On July 18, the government announced it was blocking mobile and broadband Internet access, shutting down news broadcasts, and access to social media in light of the protests. Broadband services resumed a few days later, but only to selected areas and business sectors.
At the time, then-ICT minister Zunaid Ahmed Palak blamed the ongoing outages on protesters.
He claimed staff at three data centers in the Mohakhali area of Dhaka, including the Khawaja Tower, were forced to shut down their servers because they feared being attacked.
Now, a preliminary report from an independent seven-person committee appointed by the Ministry for Posts, Telecommunications, and Information Technology said that there was no fire.
Instead, it said that Palak himself had ordered the blackout, telling Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) chairman Md Mohiuddin Ahmed to order operators to shut down their Internet services.
“By falsely associating the Internet shutdown with the damage caused to the data center by the fire, former state minister Zunaid Ahmed Palak misled the nation and engaged in deception,” the report said.
Follow Internet shutdowns and service-blocking events via the Pulse Internet Shutdown Tracker.