Palak and 17 others over allegations of selling data of national identity cards of over 11 crore people of the country illegally for Tk 20,000 crore.
Aggrieved businessman Mohammad Enamul Haque filed the case with the Kafrul police station on Wednesday naming 19 people and 15 to 19 unnamed others under the Cyber Security Act and some sections of the Penal Code, said Dhaka Metropolitan Police’s deputy commissioner (media) Mohammad Talebur Rahman.
Addressing an emergency briefing at the DMP’s Media Centre, he said that the detective branch of DMP on the day also arrested the National Data Centre’s former director Tarique M Barkatullah at the capital’s Kafrul area at about 7:00am.
‘We have primarily found the information of Tk 20,000 crore e-transactions for using citizens’ data for business purposes, violating the Digital Personal Data Protection Act,’ he said.
The case statement alleged that Joy, also the former ICT affairs adviser to ex-prime minister Sheikh Hasina, and Palak permitted Digicon Global Services Limited to do business with several farms by using the NID information, without ensuring national and personal data safety.
The NID information was sold to 182 public and private organisations at home and abroad through porichoy.gov.bd between September 2019 and October 9 this year, it reads.
Insecurity has been created among the people due to the availability of the NID information to a third party, according to the case.
The complainant also alleged that the accused embezzled Tk 20,000 crore.
The other named accused in the case include Digicon Global Service director Wahidur Rahman Sharif, Bangladesh Computer Council’s former executive director (additional responsibility) Mahbubur Rahman, former ICT Division senior secretary M Ziaul Alam, Election Commission Secretariat’s NID Registration Wing former director (operations) Abdul Baten, EC Secretariat’s former senior maintenance engineer Ashraf Hossain, former National Telecommunication Monitoring Center official lieutenant colonel (retired) Rakibul Hasan, former Dhaka University’s Computer Science, Engineering department professor Haider Ali and former Canadian University of Bangladesh vice-chancellor Muhammad Mahfuzul Islam and former Cabinet Division deputy secretary Md Rezaul Islam.
Kafrul police station officer-in-charge Kazi Golam Mostafa told ¶¶Òõ¾«Æ· that the DMP’s detective branch would investigate the case.
On October 4, 2022, a bilateral agreement was signed between the Election Commission and the Bangladesh Computer Council. Section 2 of the agreement clearly stated that the council would not sell any data to individuals or organisations by any means, said a DMP press release.
DMP also said that they had reportedly sold 46 kinds of data of the citizens by creating mirror copies.
Zunayed Ahmed Palak is now detained and on remand in police custody. Joy is now staying aboard.
