DHAKA, 25 October 2004 — A journalist working for an English-language daily newspaper was shot dead in Dhaka yesterday.
Unidentified attackers opened fire on Shahid Anwar, a sub-editor at the Daily Asian Express, as he was traveling to his office by rickshaw. He was declared dead after being taken to hospital, police said.
“We’re investigating the motive behind the murder,” police sub-inspector Riazul Islam said.
International media watchdogs have ranked Bangladesh as one of the most dangerous countries for journalists. Analysts say its confrontational style of politics is to blame for putting journalists’ lives at risk.
An editor of a newspaper in the northwestern city of Bogra was killed in early October by five ax-wielding youths who police said appeared to be hired killers.
Since 1997 at least seven Bangladeshi journalists have been killed, the Paris-based media watchdog Reporters Without Borders said earlier this year. It described Bangladesh as “by far the world’s most violent country for journalists,” saying at least 26 reporters had been attacked or threatened in January alone.
Meanwhile in continuing raids on hideouts of insurgents in the southeastern hill district of Bandarban, the Bangladesh Rifles have seized a huge cache of arms and ammunition. The latest seizure was made at Boiddyarpara village in the early hours of Saturday.
