Protesters burn Prothom Alo
Protesters burn Prothom Alo
A group of people besieged daily Prothom Alo office in the capital today protesting an alleged distortion of the history of Liberation War in the biography of Narendra Modi.
On May 17, the Bangla newspaper published a profile of India’s newly elected prime minister Narendra Modi, titled ‘Tea-seller to Prime Minister’ – saying he had “formally joined RSS as a ‘campaigner’ after the India-Pakistan war of 1971”.
In protest of mentioning the liberation war of 1971 as "Indo Pakistan war" the online group called Crack Platoon (CP) Gang opened an event at its official Facebook page announcing to siege Prothom Alo office on Wednesday.
Chanting slogans "Joy Bangla, Joy Bangabandhu", members of the online platform burnt some copies of the Prothom Alo in front of its Karwan Bazar office and demanded arrest of its editor Matiur Rahman and cancellation of the daily’s publication.
Dozens of people, dressed in black T-shirt, gathered before the Petrobangla office at Karwan Bazar around 3:30pm.
Later, in an explanation, the daily said that the story had been based on information provided by news agency Indo-Asian News Service (IANS) and that it had been kept unchanged.
Though the same Modi news was carried out by several other news papers in Bangladesh, protesters selectively chose only Prothom Alo to raise this issue.
Carrying placards, later the protesters marched towards the building of Prothom Alo's and chanted slogans like ‘Joy Bangla’, ‘Joy Bangabandhu’, ‘No mercy for history distorter’, ‘Shaheed Opoman Shoibona’, ‘Matiur Rahman is Paksitani agent’, ‘Pakistaner dalali cholbena’.
A huge number of law enforcers were deployed in the spot.
Several leaders and activists of Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) central and Dhaka University unit took part in the protest.
They held a banner blaming Prothom Alo for "instigating communal violence", "misappropriating money in the name of aiding the poor".
The protesters also distributed leaflets urging people to boycott Prothom Alo.
Facing police resistance the protestors later returned towards Petrobangla office.