The Detective Branch (DB) of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) has detained an official of Bangabhaban, official residence of the president, in connection with the hacking of the X account (formerly Twitter) of Jamaat-e-Islami ameer Shafiqur Rahman.
DB officers detained Mohammad Sarwar Alam, an assistant programmer at Bangabhaban, late on Tuesday night from the Rajarbagh area of the capital and took him to the DB office for questioning.
Speaking to Prothom Alo, Shafiqul Islam, additional commissioner of the DMP’s DB, said that DB officers had brought an individual named Sarwar Alam to the DB office for interrogation in connection with the hacking of Jamaat-e-Islami ameer Shafiqur Rahman’s X account.
He added that the authorities would take appropriate action after completing the interrogation.
A DB source said that officers detained Sarwar Alam at around 12:30 am from the government quarters located on the eastern side of the Rajarbagh police lines auditorium.
The DB seized his mobile phone and laptop during the operation.
On Saturday afternoon, an English-language post appeared on the Jamaat ameer’s X account.
One part of the post stated, “We believe that when women are pushed out of the home in the name of modernity, they are exposed to exploitation, moral decay, and insecurity. It's nothing but another form of prostitution.”
The post, particularly this portion, triggered widespread discussion and criticism on social media. Activists and influencers aligned with the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) claimed that the Jamaat ameer had gravely insulted working women. Many ordinary Facebook users also expressed strong criticism.
Amid the controversy, Jamaat-e-Islami issued a statement on its official Facebook page at 12:40 am on Saturday night, claiming that a cyberattack had spread false statements in the name of the party’s ameer.
The statement also said that cyberattacks had targeted the social media accounts of several other senior Jamaat leaders.
To clarify its position, Jamaat-e-Islami convened an emergency press conference at its central office in Moghbazar, Dhaka, at 10:00 am on Sunday.
During the briefing, two members of the party’s Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Cell, engineer Sirajul Islam and engineer Mahmudur Rahman, gave a presentation explaining how the ameer’s X account had been hacked.
Mahmudur Rahman demonstrated the alleged method used to compromise the account. He claimed that the perpetrators used an official government email address to carry out the attack.
According to him, someone sent an email from assistantprogrammar@bangabhaban.gov.bd to a Jamaat email account, attaching a file described as containing election-related information.
He alleged that the email originated from Mohammad Sarwar Alam, an employee of the president’s office.