Accused SI closed
Police assaulted and detained two photojournalists of The Daily Star and New Age when they went to Siddhirganj of Narayanganj to take photos of hartal incidents on Tuesday.
Mamun Sirajul Haque, a sub-inspector of Siddhirganj Police Station, who led the assault, was closed to the Narayanganj Police Lines instantly following an allegation filed by The Daily Star, said our correspondent quoting SM Ashrafuzzaman, additional superintendent of Narayanganj.
The photographers are: Amran Hossain, a senior staff photographer of The Daily Star, and Sourav Loskar, a staff photographer of the New Age.
The incident occurred around 11:30am when Amran and Sourav went to Sanarpar area in Siddhirganj by a CNG-run three-wheeler and found a tyre was burning on the Dhaka-Chittagong highway.
They disembarked from the vehicle and took some photos of the burning tyre.
Suddenly, some police personnel led by Mamun, a sub-inspector of Siddhirganj Police Station, came to the scene by a police-van and accused them for setting the fire and started to beat them.
The police even continued to slap, punch and kick the journalists even after they showed their ID cards.
At one stage, the policemen put them on their van dragging them holding their collars and took them to Shimrail intersection police box which is some half a kilometre away from the scene of the incident.
After reaching the police box, the policemen kicked The Daily Star journalist and took both of them in separate rooms and again beat them defying the order of their seniors.
They also snatched the cameras and cell phones of both the journalists and smashed the camera of the New Age journalist.
Later, the police men took them to Siddhirganj Police Station and handed them over to the officer-in-charge of the police station.
When the OC came to know about their identity, he released them.
Later, the journalists lodged complaint against the accused SI with the police station and he was closed instantly.
Source: The Daily Star
