Journos end protest, concerned over outlaw poster

Journalists in Khulna yesterday ended their seven-day programme with a symbolic hunger strike against the killing of New Age newsman Manik Saha and expressed concern at the posting of posters on roadside walls apparently by an underground outfit.

The demonstrators sounded worried about the posters the outlawed Purbo Banglar Communist Party's Janajuddho faction posted near the protest venue of journalists, giving celebratory messages on the second anniversary of freeing its ringleader Tapan from police custody on January 26, 2002.

The underground outfit claimed responsibility for the killing of the former president of Khulna Press Club on January 15.

The journalists said the acts of operatives who apparently dodged security watch to post the posters around the press club underlined law and order downslide in the industrial city.

Khulna journalists urged police to arrest the killers of Manik, who was bombed to death on his way home in an incident that sent shock waves through the country.

Police yesterday quizzed Ananda Saha, an expert in making homemade bombs, arrested on January 16 for suspected ties to the banned outfit.

Investigation Officer and Officer-in-Charge of Khulna Police Station Ataur Rahman believes Ananda will give intelligence leading to the arrest of the killers.

Our Chittagong Staff Correspondent adds: Newspersons staged a daylong symbolic hunger strike in Chittagong yesterday in protest at the killing and demanding punishment to the killers.

Chattagram Sangbadpatrasebi Oikya Parishad, an alliance of journalists and other staff of newspapers, organised the strike at Chittagong Press Club.