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Teen spends 8 months
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Poritosh told this correspondent in the court premises.
This teenager -- who has not yet been convicted and was still undergoing trial -- was handed down this inhumane punishment, reserved for the hardest of criminals, just for a Facebook comment that he allegedly made.
However, till now no evidence has been found that Poritosh had made any such derogatory post as his phone was broken beyond repair and the Criminal Investigation Department of police was unable to conduct forensic tests on it.
Solitary confinement that lasts longer than 15 consecutive days is recognised by the United Nations as “torture”.
Speaking to The Daily Star yesterday, Barrister Jyotirmoy Barua, eminent human rights lawyer, said, “Solitary confinement is only for the most hardened criminals, who can harm or kill other inmates. If the jail authorities kept him there for his ‘safety’, then they failed in their duty to keep him safe.”
Poritosh further told this paper that during his time in the cell he felt suicidal, wanting to end it all.
“But then I would think of my parents, and that I am their only son. That would make me choose to keep living.”
His father, a poor fish-seller at Pirganj upazila, had educated Poritosh in hopes that he would be their future.
Poritosh’s lawyer Advocate Shamim al Mamun told the court on Sunday, “The prison authorities had restricted access to Poritosh to an extent that even I was not able to talk to him until he was finally released on bail.”
Poritosh was denied bail a total of three times by the Rangpur Cyber Tribunal. He was finally released on bail on May 9, 2022, after a High Court order was issued in this regard.
But on February 5, sessions judge of the tribunal Dr Abdul Mojid sent him to jail again to await a verdict.
At the moment, Poritosh is the only person in jail over the Pirganj violence.
“A total of 74 people were arrested for the arson and communal violence, while another 72 are on the run. Those arrested are all out on bail at the moment,” said Mahbub Rahman, officer-in-charge (investigation) of Pirganj Police Station.
Also out on bail are the village mosque’s moazzem Rabiul Islam, who made the calls for people to gather; Saikat Mandal, the mastermind of the attack; and Ujjal Hasan, who had first taken a screenshot of Poritosh’s social media activity and spread it.
Even while they were in jail, they did not have to undergo solitary confinement.
Meanwhile, Poritosh was accused of “hurting religious sentiments, creating communal enmity, ruining religious harmony” and thrown into a cell that was locked at all times.
According to the data computed by this newspaper in February last year, 60 percent of all those prosecuted for “hurting religious sentiments” under the DSA belong to Hindu community -- meaning they are targeted more by this law than members of the religious majority.
The Daily Star found this statistic by analysing the details of the 90 people who were booked under this law between 2020 and 2021.
The case data was provided by DSA Tracker, a project of Centre for Governance Studies.
Two hours after Sunday’s hearing, the judge announced the verdict while Poritosh waited at the docket, crying silently.
As his mother saw her only son being dragged away, she began howling in despair.
“I brought my son to the court only for the hearing. Why is he being sent to jail again?” she wailed.
Barrister Barua questioned the judge’s decision to send Poritosh to jail again using a conviction warrant.
“The judge had not written an order; the conviction had not been given. Then how was he arrested on a conviction warrant?”

Cheaper
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It will allow Covid-19 testing service faultlessly and at a cheaper rate, he said.
Each kit will cost Tk 250.
The invention also means the country would be saving up on scarce foreign currency reserves: the kits currently being used in the country’s 57 government-own and 105 private-own RT-PCR Covid-19 testing laboratories are imported from China, South Korea and the US.
The import price of each kit ranges from Tk 120 to Tk 1,000, according to DGDA officials.
Considering this, a huge amount of foreign currency was spent to import the kits during the pandemic, when more than 1.34 crore samples were tested using the RT-PCR method.
“We hope it will be possible to supply this kit countrywide. As a result, importing kits by spending dollars will no longer be needed,” Ahmed said.
The country is much dependent on imports for medical devices and the pandemic has exposed the downside of such dependency, said Nasrin Sultana, a professor of health economics at DU.
“The invention of the BCSIR kit is definitely good news for the country,” she told The Daily Star.