Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) yesterday protested a daily Inqilab report published on April 30, saying CPD Executive Director Dr Debapriya Bhattacharya was misquoted in the report.

A CPD press release said the report on the regional dialogue held in Mymensingh on April 29 had quoted Dr Debapriya as saying..."Jamaat is a religion-based fundamentalist party, it is doing business in the name of religion…” and so forth.

"Dr Debapriya at no time uttered such words at the event," CPD said.

The dialogue entitled "Civil Society Initiative for Accountable Development" was jointly organised by CPD, the daily Prothom Alo, The Daily Star and Channel i.

The Inqilab report also said Mahfuz Anam of The Daily Star and Matiur Rahman of the daily Prothom Alo attended the dialogue, which was not true, said the CPD release.

"Because of this tendentious and motivated reporting [of the daily Inqilab], the daily Sangram has carried a follow-up story of unwarranted nature," it added.

In the dialogue, a cross section of people, including public representatives from ruling party and opposition, academics, professionals, business leaders, cultural and development activists and students openly spoke their minds.

The speakers talked on political and administrative accountability, secular functioning of the state, secular functioning of the state, minority rights, terrorism, free and fair electoral process, use of black money and muscle power in the elections and nomination of competent candidates.