Kaler Kantho forced to delete news story on Yunus’ tax evasion

The daily Kaler Kantho newspaper ran a story on May 23, 2023, on fraudster Muhammad Yunus’ tax evasion techniques, explaining how he dodged Tk1,000 in taxes by transferring Grameen Telecom’s shares in Grameenphone.

When the UK-based Awami League leader Sushanto Das Gupta posted a link to his Facebook profile on Saturday, it created a buzz on social media.

He wrote that the Kaler Kantho had forgotten to delete the news item titled “Dr Yunus’s One Company Evaded Taxes Worth Billions.”

Later, it was found that the newspaper deleted the story from its website, apparently under the pressure of the Chief Adviser’s Press Wing—run by former AFP reporter Shafiqul Alam, also known as Dustbin Shafiq.

However, Kaler Kantho’s sister concern, Bangladesh Pratidin, ran the same story, under the same title, on May 26, 2023. This story was available on the website as of 6pm on Sunday.

These newspapers are operated by the East West Media Group PLC, a subsidiary of the Bashundhara Group.

The incident has surfaced at a time when the country’s mainstream media is under tremendous pressure from the government-backed mobs as well as the administration.

Since the July riots, several thousand journalists have lost jobs, the accreditation cards of 167 journalists have been revoked, and their membership in the National Press Club and other journalists’ associations has been cancelled. Moreover, around 300 journalists are facing murder cases, and at least 38 of them are imprisoned without trial.

Awami League President Sheikh Hasina, the five-time prime minister of Bangladesh, recently said that freedom of expression is currently suppressed, with the media unable to operate freely due to the government’s repressive tactics.

Sheikh Hasina said that government agents are omnipresent, and a team of 40 people at the Yunus Centre is producing propaganda for newspapers and social media.