2 editors, reporter, driver in custody after trying to cross into India, says Bangladesh police

DHAKA: Three Bangladeshi journalists - two of them editors - and a car driver were taken into custody Sunday night after residents of Dhobaura area, in

Mymensingh district

, apprehended them while they were allegedly tying to cross into India, police said.
The four people detained included

Ekattor TV

editor-in-chief Mozammel Haque Babu,

Bhorer Kagoj

editor Shyamal Dutta and Ekattor TV senior reporter Mahbubur Rahman.

Police said they had arrived at the Dhobaura border in a private car at night with the intent of crossing the border.
The private channel Samoy TV was quoted by PTI as saying Babu and Dutta were assaulted by locals who snatched their money before calling the police. Bangladesh's interim govt had earlier indicated that journalists facing serious criminal cases were unlikely to be arrested without thorough investigation.
A police officer said the four were safe in

police custody

and would be taken to Dhaka for legal procedures. Bangladesh's Editors' Council, representing top editors, voiced strong concern over murder cases against journalists, saying such actions undermine the interim govt's promise of independent journalism.

A Dhaka court, meanwhile, sent actor and former cultural affairs minister Asaduzzaman Noor and former state minister for civil aviation M Mahbub Ali to jail on Monday in a case filed over the July 18 death of a hotel employee during quota reform movement.
Also, BNP secretary-general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said the public would not tolerate an interim govt that stayed a long time. However, one survey claimed that 80% of the people wanted this govt to stay as long as it pleased. "I don't know where or how they got this (finding)," he said.