Indian media's stories anger Bangladeshis

A couple of recent media reports on Bangladesh, originating from India, have generated a lot of resentment in different circles here, especially among journalists and politicians who see it as a campaign against Bangladesh by a section of Indian media.

Media personnel in Dhaka were startled when they saw on the internet in the morning of July 18 that more than a dozen Indian dailies had carried an AP news item claiming that 25 members of the United Liberation Front of Assam (Ulfa), a militant group fighting for independence of Assam from India, were killed in Dhaka when gunmen attacked them the previous night!

The report, released by the AP's office at Guahati, claimed that the Ulfa rebels were holding a meeting in a hotel in the Segunbagicha area of the capital city. The report, written by an Indian journalist, cited Tripura police chief GM Srivastava as the source.

The government of Bangladesh reacted sharply to the report and although the agency retracted the report the same day, a lot of damage had already been done. The so-called news report had been published prominently by them by a good number of influential dailies across the world, including the US Today.

The media everywhere may make mistakes. But many journalists in Dhaka find it difficult to accept that the AP's mistake in question was an innocent one. There is a reason for that. As soon as the report, released from Guahati, reached AP's Delhi office on July 17 night, the Delhi office reportedly called its Dhaka office 'at about 11:30 pm', to cross-check the information. "I told the Delhi office that no such incident had taken place in Dhaka on Saturday (July 17)," Farid Hussain, chief of AP's Dhaka bureau, was quoted as having told a local daily on July 18.

Bangladesh's Information Minister M. Shamsul Islam believes, as reported by a Dhaka daily on July 19, that "a section of people has long been trying to give Bangladesh a bad image to the world. The news story in question might be part of that conspiracy."

Another 'absolutely misleading report' that astonished many in Dhaka was the one released by deepekaglobal.net , an Indian internet news organization, on June 20. The report, which was eventually circulated world-wide, claimed that "a group of suspected terrorists attacked the local branch of the British- owned Standard Chartered Bank in the heart of the business district in central Dhaka today (June 20)."

"One of the attackers was reportedly killed in the shootout with police and the bank's own guards. After the attack, paramilitary soldiers and riot police in the busy Motijheel business district in the capital Dhaka surrounded the building, which also housed the local office of the American Express Bank," the report claimed.

In reality, two policemen had been killed in an exchange of fire with armed criminals trying to rob Tk 55,000 from a businessman at a money exchange shop. The incident was covered by all major dailies of Dhaka.

It should not be difficult to understand the possible implications of a 'terrorist attack' on a couple of British and American banks, especially in the times of the so-called Anglo- American war against terror. But the deepekaglobal did not consider it important to withdraw the report the following day.

These are, however, not the only instances of Indian media personnel circulating misleading and dangerous stories against Bangladesh.

A few months ago, AFP's office in Kolkata, the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal released a similar cock and bull story. Quoting unnamed sources, the AFP claimed on October 4 last year that an unidentified aircraft coming from Bangladesh had intruded into the Indian airspace in West Bengal and dropped various packets into a pond the day before (on October 3). The Indian electronic media, especially the Alpha TV and Star News, telecast the report. The Star went to the extent of telecasting an animation of the concocted story. The Indian print media also published the news item.

The following day, on October 5, the Foreign Ministry of Bangladesh rejected the Indian media claim, categorically stating that the report, emanating from India, was 'absolutely false and baseless'. "After a thorough verification from all relevant sources", the acting Foreign Secretary of Bangladesh told newsmen in Dhaka: "It has been found that no aircraft from Bangladesh intruded into Indian airspace."

The Indian authorities eventually drew the same conclusion. Following investigation by an Indian Air Force team that visited the spot, some 550 kms north of Kolkata, the Indian Air Force said that "no plane, Indian or foreign, had dropped any packet into any pond."

A section of Indian media "spits venom against Bangladesh with irritating regularity," says a senior editor in Dhaka, adding that such negative media activism stands in the way of developing the much required people-to-people relationship between the two countries.

"The trend is not absent in Bangladesh, but that is not as venomous as the Indians in question."