Shajahan Khan sues Inqilab editor Bahauddin

Awami League’s presidium member and former shipping minister Shajahan Khan has filed a defamation case against editor of the daily Inqilab AMM Bahauddin and another person on Sunday.

Shajahan Khan lodged the case with the Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM) court, said his lawyer Syed Kamruzzaman.

The court took cognisance of the case and instructed the Police Bureau of Investigation (PBI) to investigate the matter and submit a report by 16 September.

The other accused in the case is Quaderia Publications and Products Limited's director Abdul Quader. .

Shajahan Khan complained that AMM Bahauddin on 28 July published an editorial in his newspaper regarding his daughter Oaishe Khan's COVID-19 report. The report had defamed him and his daughter.

Shajahan’s daughter Oaishe Khan, a student of UK’s Coventry University, was supposed to leave for London in a flight of Biman Bangladesh Airlines from Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport on 26 July.

The airport authorities found out that she was actually COVID-19 positive, but she had a copy of a negative report.

Shajahan in the case said it was the fault of the National Institute of Laboratory Medicine and Reference Center and neither he nor his daughter had anything to do with it.

The government organisation’s director Abul Khayer Mohammad Shmsuzzaman later accepted their mistake at a press briefing, Shajahan Khan said.