FARROQUE FRACASShahara resents 'partial' TV footage

Dhaka, July 13 (bdnews24.com) ? The home minister has criticised the electronic media for covering the fracas involving opposition chief whip Zainul Abdin Farroque during the opposition-sponsored hartal on July 6 only partially.

After a cabinet committee meeting at her ministry on the law and order situation on Wednesday, Shahara Khatun said the TV channels "showed Farroque bare-bodied only".

"They [electronic media] covered the incident partly. The full incident was not broadcast," she told reporters at the Secretariat.

"They did not show how he got himself partially stripped?how furiously he charged the lawmen was also not broadcast," the minister said.

She said some policemen were also assaulted in the melee.

If the television channel would release the full video footage of the attack on the policemen, the people would see what actually had happened that day, Shahara added.

"Politicians cannot beat up uniformed policemen," she said.

During the BNP's previous term in office, Awami League leaders Mohammad Nasim, Matia Chowdhury and late Ahsanullah Master were assaulted by police, "but they did not hit back," she pointed out.

"They even broke my leg," she said.

Expressing her grief over the Mirsarai tragedy, she said, "Talking on mobile phone during driving is a crime. But the government doesn't have enough police force to keep a watch on all roads for this type of crime."

She also mentioned that effective decisions would be taken to stop carrying passengers in trucks and to reduce road accidents in a meeting with the communications ministry.

On Monday, 43 school students were killed in a road accident in Mirsarai in Chittagong when a mini-truck carrying them skidded and fell into a roadside pond.

Local government minister Syed Ashraful Islam, information minister Abul Kalam Azad and labour expatriate welfare minister Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain attended the cabinet meeting along with several law enforcement agency high officials.

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