Besides, RDC Nazim Uddin, ADC (assistant commissioner) Rintu Bikash Chakma and ADC SM Rahatul Islam, and 30-40 unidentified government employees were included in the complaint filed with Kurigram Sadar Police Station on Thursday afternoon.On behalf of tortured journalist Ariful Islam Regan, Bangla Tribune’s senior reporter Nuruzzaman Labu lodged the complaint.
Kurigram Sadar Police Station officer-in charge Md Mahfuzar Rahman received the case. At that time, Kurigram Press Club general secretary Ataur Rahman Biplob, District Sanmilito Sangskritik Jote convener Shyamol Bhowmik, District Ghatak-Dalal Nirmul Committee general secretary Dulal Bose, Bangla Tribune’s Lalmonirhat district correspondent Moazzem, local representatives of print and electronic media were present.
Nuruzzaman Labu said Regan himself couldn’t come to the police station as he has been undergoing treatment at a hospital. Even, he had to sign the complaint with his left hand as he felt pain in his right hand. OC Mahfuzar Rahman said next steps would be taken regarding the complaint.
A mobile court on Friday midnight sentenced a journalist to one year in jail and fined him Tk 50,000 for possession of ‘liquor and hemp’. The arrested, Ariful Islam Regan, is the district correspondent of online news portal Bangla Tribune.
“A taskforce of police, Ansar, and Department of Narcotics Control arrested Ariful with 450ml local liquor and 100g hemp at midnight,” said Rintu Bikash Chakma, executive magistrate of the taskforce. “The mobile court sentenced him to one year imprisonment and fined him Tk 50,000 after he confessed to his part,” he added. But Ariful’s wife Mostarima Sardar Nitu claimed that a group of law enforcers entered their home at Charuapara around midnight and took her husband away forcefully.
“They didn’t say anything why they were arresting him,” she added. On Monday, the government withdrew Kurigram DC Sultana Pervin and three executive magistrates following an internal inquiry into arrest, torture and jailing of journalist midnight past Friday on the pretext of anti-drug mobile court.
Later, Regan was given bail by a court in Kurigram district. It was learnt that the DC herself secretly arranged the bail for the journalist.
