Unidentified men vandalise office of media group in Bangladesh; assault woman journalist

Dhaka: Unidentified men armed with hockey sticks and batons on Monday vandalised the office of a media group and assaulted a woman journalist here in the Bangladeshi capital, media reports said.

At least 70 attackers vandalised the East West Media Group, a subsidiary of the Bashundhara Group, in the Bashundhara Residential Area here. They used hockey sticks and batons to attack the media house around 2 pm local time, the bdnews24.com news portal reported.

The Daily Star newspaper reported that the attackers assaulted a female journalist, who was rescued by her colleagues. She sustained minor injuries.

Enamul Haque Chowdhury, Editor of The Daily Sun, a publication of the East West Media Group, said that the attack continued for about 20 minutes during which they damaged 11 parked vehicles and vandalised the Radio Capital office, apparently thinking it was Channel 24 office, owned by our East -West Group.

The Daily Sun and the Kaler Kantha office were also partly damaged but no one inside was injured.

The students from nearby two private universities later came and told us they were not involved in the attack and rather condemned it, he added.

It appears that the attack was carried out because of some rivalry, not for political reasons, he said.

The attackers first entered the Radio Capital office and vandalised doors, window panes, laptops, computers and broadcasting machinery, the Daily Star reported.

Later, the attackers vandalised several cars and motorcycles parked inside the media complex.

The media complex houses two Bangla dailies, Kaler Kantho and Bangladesh Pratidin; an English daily, Daily Sun; an online news portal, banglanews24.com; a television news channel, News 24, and T Sports, a Bengali-language sports television channel.

East West Media Group PLC is a media conglomerate in Bangladesh and a subsidiary of Bashundhara Group.

Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has strongly condemned and protested the cowardly attack on the East-West Media Group.

In the statement, BNP said a group of miscreants attacked the East-West Media Group after storming into its Bhaban at Bashundhara Residential Area with hockey sticks, causing damage to equipment and machines, including computers and ACs.

It said the heinous attack was carried out by miscreants under an evil purpose and conspiracy.

The attack was launched for impeding the journey towards democracy following the student-people movement and for creating confusion in the people's mindset, it said.

The attack came on a day when newly-appointed Home Affairs Adviser Lt Gen (retd) Md. Jahangir Alam Chowdhury acknowledged that law and order is the main challenge and said that the new administration is focused on improving the situation as quickly as possible.

"Our main challenge at the Ministry of Home Affairs is law and order. We are focused on improving the situation as quickly as possible,” Chowdhury, who was appointed on Friday, was quoted as saying by the UNB news.

The law and order situation deteriorated in Bangladesh after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled to India on August 5 following massive protests against her government over a controversial quota system in government jobs.

Over 230 people were killed in the incidents of violence that erupted across the country following the fall of the Hasina-led Awami League government, taking the death toll to more than 600 since the massive protest by students first started in mid-July.

An interim government was formed after the fall of the Hasina-led government, and 84-year-old Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus was named its Chief Adviser.