Strange Case of NE Bangla TV in India

By Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury

Prasenjit Chakraborty [Raja Chakraborty] is a long-time friend of Weekly Blitz family. He has always been extremely vocal against abuse of human rights as well as rights of religious minority in the region. Chakraborty also is an ally on our ongoing efforts in unmasking nasty activities of Jihadists as well our commitment towards war on terror. He also is a great fan of Israel and the Jewish people.

In past few years, Prasenjit Chakraborty has written and spoken loudly against the false sedition, treason and blasphemy charges, Bangladesh's former Islamist alliance government brought against me for criticizing militant Islam and for my writing exposing Jihadist activities inside Madrassas.

But, now, our friend and a large number of fellow journalists and media workers in North-Eastern province of India are in trouble.

Prasenjit Charaborty alongwith at least 50 media people were employed with a private television channel named NE-Bangla in the Indian state of Agartala. While the members of this channel were getting set to celebrate their third anniversary, owners of NE-Bangla suddenly locked its Agartala office thus secretly removing equipment and machinery from this office and studio, thus pressing the fate of its employees in Agartala into complete uncertainty.

Following this unprecedented incident, a team of delegation of SAVE NORTH EAST [an organization in the North Eastern province in India] recently met the Labor Commissioner at his office at Agartala to acquaint him with the recent happenings at NE Bangla Television News Channel's Agartala office that lead the employees to distressed condition. The ten member delegation complained that the authority locked the office on February 25, 2010 without consulting with employees and very recently, taken away all the equipments and machinery secretly from Agartala office. The authority of the channel neither terminated the employees nor cleared their salary due for last five months.

Being briefed about these facts, the Labor Commissioner assured the team of taking necessary action to bring the authority to negotiating table with the employees so that the interest of the media employees is entertained.

Later talking to media persons, the secretary of the organization Prasenjit Chakraborty declared that they will take the matter to national level to draw the attention of the larger community to the injustice done to the people of north east India which is strictly objectionable.

The team was represented by President Sanjib Das, Secretary Prasenjit Chakraborty, Treasurer Janardan Sarkar, Sunanda Bhowmik, Shankar Dey, Pradip Das, Ashish Datta, Kartik Ghosh and Sudip Banik.

In the memorandum submitted with the labor Commissioner of Tripura, journalists and employees of NE Bangla TV channel said, it commenced broadcast on August 7, 2007 with a colorful inaugural program at Agartala Town Hall. Office of this channel is located at NETV Building at Shyamalibazar. Since inception, the NE Bangla channel has around 50 employees in various sections at its Agartala office.

Matang Singh is the chairman of this channel, who allegedly employed the staffs without any appointment letter and denied to offer appropriate financial compensation other than offering a lump sum amount of money every month.

On February 25, 2010, Matang Singh locked the Agartala office of NE Bangla channel, thus pushing the fate of journalists and employees of this channel into total uncertainty. Since then, the management of NE Bangla TV failed to pay salaries to the journalists and staffs in its Agartala office.

Moreover, Matang Singh with the help of local administration secretly moved all equipment and machinery of the channel and its studios from Agartala office. It is learnt from the staffs of NE Bangla channel that, after suddenly fleeing from Agartala office of the channel, owners are presently operating it from Kolkata.

Indian government should immediately look into this matter and resolve the current problem centering NE Bangla channel. It is important to mention here that, Bangladesh has a number of private TV channels and there had never been any instance of suddenly shutting down the channel by the owner by depriving journalists and employees. Rather, Bangladeshi government gives fullest protection to the rights and interests of the reporters and employees of every TV channel in the country. There are even instances of cancelling broadcast license of television channels, for non-payment of salaries and other benefits to the journalists and employees.

NE Bangla channel management should immediately address this issue and resolve the matter for the sake of image of the channel in particular and Indian media as a whole. Such instances will only spoil the good image of India in the world.

This is a clean case of fraud with members of media in India. Weekly Blitz will not rest until our colleague brothers in Agartala get justice from the Indian government. We believe, Central government in India, particularly Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh should immediately intervene into this matter. Dr. Singh is a person of high esteem in the world. We are confident; he will not let such injustice continue on the members of media in Agartala. Moreover, we are seeking intervention of Ms. Sonia Gandhi, Mr. L. K. Advani and all other prominent leaders in Indian politics as well as Lok Shabha and Rajya Shabha with the appeal of taking immediate steps in resolving this problem with NE-Bangla Television.

Management of NE-Bangla TV has no right to behave in such way with their journalists and employees in Agartala office. We also are seeking cooperation from Cable Operators in India for suspending transmission of NE-Bangla signals, if the channel will not settle this issue by the end of July 2010.

via weeklyblitz.net