Savage attack kills Bangladesh editor

IN Media Freedom | 06/10/2004

Golam Mustofa Sarowar

Dhaka

A senior journalist of a Bogra-based daily newspaper and BFUJ vice-president was hacked to death in an attack near his residence in Sherpur upazila headquarters in Bogra on Saturday (2 October) night.

Police said Dipankar Chakrabarty, 55, Executive Editor of Daily Durjoy Bangla, returned to the upazila headquarters from his workplace in the district town by a bus at midnight.

Then he had tea at a local restaurant before going home. "As he walked down towards his home nearby, suddenly a gang of miscreants riding motorbikes waylaid him and struck him with sharp weapons from behind," locals said in a spot account of the brutal killing. Dipankar was also vice-president of the Iqbal-Bulbul factions of Bangladesh Federal Union of Journalists (BFUJ), and ex-president of Bogra Union of Journalists and Sherpur press club and incumbent convenor of Sherpur Reporters’ Unity.

He started his career as a correspondent of Daily Korotoa in mid-70s and later worked as Assistant Editor of Daily Korotoa and Daily Chandnibazar. The motives behind his killing could not be known.

His son Partha Sarathi Chakrabarty later filed a case with Sherpur thana Sunday morning. Autopsy of the slain journalist was completed at Mohammad Ali Hospital at noon and then the body was taken to Bogra Press Club for his professional colleagues to pay him their last respects.

He left behind his mother, wife, two sons, four sisters, a brother and a host of relations and admirers to mourn his death. Hearing about the death news of journalist Dipankar, local people, political leaders and journalists visited his haunted home to sympathize with the bereaved family members. To protest the killing, Sherpur Press Club members brought out a rally and observed a token blockade programme on Bogra-Dhaka highway for 10 minutes.

Later a protest rally was held at Bogra Press Club after the body of the journalist was taken there at about 1:30pm. Among others, senior journalist Aman Ullah Khan, Durjoy Bangla editor Saiful Islam, Bogra Union of Journalists President Mir Sazzad Ali Santosh and Mohsin Ali Razu spoke at the protest rally presided over by press club Convenor Mozammel Haque Lalu. Addressing the rally, they condemned the brutal killing and demanded "immediate arrest of the killers".

The journalists’ leaders also announced a series of protest programmes. The programmes include wearing of black badges and hoisting of black flags for seven days, keeping three- inch space blank in all the Bogra newspapers for three days, bringing out a silent procession on October 4 and observing 72-hour token

hunger strike.

The protestors gave the authorities 72 hours to track down the assailants, failing which they would announce tougher action programmes. Meeting over, they took out a silent procession in the town carrying the dead body.

The Committee to Protect Journalists adds:

A journalist since the 1970s, Chakrabarty was vice president of the Bangladesh Federal Union of Journalists, and president of several local journalist associations. Local journalists were shocked by the brutality of the attack, and demanded that police find those responsible. Local newspapers ran blank front pages in protest of Chakarabarty’s murder and to commemorate his contributions.

Already this year, CPJ confirmed that two veteran journalists were killed for their work. Manik Saha was killed by a homemade bomb in the lawless southwestern Khulna Division in January. Humayun Kabir also died in a bomb attack, in Khulna in June. In those cases, an underground leftist group known as Janajuddha (People`s War), a faction of the Purbo Banglar Communist Party, claimed responsibility.

CPJ is also investigating the circumstances surrounding another case—the August 22 kidnapping and murder of Kamal Hossain, local correspondent for the Bangla-language daily Ajker Kagoj in the eastern Chittagong District.

CPJ is a New York-based, independent, nonprofit organization that works to safeguard press freedom worldwide. For more information about press conditions in Bangladesh, visit www.cpj.org.