Petition seeks HC order over 2 police officers ‘cyberbullying’ Shipra

A Supreme Court lawyer has filed a writ petition with the High Court, challenging two police officers' actions of posting personal photographs of Shipra Debnath along with provocative comments on Facebook.

Barrister Manoj Kumar Bhowmik submitted the writ petition today as a public interest litigation to the High Court seeking its order on the authorities concerned of the government to conduct an investigation into this issue and take proper action against the police officers responsible for posting the photographs on Facebook.

In the petition, the lawyer said the two police officers' action of posting personal photographs of Shipra Debnath along with provocative comments on Facebook in an attempt to "assassinate her character" is illegal.

Barrister Manoj told The Daily Star that the High Court may hold hearing on his writ petition on Tuesday.

He also said he submitted the writ petition based on a report published on The Daily Star today under the headline "Cyberbullying now adds to her trauma".

The report said, "Shipra Debnath, a student of Stamford University and a crew member of slain Maj (retd) Sinha Md Rashed Khan, has fallen victim to cyberbullying, her family alleged."

A group of people, including two top-ranked police officials -- Superintendent of Police Mostafijur Rahman of Satkhira and SP (Dhaka Metro-South) of the Police Bureau of Investigation Mohammad Mizanur Rahman Shelley --  have been posting her personal photographs along with provocative comments on Facebook, according to the report.

Derogatory comments were then made on the posts where people tried to malign the young woman's character. Some other police officers also endorsed the posts of their SPs.

Similar derogatory posts were also making rounds on several Facebook groups and pages, some of which were administered by policemen, including "Police e Janata, Janata e Police" and "Salute to BD Police", among others, the report added.