DHAKA, Dec 13: A Bangladeshi journalist was detained on Friday over a report on last week’s cinema bomb blasts which left 18 people dead and more than 100 injured.

Enamul Huque Chowdhury, a senior reporter at the official BSS news agency who also freelances for Reuters news agency, was detained after he surrendered to police, said an official.

Police raided Chowdhury’s Dhaka home hours after Reuters withdrew reports it had run earlier in the week quoting Bangladesh Interior Minister Altaf Hossain Chowdhury as saying the Al Qaeda network may have been behind Saturday’s serial bombings in the northern city of Mymensingh.

The interior minister has denied making any such comments. In an advisory to clients, Reuters said it was withdrawing the stories because it “can no longer vouch for the accuracy of remarks attributed to Interior Minister Altaf Hossain Chowdhury...”

Relatives said the BSS reporter had gone into hiding on Wednesday but had handed himself over to police after Friday’s raid.

Court sources said the magistrate allowed three days’ remand for questioning.

An interior ministry official said minister Chowdhury had sent a legal notice to Reuters management on Thursday seeking 1.7 million dollars as compensation for damaging his reputation with a “false, motivated and fictitious” report.

The Bangladeshi journalist’s detention came two days after two European television journalists held in Bangladesh last month for anti-state activities were freed and deported.

Briton Zaiba Malik and Italian Bruno Sorrentino, freelancers for Britain’s Channel 4 network, were deported on Wednesday.

The Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontieres welcomed their release, but asked Dhaka to immediately free their local assistants, freelance journalist Saleem Samad and the local RSF representative and interpreter, Priscilla Raj.

The government accused the Europeans of involvement in “clandestine activities as journalists, with an apparent and malicious intent of portraying Bangladesh as an Islamic fanatical country”, a crime that could have carried the death penalty.

Dhaka has become increasingly sensitive about press coverage following reports in Time magazine and the Far Eastern Economic Review that alleged the country was becoming a base for Al Qaeda fighters.—AFP