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Agency withdraws report on Bangladesh

By Haroon Habib

DHAKA Dec. 15. The news report that the terrorist network, Al-Qaeda, could be involved in the recent serial bomb blasts in Mymensingh has finally been withdrawn by the news agency, Reuters. The report was based on comments attributed to the Bangladesh Home Minister, Altaf Hossain Chowdhury.

The development has paved the way for further deterioration of the already volatile scenario in the journalistic domain.

Police arrested Enamul Haq Chowdhury, Reuters stringer, and charged him with "tarnishing" the country's image as the news item contradicted the persistent claim of the Government.

Mr. Chowdhury surrendered as his wife, Nahid, and a relative were picked up in an unprecedented midnight swoop. Nahid was released later.

The Bangladesh Federal Union of Journalists (BFUJ) and the Dhaka Union of Journalists (DUJ) have protested the arrest.

A Government handout, meanwhile, said editors of national dailies, news agencies and the electronic media had told the Information Minister, Tariqul Islam, that the Reuters had ``miserably failed to perform its professional duties'' in reporting the Mymensingh bomb blasts on December 7 and 8. And they had requested the Government not to "harass" innocent journalists.

Police raided the Dhaka office of Reuters and seized documents related to its reports about the serial bomb blasts at four cinema halls in Mymensingh on December 7. They claimed that the journalist had admitted to "wrongdoing."

The Home Minister has already served a legal notice on Reuters. And the management of the BSS, in which the journalist was a senior correspondent, has sacked him for "violating service rules.''

Another journalist, Barun Bhoumik Nayan, was arrested by a joint team of the Bangladesh Army and police from the Savar adjoining Dhaka on Saturday.Confirming the arrest, police said the journalist, working for the Al-Amin, a daily owned by a leader of the Awami League, was involved in ``spying, hundi trade and patronisation of terrorist groups.''

In another related development, the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate's court here rejected the bail petition of journalists Saleem Samad and Monija Pricilla Raj, also an NGO activist, accused in a case of sedition.

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