Saddam Hossain :
A case has been filed against several journalists in Feni for reporting on a self-confessed drug trafficker in Fulgazi upazila of Feni. UP member Rahim Ullah filed the case in the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate Fatema Tuz Johra, judge of the Fulgazi Administrative Court on Wednesday, April 23. The judge took cognizance of the case and ordered the District Intelligence Bureau (DB) to investigate.
Daily Feni’s own reporter and Dhaka Post’s district correspondent Tarek Chowdhury has been named as the number one accused in the case. Although the name of the editor of the Daily Feni newspaper is mentioned as the accused, Arifur Rahman is written in place of Ariful Amin Rizvi in the case statement. Apart from this, the names of Mamunur Rahman as a reporter of the Daily Feni, Jamshed Alam Anik and Omar Faruk as reporters of the Dhaka Post and 10-12 other unidentified people have been mentioned. The case statement states that Rahim Ullah has published news with the intention of socially humiliating him by referring to himself as a worker of the Nationalist Party and a member of UP during the Awami League government.
According to the case statement, on April 4, Daily Feni journalist Tarek Chowdhury asked Rahim Ullah for time to speak. On April 18, four journalists entered the plaintiff’s furniture shop with booms (microphones) bearing the logos of Daily Feni and Dhaka Post and recorded videos on their mobile phones and questioned him. They told Rahim Ullah that they would pay 5 lakh taka to please Dhaka Post and Daily Feni journalist Tarek Chowdhury and not to publish the news. The statement mentioned that he suffered a defamation of one crore taka due to the published news. Meanwhile, the statement of the case states that Tarek Chowdhury demanded a ransom of 5 lakh taka from the plaintiff Rahim Ullah on his mobile phone, but no reporter from Daily Feni went to the spot in the incident, said Daily Feni Editor Ariful Amin Rizvi and the reporter of the news Tarek Chowdhury.
In this regard, Tarek Chowdhury, the in-house reporter of Daily Feni and the district representative of Dhaka Post, said that this is investigative news. In view of the complaints of the locals, we took Rahim Ullah’s statement on his mobile phone. In it, he admitted responsibility for everything and commented that all these activities were his profession. That is what is written in the report. Moreover, if he had denied the allegations, that is what would have been written. The complete call record of 1 minute and 44 seconds has been preserved. It has also been published on the Facebook page of Daily Feni. There was no demand for ransom or anything outside the subject of the news. What he mentioned in the statement is completely fabricated and imaginary.
Daily Feni Editor Ariful Amin Rizvi said that no reporter of Daily Feni met Rahim Ullah or went to his shop in this incident. The news that was published and the one who thinks that it went against him has himself admitted to being involved in these activities. He said that filing a case cannot and has not disrupted the work of Daily Feni. Daily Feni does not report for or against anyone, it reports with true information. It will continue to do so in the future.
Earlier, on Tuesday, April 22, Daily Feni and Dhaka Post published an investigative news report on drug trafficking, smuggling and human trafficking in Amjad Hat Union of Fulgazi Upazila under the title ‘Smuggling at the border, UP member in the empire, said to do business’. It revealed the names of several people, including UP member of Ward No. 7 of Fulgazi Union and BNP activist Rahim Ullah, who are involved in these illegal transactions at the border. Although the names of Dhaka Post and two journalists are mentioned in the case, in reality there is no one by that name at Dhaka Post, said Ruhul Amin Royal, in-charge of Dhaka Post’s Mofussal Division.
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