Yunus’ Press Secy’s post raises concern over safety of minorities in B’desh

New Delhi: A social media post by Shafiqul Alam, Press Secretary to Muhammad Yunus, the Chief Adviser in Bangladesh’s interim government, expressing helplessness over the violent attacks on media offices has raised concern over the safety and security of the country’s common citizens.

“If influential persons of the government are helpless, where will people go?” asked an article in Bangladesh’s leading Bengali newspaper Prothom Alo on Tuesday.

On December 19, taking to his official Facebook account, Shafiqul Alam said, “Last night, I received frantic, tear-choked calls for help from my journalist friends at The Daily Star and Prothom Alo. To all my friends, I am deeply sorry that I failed you. I made scores of calls to the right people, trying to mobilise help, but it did not arrive in time.”

Incidentally, the media houses in Dhaka came under attack on the night of December 18 from a violent mob.

“The employees of these media offices were manhandled, and the marauding mob vandalised the office and set it on fire,” Alam added.

“I finally went to sleep at 5 a.m., knowing that all the journalists trapped inside The Daily Star had been rescued and were safe. By then, however, the two newspapers had already witnessed and endured one of the country’s worst mob attacks and arsons on media outlets,” the Press Secretary in a Facebook post said.

“I do not know what words could console you. All I can say is that as a former journalist I am sorry. I wish I could dig up a great piece of earth and bury myself in shame,” he concluded.

In response to this, one Facebook user tersely attributed the attacks on media offices in Bangladesh to the State’s failure.

Another user wrote: “Mob action happened under your interim government’s watch. How do you answer that? Do not cower behind a wall and hide for the government’s inability to secure safety.”

Another Facebook user said, “Absolutely disappointing, bhai! You people didn’t take proper steps earlier what should have been done. Now face the consequences!”

Against Press Secretary Alam’s claim of calling “the right people, trying to mobilise help, but it did not arrive in time”, Prothom Alo had said a day after the attack that anticipating an attack, it had sought security “by contacting senior levels of the government, various law enforcement agencies, and other relevant authorities”.

The media outlet’s office was vandalised “before they (help) could arrive”.

The statement issued by Prothom Alo added, “Anxious journalists and staff on duty were forced to leave the premises to save their lives. Law enforcement and fire service personnel later arrived and brought the situation under control.”

In her column on Tuesday, media contributor Nishat Sultana wondered, “if an influential and responsible representative of the government, who is at the centre of everyone’s attention, can express his helplessness on social media in this way”.

She pointed out that since the beginning, “the interim government has repeatedly failed to curb crime and control the state of emergency. That is why we have seen that the evil forces that take the law into their own hands have won time and again”.

She has compared the law-and-order situation under the current interim government in Bangladesh against that of the arrival of law enforcement agencies towards the end of a movie, where they are heard saying, “Don’t take the law into your own hands”.

She rued, “But in the current reality, we don’t see that happening. Security agencies largely remain behind the curtain. In their absence, people are taking the law into their own hands and doing whatever they please”, and alleged, “People are brutally burning others alive, beating them up, smashing their heads with stones, or stripping them naked in public.”

IANS