Anis Alamgir, of the Boishakhi private television station, said he was left unable to walk after troops used batons to beat him after his car was stopped late on Wednesday when the curfew came into force.
He collapsed and was taken to a police station where he was arrested and then bailed.
“They stopped the car and started kicking it. Then they ordered me out. I did not even get the opportunity to show my press card. I told them I was a journalist, but they said ‘we don’t care who you are, you should be at home’,” Alamgir said.
A photographer working for the daily Dinkal newspaper was badly injured by police. He was taken to hospital where he was in a serious condition, said a colleague who witnessed the incident.
Nesar Uddin Ahmed, of the daily Amar Desh paper, said he was also stopped as he returned home Wednesday by members of the Rapid Action Battalion security force.
“I was beaten by the Rapid Action Battalion. I showed my press identity card and they took it and threw it on the street. Then they beat me with their batons,” he said, adding that he suffered cuts and bruises to his arms.
Dhaka police said they had arrested 57 people after the indefinite curfew came into force across six cities at 8:00 pm (1400 GMT) on Wednesday.
Thirty-five of them, including 12 journalists, were later granted bail and released, while the others, some of whom were reporters, remained in custody, a police official said.
Journalist Abdul Mazid, of the Samakal daily newspaper, said he was arrested as he travelled home with other reporters.
“We said we were journalists and showed our identify cards but they took us to a nearby police station and arrested us,” he said. The group was released on bail two hours later.
The official BSS news agency said earlier that press cards would be treated by the authorities as curfew passes.
Bangladesh’s army-backed government has held power since January when elections were cancelled and an emergency imposed.
It announced a curfew to quell three days of rioting that had spread from Dhaka to a number of other cities, despite an emergency ban on street demonstrations.
The unrest began at Dhaka university where students demanded that the army withdraw from the campus. The government has accused troublemakers without any genuine grievance of hijacking the protests.—AFP