RAB arrests DSE Director Minhaz in digital security case.

The RAB has arrested Minhaz Mannan Emon, a director of the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE), on charges of spreading disinformation against the government in a Digital Security Act case.

The 52-year-old was apprehended in Banani area of Dhaka on Wednesday and later handed to the Ramna police, according to RAB-3 Commander and Assistant Superintendent of Police Abu Zafar Md Rahmat Ullah.

He is Managing Director of BLI Securities Ltd, reports FT.

Minhaz, a cousin of Education Minister Dipu Moni, lost his brother Xulhaz Mannan, a US embassy official and LGBT rights activist, in a militant attack in 2016.

The Rapid Action Battalion also arrested Didarul Bhuiyan of Rashtrochinta, a group of political activists, cartoonist Ahmed Kabir Kishore and writer Mushtaq Ahmed in the same case.

The accused also include blogger Asif Mohiuddin and journalist Tasneem Khalil, both of whom are abroad.

The others are Saer Zulkarnain, who runs a Facebook page called ‘I am Bangladeshi’, Ashiq Imran, Phillipp Schuhmacher, Shapan Wahid, Shahed Alam, Asif Mohiuddin and some five unidentified people.

The accused have long been propagating rumours about Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Liberation War, coronavirus epidemic, and spreading disinformation about the government to belittle it by using the Facebook page and their personal accounts, according to the charges brought in the case.