Man arrested for ‘spreading rumour’ on stock market
BI Report || BusinessInsider
Representational collected photo
A team of Detective Branch of police has arrested a man from Brahmanbaria for his alleged connection in spreading rumours about the stock market by posting misinformation at different times through his Facebook page.
The arrested, Mahbubur Rahman, was detained on Tuesday following the filing of a general diary (GD) by the Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission (BSEC), the market regulator said in a press release.
The investigating officer of the case will apply for a ten-day remand to interrogate the accused.
According to the BSEC, Rahman posted a post on a Facebook page called “Sharebazar-2021” on December 19 last year that said, “Go out and sell whatever you can. The index will fall to 5600 … not panic, it’s real.”
Besides, Rahman tried to influence the market by posting various rumours about the stock market on that Facebook page at different times.
In view of this, BSEC filed a general diary against Mahbubur Rahman at Sher-e-Bangla Nagar Police Station on December 23 last year. The commission’s Deputy Director Munshi Md Enamul Haque filed the complaint.
He is an employee of Biman Bangladesh, according to BSEC.
Regarding the matter, BSEC Executive Director and Spokesperson Mohammad Rezaul Karim said that various misinformation posted on social media has played a role in the negative trend of the stock market in the last few days. The commission is taking steps to bring them under the law.
BSEC said that Rahman had been spreading rumours about the stock market at various times through his Facebook page, which came to the notice of the regulator’s Social Media Monitoring Cell.
The BSEC is working closely with the Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (BTRC) and the Bangladesh Computer Council’s Digital Security Agency to control rumours in the stock market, he said.
In the meantime, 31 Facebook IDs engaged in rumour mongering on the marker have been deactivated in the wake of BSEC complaints. The commission will take further action against those IDs if necessary, Karim added.
