(Media Watch/IFEX) – The following is a Media Watch press release: In two separate incidents, terrorist groups threatened two journalists in two district towns of the country. 1. A terrorist group threatened to cut off the legs of Qamruzzaman Sohel, Faridpur district correspondent for the daily Manavjamin. Manavjamin recently serialised an investigative report on Faridpur’s […]
(Media Watch/IFEX) – The following is a Media Watch press release:
In two separate incidents, terrorist groups threatened two journalists in two district towns of the country.
1. A terrorist group threatened to cut off the legs of Qamruzzaman Sohel, Faridpur district correspondent for the daily Manavjamin. Manavjamin recently serialised an investigative report on Faridpur’s terrorist activities. On 12 May, the newspaper listed 14 terrorists and tried to find out who the leader of the group is. The gang became very annoyed with these reports and threatened to chop off Sohel’s legs. They mentioned the case of Prabir Sikder, the Faridpur district correspondent of the daily Janakantha, who lost one of his legs after a terrorist bomb attack on him. He is still in hospital and doctors are fighting to save one of his hands. Police are still investigating the Sikder case.
2. In a separate incident, fundamentalist Jamar-e-Islami leader Abdul Ali of Samanta bazar, Maheshpur upazilla, of the south-western district of Jenidah, threatened the local correspondent of the daily Bhorer Kagoj, Seikh Selim. On May 6, 2001, the daily Bhorer Kagoj published a report critical of the Jamar-e-Islami, stating that they demolished some parts of the local Saheed Minar (a monument for the martyrs of the country’s language movement). After publishing the story with a picture, the fundamentalist group threatened the journalist and announced that they will totally destroy the Minar. The local press club and political parties protested against the fundamentalist activities.
