Journo detained, sued under DSA for ‘writing against cop’

Police picked up a journalist after barging into his home on Wednesday in Dinajpur's Ghoraghat on allegations of writing against a police officer on social media. 

The arrestee is Iftekhar Ahmed Khan Babu (37), working for the newspaper Delta Times.

According to locals, a team from Ghoraghat Police Station raided Babu's residence around 10:30pm. Babu was home and went live on Facebook soon after police arrived. The Daily Star received the nine-minute video clip.

He repeatedly asked the police to show a warrant, but officers told him to come out of his home, and Babu refused to do so.

Later, police personnel started trying to break the house's window grille and door, and some officers pointed their guns at Babu, as he said during the Facebook live.

During the broadcast, Babu said police came to arrest him just for writing about the wrongdoings of Ghoraghat Police Station Officer-in-Charge (OC) Md Azim Uddin.

On December 21, the OC went to the upazila's Osmanpur Bazar and took hardware materials worth Tk 4,300 from a shop on credit. Babu was present there.

Shafiqul Islam, the shop's owner, said the OC told him that payment will be made later, but he did not receive it as of yesterday. Babu wrote about the incident on his Facebook page recently. 

Shafiqul filed a general diary (GD) with Ghoraghat Police Station on Tuesday regarding the Facebook post. However, he refused to respond when asked whether he was pressured to file the GD.

Contacted, OC Azim Uddin, denying all allegations, said Babu was deliberately writing against him.

He said two cases were filed against Babu, one under Digital Security Act by the station's Sub-inspector Khurshid Alam, and another for theft.