Probir still not feeling safe

Senior journalist Probir Sikdar is still apprehensive of moving freely.

"I have been granted bail, but no one is thinking of my security ... I am worried that I may die an unnatural death if I walk on the streets," he told reporters at his office on Indira Road in the capital yesterday.

The editor of Bangla daily Bangla 71 and online news portal u71news.com went to his office yesterday morning, a day after he was released on bail by a Faridpur court.

His arrest and the filing of a case under Information and Communication Technology Act against him took the social media by storm and caused public outrage, with rights bodies condemning it.

On Tuesday, the same court had granted remand for the journalist in a case filed for "tarnishing the image of Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain" via a Facebook post. But the court granted his bail a day after when police said they did not need to interrogate him anymore.

Probir, a family member of a martyred, said he was picked up from his office Sunday evening in connection with the case filed with Faridpur Sadar Police Station.

Talking to reporters yesterday, he said he still suffers from a sense of insecurity despite getting bail.

"Bail does not mean the solution to the crisis," said the journalist, who lost a leg and the mobility of a hand in an attack in 2001 for his reports in Bangla daily Janakantha.

He thanked the people of the country and the media for their support. "My family neither contacted any organisation of the government nor a minister for my bail," he said.

Meanwhile, Law Minister Anisul Huq said the Faridpur court denying bail on the first day when Probir was produced before it was a mistake, which was corrected on the second day.

"I feel that Probir Sikar should have been granted bail as soon as he was produced before the court," he told reporters at his Secretariat office.

Contacted again by The Daily Star, Anisul Huq refused to make any comment about the way the law enforcers detained the senior journalist.

Human Rights Forum Bangladesh (HRFB), a platform of 19 human rights organisations, yesterday condemned the incident of the detention of Probir by detectives, filing a case against him under the ICT act and the police remand.

"The law enforcement agencies are yet to give a specific explanation about the allegation against Probir and the process of his detention," it said in a statement.

The way he was detained for expressing his thoughts and opinions questions the constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech of the citizens, said the HRFB.

Expressing fear for his life, Probir on a Facebook post on August 10 had said the minister, Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain, controversial businessman Moosa bin Shamser and condemned fugitive war criminal Abul Kalam Azad would be responsible, if he were to be killed.

Local Awami League leader Swapan Kumar Paul, also assistant public prosecutor of Faridpur Judge's Court, filed the case, saying the post "tarnished the image" of the minister.