Ekushey TV chairman lands in jail
Ekushey Television (ETV) Chairman Abdus Salam landed in jail after he was arrested in front of the TV station's Karwan Bazar office early yesterday in connection with a case filed under Pornography Control Act last year.
Salam was picked up around 3:30am, several hours after cable operators, mostly loyal to the ruling Awami League, allegedly stopped transmission of ETV that had broadcast live BNP leader Tarique Rahman's speech from London early Monday.
In the speech telecast several times on ETV, the BNP senior vice-chairman called upon his supporters not to return home until they topple the present government.
ETV journalists have alleged that the TV channel's transmission was blocked on instructions from ruling party leaders who were irked by “excessive” coverage of Tarique. The channel was not available in most parts of the country yesterday, they said.
Information Minister Hasanul Haq Inu, however, told reporters that the government has not blocked ETV's transmission. No such decision has been made, he said.
Briefing reporters at the Secretariat, he said the government had nothing to do with the private TV channel going off-air in many areas. “We can enquire about it but the ETV authorities have not yet made any request in this regard,” he said.
When a journalist asked whether there was any political motive behind Salam's arrest, he replied in the negative.
DB police produced the ETV chairman before Dhaka Chief Metropolitan Magistrate's Court around 3:30pm. They prayed to the court for Salam's seven-day remand while his counsels sought his bail.
The court sent him to jail, saying it would hear tomorrow both the bail and remand prayers.
In the remand prayer, the detectives said the private TV channel had broadcast obscene footage of the plaintiff in its programme Ekusher Chokh on November 6 last year on instructions and assistance from the arrestee.
Being the chairman of a media house, his involvement in such a crime is mysterious, and a punishable offence under this act, they said.
In the bail prayer, Salam's lawyers said his name was not in the first information report (FIR). He was shown arrested in the case as part of a conspiracy to harass him.
They claimed that Salam had no role in it.
On November 17 last year, a woman (name withheld) filed the case with a Dhaka court accusing four persons -- her ex-husband Mohammad Shahjalal and his brother-in-law Zakir Hossain, her “godbrother” Zahirul Haque Imran and ETV Senior Reporter Elias Hossain.
Salam was not accused in the case.
Following a court directive, Cantonment police recorded the case on November 26.
The plaintiff accused Imran, Shahjalal and Zakir of spreading gossip to demean her social status after she got divorced from Shahjalal.
The three secretly took her photos and footages, and made obscene clips by doctoring those. Imran later uploaded those clips on the internet and circulated those through cell phones, she alleged.
The accused also made posters using the photos, and pasted those on walls near her house.
ETV reporter Elias had those obscene clips aired in Ekusher Chokh on November 6, according to the case statement.
The case was later transferred to the Detective Branch of police.
WHAT WAS IN EKUSHER CHOKH
In its November 6 episode, Ekusher Chokh explained “how extramarital affairs could destroy a marriage”.
It showed that Masum (not real name) found some obscene clips of his wife Sanchita (not real name) in a friend's computer.
As the clips were circulated through mobile phones of a number of locals, a sub-inspector of Cantonment Police Station enquired him about it and harassed him, alleged Masum whose face was blurred during the entire programme.
Later, he was detained by Cantonment police, but got released after giving a bribe of Tk 30,000, Masum claimed in the programme.
Later, the sub-inspector asked Masum to give him a laptop in bribe but finally settled for a tab.
In the programme, Elias claimed his Ekusher Chokh crew secretly recorded the handover of the tab to a policeman at a local Chinese restaurant.
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