The inside story of how internet services were shut down during the July uprising to suppress the movement has emerged in a statement before the International Crimes Tribunal-1.
The details were revealed on Tuesday during a hearing in the crimes against humanity case filed against former ICT State Minister Zunaid Ahmed Palak, ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, and her son Sajeeb Wazed Joy.
Mirza Kamal Ahmed, Deputy Managing Director of Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Limited (BTCL), testified before the tribunal, explaining the sequence of events leading to the shutdown.
According to the witness, after 7pm on 18 July 2024, BTRC opened a WhatsApp group named “18th July ITC Operations”. Representatives from the Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company and BTCL were included in the group.
Around 7:45pm, the then BTRC Director General Kazi Mostafizur Rahman, through a voice call in the group, announced the government’s decision for an internet shutdown and issued instructions.
Additionally, another WhatsApp group named “IIG Operations” already existed. There, BTRC Deputy Director Mehereen Ahsan instructed everyone via SMS to shut down the internet and confirm by writing “Done”.
The witness said he was surprised to learn that the shutdown would apply at both the submarine cable and IIG levels. “To my knowledge, internet had never been shut down at the submarine level before,” he told the tribunal.
Around 8pm on 18 July, he received a call informing him that BTRC had ordered the shutdown of submarine bandwidth at Cox’s Bazar and Kuakata.
Around 9pm that day, the then State Minister Zunaid Ahmed Palak called the witness directly. “He asked why I was not complying with BTRC’s instructions and how long it would take to shut down the internet at the submarine level,” Mirza Kamal said.
The witness informed Palak it would take approximately 15 minutes. “He told me to shut down the internet and confirm,” he added.
The witness then instructed his subordinate to shut down the two submarine cables, and within 15 minutes, both were offline.
On 23 July, following a BTRC meeting attended by various stakeholders, Palak held a press conference assuring that internet might be restored by midnight. That night, the witness received instructions to restore the submarine bandwidth, which he did around 8:45pm.
However, on 5 August, around 10am, the BTRC Director General again ordered the submarine bandwidth shut down. It was restored again around 1:15pm the same day following further instructions.
The witness submitted to the tribunal 19 pages of call detail records of his mobile phone for one month, along with six pages of screenshots from the “18th July ITC Operations” WhatsApp group and five pages from the ‘IIG Operations’ group.
Earlier on 16 April, another witness had testified that the internet shutdown was carried out on the instructions of State Minister Palak, communicated through BTRC officials.
