The New Nation - Internet Edition

The weekly magazine (Alpeen No.431) of a Dhaka daily (Bengali-Prothom Alo) in its latest issue (17 September 07) has published a cartoon (in page 6) that one artist Arifur Rahman has depicted quite cleverly but clearly the name of the Islam's holy Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) on to a cat seen in the cartoon that a litle boy holding in his hands. The boy is lulled in the cartoon to put the term or the exact name of the Prophet 'Mohammad' (PBUH) as the first name of the cat followed by second name 'Biral' in Bengali meaning cat The lull in the cartoon was made by a person having put on a typical poor Bengali Muslim dress -Lungi, Punjabi, round cap and beard on. The cartoon, 'Mohammad Biral' has thus not only been clearly sarcastic with the name of the Prophet but has also seriously offended all Muslims' religious beliefs and usages. In view of the obviousness of the cartoonist's intention to hurt the Islamic religious feelings, the common people have naturally reacted rightly against the derogatory item and so some leading persons right on the day lodged formal writen protest against the mater having had made demand therein to the government through the Information Adviser for some legal action against the daily and the persons responsible for the most irresponsible act

As we all know and the media people must know beter than the commoners that the country is under Emergency that restricts freedom of citizens including obviously freedom of expression that the cartoonist has clearly abused. The mater in question should be liable to prosecution and punishment for the offence amounting to blasphemy the cartoonist and the publication have made even if there had been no Emergency. How come then that the media person/s responsible for publication of the item in question would have been so callous to publish the item that not only offended the millions of Muslims inside and outside for hurting their religious feelings but also violated the Emergency Rule now in force in the country. Was the mater so occurred just only due to callousness or anything calculatedly for covert evil design in fomenting passion against the government and the country?

The government is known to have proscribed the magazine but not the daily, arrested the cartoonist for trial, and the management of the daily has 'withdrawn' the item from the market, but protests have not calm down yet, because, the people want some more serious and immediate action.

Moreover, the so-called 'withdrawn' stand of the management of the daily is, in fact, a real fun. What do they mean by 'withdrawn'? As a daily they can not withdraw even a single copy on the following day. In effect, they have already sold their idea and the story. And that was their real motive behind the story. They have served their very purpose.

For the people's passion to subside, the mater should be inquired into in depth by our intelligence agencies for bringing to light the culprits' real motive behind in the mater, followed by due process of law for them to face the music.

M.T.Hussain

Ibrahimpur

Dhaka