Mithu's story

Mithu had been attacked and left for dead by three hired killers on December 28. The killers repeatedly beat him around the head and body with pipes and other blunt instruments, breaking his right arm in several places and knocking him unconscious. He was only saved by the intercession of passers-by who heard his cries for help and happened on the scene, causing his assailants to flee before they could complete their grisly assignment.

Even though the attack on Mithu took place almost two and a half months ago, he is still wracked with pain. His right arm is far from fully healed and he is hoping to raise enough money to be able to travel abroad to have it properly fixed. The bones are so shattered that simply putting his arm in a cast and waiting for it to mend, as he has done, will not be sufficient if he wishes to ever regain full use of his right arm again.

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Mithu still suffers from blinding headaches due to the severity of the blows that he received to the back of his head, and complains genteelly of the pain he still has all over his body due to the brutality of the beating that he received. Such was the ferocity of the attack on him that there is little doubt that his assailants were intending to kill him. The charge-sheet that has been framed against his assailants charges them with attempted murder.

Mithu's case is instructive. He has long been a bold and courageous voice speaking out against injustice and oppression. His writing had been specially critical of local MPs Delwar Hossain Saidee and Shahidul Huq Jamal. Back in July 2003, Mithu was one of seven journalists in Pirojpur district who received death threats from an unnamed group for his writing.

On December 17, 2003, Mithu filed a story on the plight of the minority community living on the riverine island of Chor Baniari.

The minority community of the island has been farming rice and raising fish there since the 1940s despite periodic attempts by various factions to have them dispossessed and to take over their land. Back in 1994, one local minority landowner was murdered and over a dozen minority households were burned to the ground in efforts to intimidate and terrorise the local minority population.

Mithu's piece detailed the continuing perils of the minority community on the island who live under constant threat of violence and warnings to leave the area. Mithu's piece specifically focused on the efforts of a gang of hoodlums under the alleged command of a man named Mujibur Molla and supported by the local BNP to seize by force 85 acres of minority-owned land.

Mithu reported how a group of over a hundred gangsters landed on the island and forcibly took over 20 acres of land and looted fish from ponds owned by members of the community. When the locals attempted to resist them, they were severely beaten, resulting in eight locals, including six women, being hospitalised with serious injuries. In the aftermath of this incident, Mithu reported, the members of the island's minority community did not dare leave their homes and were bracing themselves for another attack.

It was in reprisal for this report as well as his other writings antagonistic to the Jamaat and the BNP, that Mithu believes he was targeted.

In the days following the publication of his piece, Mithu noticed that he was being tailed by ruling alliance activists. Local ruling alliance activists Akram Molla, Chowra Kamal, Reazuddin Rana and Moulana Shafiq repeatedly sought him out and threatened him. Local political leaders, including MPs Shahidul Huq Jamal and Delwar Hossain Saidee, spoke virulently against his writings at public meetings.

This is the background to the brutal attack Mithu suffered on December 28. As he left the Pirojpur Press Club late that night, he once again spotted Akram, Chowra Kamal and Rana tailing him for a short time before disappearing. He was set upon by his assailants shortly afterwards.

One of his assailants, a locally well-known hired goon by the name of Russell was apprehended at the scene of the crime by the public who had rushed to the scene on hearing Mithu's cries for help. Russell was immediately taken into custody, but no charges were framed against him until this week. The police superintendent claimed that he was powerless to act as he was under extreme pressure from influential local politicians.

It was not until after Mithu had met with the CPJ delegation, and they had mentioned his case at a press conference and publicised it in their report that, his three assailants were finally officially charged with attempted murder earlier this week. Despite the fact that he was caught at the scene of the crime, had been identified by Mithu and countless eye-witnesses, and has spent the last two and a half months in police custody, Russell was not officially charged until this week. His two accomplices, Arun and Kamal, whom he has identified, have yet to be arrested by the police, who claim to be unaware of their whereabouts, despite reports that Kamal is moving around freely and has been spotted at political meetings and functions in the past two months.

It remains to be seen whether the case against Russell, Arun and Kamal will come to anything. The government does not have much of a track record in aggressively prosecuting attacks on journalists. Nor is the police making any discernible effort to get to the bottom of who was ultimately behind the attack on Mithu. Despite his statements on the matter as to the threats he had received prior to his attack, and the other persuasive corroborating evidence for who might have ordered his killing, the police have shown no enthusiasm for expanding the scope of their investigation to pursue the real culprits.

Mithu is a brave man. He tells me that the violence he has suffered will not keep him from writing the stories that he believes the public needs to know. But who knows how many other newsmen have been silenced, either through violence meted out to them in reprisal for their writing, or by the threat of violence. The freedom to print stories that might be critical of the government, or cause it embarrassment, is a fundamental right, and is crucial to the effective functioning of a democracy. If the media is not permitted to bring stories of official misconduct to the public eye or is intimidated into not pursuing stories by the threat of reprisal, then there is no mechanism left to ensure the accountability of the government for its actions.

Zafar Sobhan is an Assistant Editor of The Daily Star.