A Somoy TV journalist has filed a complaint against Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) activists for “assaulting” him when he was covering the party’s rally held in Nayapaltan, Dhaka on January 16, 2023.

In the complaint filed with Paltan Model Police Station, he also said “the unruly mob damaged a drone being used to record the turnout at the rally, and snatched his personal belongings.”

The Somoy TV journalist, Mobarak Hossain Shuvo, claimed that Monir Chairman, president of Kamrangir Char unit of BNP; Nayem, general secretary of the same unit; and around 60 unidentified activists started verbally abusing him when he was recording the BNP rally with a drone and tried to take it away. When Shuvo resisted, they swooped on him and beat him up, the complaint says.

Also read: AL leaders, activists gather on Dhaka streets as BNP holds sit-in programme

Later, he was taken to Dhaka Medical College Hospital where he received initial treatment, he says.

Earlier, ahead of BNP’s divisional rally in Rajshahi on December 3, 2022, the party’s move of putting photos of Khaleda Zia and Tarique Rahman on press cards triggered criticism from local journalists.

Some journalists posted on social media, criticizing the party for using Tarique Rahman’s photo on the press card, as he is a “convicted fugitive”.