Dhaka: Social networking giant Facebook on Thursday restores a Facebook page of Bangladeshi news-based website 24livenewspaper.com to its rightful party after it had been taken by another group 19 days ago.

A group of miscreant took away the ownership of the Facebook page on 16 September by opening another page using the same name. They soon made the new page ‘verified’ by the Facebook. Then the Facebook authorities were asked by the fraudulent users to delete the former page and merge the likes and users. Facebook acted accordingly.

24livenewspaper.com chief executive officer (CEO) Jamal Uddin said the Facebook authorities had restored the page to the original party after scrutinising ownership papers and necessary papers.

He expressed his gratitude to NTV Online (ntbvd.com) for its cooperation in getting back the ownership of the page.

24livenewspaper.com commenced its journey in 2011 and launched its FB page, www.facebook.com/24livenewspaper, next year.

The original FB page dribbled past over 3.9 million ‘like’ mark over years.

The page, however, found closed on 16 September and another page with the same name was found functioning on the Facebook. At the outset, the duplicate FB page started using the original page’s profile picture, cover photo, and website link. The URL of the fake FB page has been changed at least two times. The first URL was www.facebook.com/newsbd241 and the current one is www.facebook.com/bangladesh24live.

Then the fake verified FB page added at least four website addresses as their portal but that were not accessible.

The fake verified FB page did not bear any contact address or numbers.

The 24livenewspaper authorities filed a general diary with Dhanmondi Model Police Station in Dhaka over the issue. The GD number was 653.

After verifying the issue, NTV Online published a report on September 19 heading ‘News portal’s Facebook page stolen’.

Besides publishing the report, NTV Online chief Khandaker Fakaruddin Ahmed and its news editor Rafiqul Ranju also mailed the Facebook authorities asking them to restore the ownership to the rightful party.

Fakaruddin Ahmed said, ‘We took the issue seriously as it was a huge blow over Bangladesh’s online market.’

‘The top news outlets can face big blow by this way. Online portals in Bangladesh solely rely on Facebook to reach its viewers. Such organisations may collapse in no time if their Facebook pages go missing.’