Officials of the National Security Intelligence beat up photojournalists as they reach its offices at Segun Bagicha in Dhaka on Thursday. Apparently a photojournalist had been detained by the security agency. — NEW AGE PHOTO

Or else why ‘National Security Intelligence (NSI) personnel yesterday swooped on them in front of the NSI office at Segun Bagicha in the capital’? As far as I remember, that can be the last prerogative for ‘our friends in the intelligence’ to act upon. Or, am I not talking sense? The ‘land of press freedom’ is rocking these days…

New Age reports,

NSI personnel assault lensmen
STAFF CORRESPONDENT

Photojournalists took to the streets and blocked busy Topkhana Road in the capital protesting against the confinement of two of their colleagues and subsequent assault on others by the National Security Intelligence personnel on Thursday.

The two photojournalists who were handed over to the Ramna police were released in the afternoon.

Witnesses said a photojournalist of Bangla daily Janakantha, Enamul Kabir, was caught by the NSI men while he was taking a snap of the outside wall of the NSI building at about 12:00 noon.

Enamul informed his office of the incident and another photojournalist of the daily Sheikh Mamun went to the NSI office to know about it, but the NSI men also took him to hostage and beat him up.

As the news spread, a number of photojournalists from different dailies also went to the office, but the NSI men assaulted them with sticks and iron rods leaving several of them injured.

The injured — Mir Ahmed Miru, photojournalist of Janakantha and also general secretary of the Bangladesh Photojournalists’ Association, Anisur Rahman of Daily Star, Raja of Bhorer Kagoj, AKM Musa of Sangram, Milon of Financial Express, and Enamul Kabir of Janakantha — were admitted to different hospitals.

The photojournalists with a number of newsmen blocked Topkhana Road near the National Press Club snapping traffic for more than three hours. They also held a rally there.

Speakers demanded punishment for those involved in the attack on the journalists. Journalists’ leaders including Reazuddin Ahmed, Shawkat Mahmud, Iqbal Sobhan Chowdhury, Ruhul Amin Gazi, Manjurul Ahsan Bulbul, Altaf Mahmud, Elahi Newaj Khan, and Shafiqur Rahman addressed the rally.

The road blockade was withdrawn when the police brought the two photojournalists to the spot from their police station and released them at about 4:30pm.

The journalists’ leaders in a statement demanded stern action against the NSI men involved in assaulting the photojournalists. They also demanded that the government should take necessary steps to stop recurrences of such incident. The signatories to the statement include Iqbal Sobhan Chowdhury, Gias Kamal Chowdhury, Reazuddin Ahmed, Manjurul Ahsan Bulbul, Ruhul Amin Gazi, Shawkat Mahmud and Altaf Mahmud.

And for anyone who thinks New Age is an ‘operation run by Indian special interest money’, Daily Star reports, (anyone with a similar complain against Star, please scroll up and stick to the Age wire)

NSI men swoop on lensmen
Staff Correspondent

Nine photojournalists of different national dailies were injured, three of them critically, when National Security Intelligence (NSI) personnel yesterday swooped on them in front of the NSI office at Segun Bagicha in the capital.

The trouble began as a photojounalist was doing his professional duties.

[Note: The photo attached with this post is from New Age. And any request for a ‘more detail’ visual account of the event will be humbly turned down.]

“It takes real courage to be a journalist in Bangladesh” — Ann Cooper, CPJ

And yes, I would really like to see how many readers type in ‘shame’ as a comment after they read this piece of ‘disgust’.