Inqilab news editor on 5-day remand

Inqilab news editor Rabiulla Robi was placed on a five-day remand today a day after detectives arrested him from his office on Tuesday night on charge of publishing a report.

The raid came hours after Praloy Kumar Juarder, an acting assistant inspector general of police, filed a case under the Information and Communications Technology Act-2006 against four journalists of the daily including Robi for running the report on its online version.

The other accused are Inqilab editor and publisher AMM Bahauddin, city editor Sakhawat Hossain Badsha, and reporter concerned.  

Although, the report headlined ‘A police official enjoying unchallenged authority using the prime minister's name’ was published in the print version on August 18, police filed the case under the ICT Act that empowers police to arrest journalists for publishing it in the daily’s website.

Praloy in his case statement termed the report a blatant lie, baseless, defamatory and motivated. It is also tantamount to character assassination.

The case statement also said the report was an attempt to hurt the religious sentiment making a racial comment. Saying, “He has created an undeclared Hindu League in the police force.”

Apart from this, the report intentionally tried to break chain of command in police as it stated that he (Praloy) was creating divisions among senior police officers.  

The daily falsely accused him, Praloy, an Additional Superintendent of Police who is now in the charge of AIG (Planning and Research), of amassing huge amount of money by exercising illegal power in police transfer, recruitment and sending personnel to UN peace keeping mission.

Praloy had earlier served as the protocol officer of the prime minister.

Deputy Commissioner (public relations) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police Md Masudur Rahman said drive is on to arrest all the accused.