Journo brutalised by cops

The way the Dhaka University correspondent of the New Age was beaten up by a police ASI and his group on Sunday seems that the law enforcers apparently had a grudge against him which they vented, in a manner that required the victim of their brutality to need medical attention. Reportedly, the police assault on the said journalist started when he was apprehended on the road which continued all the way to the police station and, for quite sometime, after he was hauled inside the police station.  

The reason why the said journalist, who happens to be a student of the university also, incurred police wrath was that he wanted  to record in his camera the police violating the very rule that they had introduced recently, and which they were supposed to enforce, i.e. the rule prohibiting pillion riding that the said ASI was indulging in.  

We condemn the action in the strongest possible terms. Even if the said journalist had erred in observing traffic rules, as the police allege he had, he could have been proceeded against under the existing law. Why must a citizen be physically tortured by the police? And the journalist was tortured in the cruelest manner, going by the report. Why should a journalist be prevented from performing his duty?

This not an isolated case; such police cruelty occurs more often than not with no room for the victim to seek redress. We believe that unless the errant policemen are taken to task for their gross highhandedness such behaviour will continue in the future.