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Gang Rape by BCL Men

Local newsmen under pressure

Section of party leaders out to silence media

Star Report
A section of ruling party leaders mounts pressure on local journalists to stop reporting further on the incident of gang rape of the teenage girl at Kalapara upazila in Patuakhali.
Under immense pressure, the editor of a local daily had to sack one of its reporters who covered the September 25 incident. The reporter filed a general diary with the police seeking protection.
The administration is yet to take any step to arrest the culprits or arrange medical test for the victim, whose family had to flee home for fear of reprisal.
Locals said a clique of local ruling party men forced the victim's family to describe the fact of gang rape as an incident of torture at a hurriedly called press conference.
The local ruling party men, who earlier fined 16 BCL men Tk 10,000 each for their involvement in the crime, claimed that the girl had not been raped. They, however, did not send any rejoinder to the media.
Gofran Biswas Palash, Kalapara correspondent of local daily Sathi, who received death threat from unidentified criminals on Thursday night, was summoned to the local police station the
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same day to give an “undertaking" saying he did not send any report on the incident of gang rape.
Ilie political mentors of die culprit ruling party activists later put pressure on Dainik Sathi Editor Anwar Hossain to sack Polash threatening him with dire consequences.
Giving in to intimidation, the editor published a notice of discharge in his newspaper yesterday saying Palash has been sacked for “negligence in duty."
Moreover, a local ruling party leader told Patuakhali Press Club leaders yesterday that no fresh case would be filed against a national daily for reporting the incident if the newspaper publishes a clarification citing its earlier report on die incident was wrong.
On October 1, the victim's family was allegedly forced to file a defamation case against the publisher, editor and a reporter of the Bangla daily.
Rakibul Ahsan, Kalapara upazila Awami League secretary. who organised the arbitration to punish the perpetrators, claimed that die incident of rape was designed to taint the ruling party's image saying the girl herself had moved to sue die journalists.
Both locals and journalists feel that the truth would not come to light unless the victim's family is freed front the grip of local ruling party men.