IP theft of First-ever Bangla search engine 'Pipilika': Unmasking Dr. Ruhul Amin Shajib - Part 3

Today's story revolves around manipulation and gaslighting orchestrated by the 'fraudulent lecturer,' Dr. Ruhul Amin Shajib, who cunningly claimed credit for our creation, "Pipilika." It's essential to clarify that our stance is not against SUST or the SUST CSE department as a whole, and Dr. Ruhul Amin does not represent other teachers of SUST CSE. We aim to shed light on the actions of this IP thief, Dr. Ruhul Amin, so that the next generation and everyone within and outside SUST can be aware of his deceitful tactics. We want to protect future students from falling prey to such abuse, manipulation, and gaslighting. Our endeavor is to spare our juniors and others from walking the treacherous path of trauma that we endured.

Shajib's Deception at the Sylhet Divisional IT Fair

Back in December 2010, when Pipilika was gearing up to participate in the Sylhet Divisional IT Fair, we were in the midst of our fourth-year second-semester exams, completely unaware of the upcoming showcase. Shockingly, 'Teacher' Ruhul Amin didn't even bother to inform us that our hard work and creation were going to be featured at the prestigious IT fair! Instead, he cunningly utilized our junior brothers Sudipta, Naim, and Rubel from the third year to man the stall representing the Search Engine.

It was only on the fair's final day that he reached out to me after evening hours and casually dropped the bombshell, "Chisty, come to the campus now, we have got the first prize." Naïve and young as I was, any achievement, no matter how big or small, brought a rush of joy and a sense of accomplishment. I rushed to the fair's location, only to discover that the minister himself had presented the medal/crest to the juniors at the stall. The same juniors who had nothing to do with creating Pipilika! The ones who put in their hearts and souls into the project, my fellow creators, were conspicuously absent, sidelined and forgotten.

As I stood there, observing everyone packing up and closing their stalls, a profound sense of betrayal settled in my heart. Our hard work, sleepless nights, and relentless efforts had led to this recognition, yet our names and faces were nowhere to be seen. I didn't fully grasp the gravity of the situation then, but the realization hit me much later - 'Teacher' Ruhul Amin Shajib never wanted our faces or names associated with the Search Engine Pipilika Project. He tirelessly schemed to hide our contribution, knowing that without us, no one else truly understood how Pipilika worked. To the rest, it remained a mere black box - mysterious and unknown. He yearned to become the owner and face of Pipilika, desperately striving to suppress our contributions from any public exposure – the very people who dedicated themselves under his supervision. Only then could he solidify his ill wishes.

A Bond Beyond Teaching - like a sibling

Shajib was not only a teacher; we saw him as an elder brother. On a slightly different note, amidst all this, my (Chisty) relationship with 'Teacher' Shajib Bhai became very close. We spent most of our time together, knowing each other's personal matters and supporting each other like an elder brother and a younger brother.

Ban on Media Statements: Manipulating the Spotlight

After receiving the Sylhet Divisional Award, the first recognition for Pipilika, his behavior began to change. We were young, and he instilled in us the belief that our inner ideas should not be disclosed until they are officially recognized.

However, since then, he imposed restrictions on our speaking. Not everything could be shared with others. We were constantly reminded to "focus, focus, focus" on our work. One day, a journalist called Burhan's mobile, and without fully understanding the situation, Burhan gave a brief interview over the phone in a question-answer format. A few days later, a small column was published in a newspaper. Upon seeing this, 'Teacher' Shajib Bhai scolded Burhan severely. He started treating us rudely, claiming that we lacked the ability to handle journalists and that he would handle media interactions himself. Little did we realize that he was manipulating us to keep the spotlight on himself, deceiving us to fulfill his own desires.

Only Shajib's name was everywhere

After that, Shajib Bhai gave interviews at many places, and his name kept coming up as the team leader, leader, or simply his name. One day, a column about Pipilika was printed in a newspaper, stating, "Pipilika has come all the way here today under the leadership of Shajib and a bunch of young students who worked here under his supervision." Despite being only two of us, our names were nowhere to be found. We questioned how he became the team leader in our team of just two people. After all, he was our thesis project supervisor. He responded, "Hey, you know these journalists, they say one thing and write another." I remained silent after that.

Apart from Chisty and Burhan, Pipilika was a black box

To check Bengali spelling, we needed a spell checker. We incorporated the spell checker algorithm from the 2004 batch brothers into our search engine, which also provided suggestions for wrong words. Thus, a running prototype for a Bengali search engine was ready - one that could crawl, parse data with a generic parser, categorize, rank, index, search, and highlight Bengali text using Lucene Analyzer, and detect misspelled words. The crawler and spell checker were taken from the 2004 batch, but everything else was our own solution and handmade. When Bengali search engine Pipilika first ran and gained recognition, news articles were published about the dream of 'Pipilika.' However, at that time, neither I nor anyone except Burhan knew or understood a single line of code from the entire project - it was a complete black box. Pipilika would not have existed without me/Burhan.

Deceitfully trying for First Authorship of Paper

In a deceptive attempt to claim first authorship on the research paper, "Teacher" Ruhul Amin Sajib called us to a tea stall one day. He slyly proposed putting his name as the first author, questioning if we had any objections. We refused, standing firm in our belief that our hard work deserved rightful recognition.

It was not long ago when Sajib Bhai used to encourage us, promising that if a remarkable paper emerged, our names would rightfully come first. But when the time came, he conveniently wanted to place himself at the forefront. Burhan reminded him of his earlier words, questioning this sudden change of heart. Unable to justify his intentions, he grew visibly irritated.

To appease him, Burhan suggested listing the names alphabetically, but even that was met with anger. He insisted on having full control and promised to publish the paper once everything was in place. However, whenever we attempted to write the paper ourselves, he meticulously deleted our efforts, claiming they were inadequate.

The weight of his negative responses crushed our progress, leaving us unable to move forward with the paper. Eventually, our dream of having our research published was shattered, forever tainted by Sajib Bhai's deceitful ambitions. The pain of betrayal lingers, as we wonder if justice will ever be served for our stolen recognition.

NCSC (2011), and the Beginning of Funding

Pipilika achieved a significant milestone by securing the 1st prize in the National Collegiate Software Contest, marking our project's first national recognition. Soon after, GPIT (Grameenphone IT) expressed interest in our project in October 2011. They contacted us, seeking in-depth details about Pipilika. As we had recently graduated and joined our jobs, Shajib Bhai took the lead in the discussions with GPIT, but Burhan and I were well-versed in all the technical aspects of the project.

Together, we attended several meetings with the GPIT team, showcasing Pipilika's capabilities and running the entire system on their infrastructure for testing purposes by going to their office several days. However, after a while, the calls for meetings abruptly ceased. We were initially unperturbed, assuming that Shajib vai was handling everything on our behalf.

Appointing Another Team Lead for Our Project?

Soon after, I received confirmation that GPIT would invest in the Pipilika search engine. Shajib bhai called us and informed, "Join Pipilika as Deputy Team Lead, we have secured the project, and Mishu from the 2004 batch will be the Team Lead." I expressed my concern, stating that we were the ones who built the entire project and questioned why we should work under someone with whom we had a strained relationship. However, he seemed more focused on discussing the monthly pay rather than addressing my concerns. The conversation took a nasty turn when he mentioned that Pipilika would run without us!

What Do You Want? Money?

During our discussion, we expressed our deep involvement and dedication to the project. We didn't undertake this endeavor merely to pass a university course; it was a labor of love. But instead of recognition, he retorted with, "What do you want? Money?" No, our intention was not monetary gain; we sought acknowledgment for our brainchild, Pipilika. We wanted our efforts to be recognized as the driving force behind its creation. If anyone inquires about the genesis of Pipilika, they should know that these two individuals have toiled tirelessly to bring it to life. While others contributed, we took it to the level of a fully functional search engine. We simply asked for acknowledgment and recognition for our remarkable work, as it would propel our careers forward.

Fake Promises

In our last conversation, he assured us that the university would benefit as a whole from our work, and it now belonged to them. He promised that the project was gaining momentum, and soon there would be a grand opening event upon its first version release. He pledged to recognize us according to our contributions.

Pipilika's Enormous Funded Team, Infrastructure, and Knowledge Transfer

After receiving the funding, Pipilika formed a large team with abundant resources and equipment. Extensive research was conducted, and researchers and developers were hired on a monthly basis. We remained in contact with this team and had to explain our code and train them to run the project. Our contributions played a crucial role in transferring the knowledge necessary to make the entire system work. The digital footprints of this knowledge exchange still exist, as we continued to share our expertise with the team even after we started different full-time jobs.

Humiliation at the Inauguration Event

As time passed, Shajib Bhai's promises seemed to fade away. Two years after our graduation, Pipilika's grand opening ceremony took place at Hotel Sheraton in April 2013. Shajib Bhai claimed that everyone would receive the recognition they deserved.

However, during the event, it was stated that Shajib and his team had developed Pipilika - the first Bangla search engine powered by GPIT. Meanwhile, they casually mentioned that the project's name and logo were inspired by a thesis project at SUST by Burhan and Chisty. Our hearts sank at the realization that our substantial two years of hard work and dedication were undermined, reduced to a mere reference to naming and logo design.

We were left stunned and bewildered, unable to comprehend the audacity of their claims. How did GPIT come up with the idea of creating a Bangla search engine without acknowledging the groundwork we had laid? It felt like our efforts were being erased and dismissed, as if they had emerged from thin air, completely disconnected from our laborious contributions.

Shajib's IP right claim of Pipilika to SUST CSE in 2020

In 2020, after a brief contact from the CSE department, we were shocked to learn that Shajib claimed the IP rights of Pipilika for himself and presented himself as the principal innovator of the Pipilika Search Engine to SUST CSE, seeking ownership. This revelation left us stunned by his double standards. Until then, we believed that Pipilika was benefiting the SUST CSE department, and we had no objections as we were also part of the SUST CSE community.

Looking back, we realized that he had previously driven us away from the project, asserting that it now belonged solely to the SUST CSE department. To our disbelief, he now sought to claim the IP rights of Pipilika from the department, despite not making any significant contributions himself and having completely left his job at the department.

Doesn't this make him a hypocrite with double standards, and a thief of our hard work and dedication?

How can Ruhul Amin Sajib claim this as his intellectual property? This search engine is our intellectual property, a gift to SUST CSE. From our 3rd-year database project, we put in tremendous effort to create a running prototype with advanced features that even Google lacked at that time. Our search engine could suggest the correct word even if the search term was misspelled, a feature Google couldn't provide in Bengali back then (pictured in post).

GPIT didn't invest in the search engine merely based on Ruhul Amin's high CGPA! It was our project's achievements, the successful implementation on their infrastructure, and thorough testing that convinced them to invest. We were the true innovators, with our own ideas and implementation. However, he secured funding by showcasing our project and then completely revamped it with paid engineers. This is simply scaling in software engineering, not a completely different project. His claim that our work was a mere insignificant prototype is ridiculous!

How can you compare the work of a personal project done by just two students, working day and night for two long years, with a professional project handled by a huge team of highly paid engineers? Our dedication and effort deserve recognition, not dismissal!

Claiming a Revamped Project as Completely Different

Ruhul Amin Shajib wanted the world to believe that their search engine was a completely different, extensively researched, and polished product, while casually acknowledging that they just borrowed the name from us. It was heart-wrenching to witness our hard work and dedication being belittled. Our search engine wasn't just an unpaid research project; it was the result of countless sleepless nights and relentless effort put in by two passionate students. How could it be compared to the work of paid professionals? Who bridged the knowledge gap? Who came up with the ideas and successfully executed them? It was us, not him!

The bitterness of it all intensified when we realized how he secured funding by showcasing our project, only to later revamp it with a team of paid engineers. This wasn't genuine innovation; it was just scaling up our creation. To add insult to injury, he branded our hard work as a mere insignificant prototype.

How could anyone equate the dedication of two students to that of a massive team of well-paid professionals? Our efforts deserved recognition, not dismissal!

Now, the pieces started falling into place - why Dr. Ruhul Amin Shajib always positioned himself as an additional team leader in our team of two, why he forbade us from talking to others about Pipilika, and why he wanted us to remain anonymous. It was all part of his cunning plan to benefit himself. He cunningly maneuvered to become the sole owner of Pipilika, reaping the glory and fame while leaving us in the shadows. He boasts about Pipilika as one of his greatest creations, but without us, there is no one who truly knows what happened behind the scenes. It's like scoring goals on an empty field - a hollow victory built on betrayal and deception.