Patwary summoned to court for ‘threatening’ Mirza Abbas

A Dhaka court has summoned National Citizens Party (NCP) Chief Coordinator Nasiruddin Patwary for defamation, criminal intimidation, and insulting Mirza Abbas, the prime minister's political advisor and member of the BNP National Standing Committee.

Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Md Hasan Shahadat issued the order on Sunday.

Earlier in the day, Ramna Thana BNP President Ashraful Islam had filed a case petition against Patwary, reports bdnews24.com.

The plaintiff's legal counsellor, Amirul Islam (Amir), said the court has recorded the statement of the plaintiff and summoned the defendant.

The petition said, “In the 13th parliamentary election, Nasiruddin Patwary lost to Mirza Abbas by a huge margin after contesting with the Shapla Koli symbol. During the election, this suspect made false and defamatory statements at various times. Not only that, after losing the election by a huge margin, he has been making more and more false and defamatory statements and various threats through different social media posts and online newspapers.”

"Most recently, on Mar 5, Ashraful Islam saw on Facebook that Patwary made various defamatory statements about Mirza Abbas. The statements went viral on social media platforms, including Facebook and YouTube, tarnishing Mirza Abbas's reputation.”

“In order to tarnish Abbas's reputation and political career, Patwary has deliberately and intentionally published one false and fabricated statement after another on social media, which is beyond all etiquette and civilised customs and is defamatory."

Abbas and Patwary contested the Dhaka-8 constituency in the Feb 12 election. The BNP stalwart faced strong competition from the NCP candidate in the much-discussed showdown.

Abbas, a BNP standing committee member, won the race by 4,980 votes. He bagged 56,552 votes while Patwary got 51,572 votes.