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Dhaka University's (DU) policy to prevent plagiarism has come under serious scrutiny after philosophy department professor Rebeka Sultana, accused of copying more than 40% of her PhD thesis, was exonerated by syndicate using a clause that allows up to 20% similarity and excludes properly cited content from plagiarism assessment.
University's syndicate, in its last meeting under former vice-chancellor (VC) Prof Dr Niaz Ahmed Khan on February 10, absolved Prof. Rebeka Sultana following an investigation into plagiarism allegations against her PhD thesis and a paper published in the Journal of Sociology.
However, on July 15, an academician who requested anonymity for this report formally asked the University Grants Commission (UGC) to reopen its investigation into Prof Rebeka Sultana, who had been accused of plagiarising more than 43% of her PhD thesis, after DU Syndicate absolved her in February without publicly providing a detailed explanation.
When reached for comment by The Daily Observer, Prof Rebeka Sultana replied, “Why are you asking me these questions? You should talk to the administration,” before hanging up. She did not respond to subsequent inquiries sent via WhatsApp.
According to the letter, overall similarity score for the thesis is 43.31% (27,819 of 64,079 words flagged), and after excluding properly quoted or cited material, the letter calculates unattributed plagiarism at roughly 38.49% of the total thesis.
Complainer separately noted that this figure could rise to around 50% if additional uncredited newspaper and periodical sources it suspects but has not fully verified are included.
These are complainer’s own calculations from his reading of the Turnitin data, not an independently verified figure.
Complaint alleges the discharge came on the recommendation of Prof. Dr. Mohammad Siddiqur Rahman Khan, former Dean of the Faculty of Arts and now VC of the Bangladesh Open University.
Case has exposed a loophole in The Rules for Prevention of Plagiarism, approved by the Academic Council in January 2023 and ratified by the syndicate that May.
Under clause 3(a)(i), a researcher escapes penalty if overall similarity stays within 20% and no single source accounts for more than 2%.
Clause 3(b)(i) goes further, excluding properly cited passages from the similarity count altogether, meaning copied content with a citation attached does not count as plagiarism at all.
Complaint says a Turnitin report shows Prof Sultana copied 20,079 words from a 2019 PhD thesis by Md Rafiqul Islam, supervised by philosophy department honorary professor Dr. A. K. M. Haroonar Rashid.
According to the complaint letter, an analysis attributed to a Turnitin report found that Prof Sultana's thesis, titled ‘The Position of Democracy in Political Philosophy and its Relevance to Bangladesh’, carried an overall similarity score of 43.31% and a separate research paper showed 57.63% similarity, with 38 consecutive plagiarised pages identified across two source texts.
Letter breaks the alleged copying down by chapter: 72.5% in chapter 3, 68.31% in chapter 5, 57.63% in chapter 6, and 59.7% in chapter 7.
Complaint alleges that in chapter 5, Prof Sultana copied 6,437 words without attribution from a book by Prof Anwara Begum, equivalent to roughly 65% of that chapter, and separately drew on a 2014 MPhil thesis by Md Baizid Ahmed of the Public Administration department covering similar subject matter on election law.
Further allegation states that in chapter six, of 2,823 words, 1,714 were copied, with 1,107 words used without quotation marks or citation, and that this chapter was separately published in the Journal of Sociology under her name without disclosing it was drawn from the thesis.
Letter also claims that in chapter 7, Prof Sultana copied approximately 9,437 of 15,381 words from a 2019 PhD thesis by Md Rafiqul Islam, supervised by DU philosophy department honorary professor Dr. A. K. M. Haroonar Rashid, including 18 consecutive pages reproduced verbatim from pages 174 to 192, and a further eleven consecutive pages from pages 196 to 213.
Across the full thesis, the letter puts total alleged copying at 27,819 of 64,079 words, about 43%, adding that the figure could rise to around 50% if additional uncredited newspaper sources are accounted for.
Chapters one and two showed comparatively lower similarity, at 17.19% and 14.36% respectively, largely attributed in the letter to properly quoted material.
UGC wrote to the complainant on May 3 confirming action had been taken against Prof Sultana, without detailing what that action was.
Complainer said that he was not formally contacted during the course of the university's investigation, and that earlier press reports indicated DU’s own fact-finding committee had found merit in the original allegations when the matter was discussed at Senate sessions in 2023 and 2024.
He has asked the UGC to explain, in writing, what evidence or reasoning supported the eventual discharge.
Repeated attempts to reach former DU VC, DU syndicate members as well as academic council members and the UGC for comment went unanswered.
