The cabinet on Monday approved the draft bill seeking amendment to the Information and Communication Technology Act raising the maximum punishment for offences to imprisonment for 14 years.
According to the bill, the serious offences would be cognisable and non-bailable, said officials. The information and communication technology ministry placed the draft bill at the weekly cabinet meeting at the cabinet division to check cyber crimes like hacking of computer system, transferring and destroying data and posting objectionable photos and remarks online or in electronic format dishonouring any individual, the officials said.
‘Further amendment to the act was sought to check misuse of the information technology. The jail term under the act will be extended to 14 years from 10 years and the minimum punishment is now seven years for committing serious offences under the law,’ cabinet secretary Mohammad Musharraf Hossain Bhuiyan said at a briefing after the meeting.
Once the Information and Communication Technology (Amendment) Bill 2013 is passed, a person accused of violation of the law would be arrested without any warrant for the arrest and the ‘offences of serious nature’ would be considered non-bailable, Musharraf Hussain said.
Rights activist Adilur, now in jail, was arrested on August 10 in Dhaka allegedly for fabricating facts about the police action against Hefajat-e-Islam activists at Motijheel on May 5.
The government claimed that Adilur, also a Supreme Court lawyer, was arrested under the Information and Communication Technology Act on specific charges of disseminating fabricated information and distorted photographs.
-With New Age input
