Arrests of journalists Sikdar, Mahmud do not mean media is being muzzled in Bangladesh, says home minister

Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal has said Probir Sikdar and Shawkat Mahmud have been arrested on specific charges and ‘these will not gag the voice of journalists’.

Amidst criticism over the arrest of journalist Sikdar in a case under the ICT Act, police arrested BNP chief Khaleda Zia’s adviser and journalist union leader Mahmud on Tuesday on charges of violence during protests.
 
“There are over 500 newspapers, TV stations, and online media. Everyone can speak freely,” the home minister told reporters at his Secretariat office later in the day.
 
Sikdar, whose father was killed during the Liberation War, was arrested on Sunday on charges of defaming LGRD and Cooperatives Minister Khandker Mosharraf Hossain in a post on Facebook.
 
A court on Tuesday granted police three days to question him.
 
Leaders of political parties and rights activists have criticised the arrest of Sikdar.
 

File Photo

Awami League leader Suranjit Sengupta said a conscious human being could not just act normal over the incident. 

Information Minister Hasanul Haq Inu dubbed it ‘unfortunate’ and said his ministry would make sure Sikdar was not denied legal rights.

The home minister said, “The case against him was filed on behalf of a senior minister. Everyone was sympathising with him for this.”

“But it is our senior Cabinet minister who filed the case expressing concern.”

Sikdar went to police after getting death threats over his writings. But when police refused to take his complaint, he wrote about the threat to his life and blamed, among others, Minister Hossain on Facebook.

He said the minister and the others would be responsible for his death.

A government lawyer in Faridpur filed a case against Sikdar late on Sunday, hours after his detention in Dhaka.

On Tuesday, journalist union leader Mahmud was arrested at Panthapath on his way to a pro-BNP citizens’ programme.

“He, too, has been arrested on specific charges,” the home minister said.

Mahmud has several cases over violence during protests, but the home minister could not specify he was arrested on what charges.

Minister Kamal also faced questions about the killing of a boy in Dhaka after similar murders in Sylhet, Khulna and Barguna.

“These incidents don’t have any link with each other. 

“Most of those involved in these have been arrested,” he said.

About the killings in so-called ‘encounters’ with law enforcers in Dhaka and Magura early on Tuesday, the minister  said, "They were killed in firing.”

RAB killed Arzu Mia in Dhaka and Sheikh Azibor in Magura.

Chhatra League leader Arzu was held for beating a teenage boy to death on accusation of stealing gadgets. 

Azibor was a suspect of a shooting that left one killed, one injured and a baby shot in its mother’s womb.