At least 10 protesters were injured when police baton-charged to disperse a group of people staging sit-in programme in front of the Prothom Alo office at Karwan Bazar, blaming Pothom Alo and The Daily Star ‘for plying role as agents of India’.Â
Witnesses said police baton-charged the protesters when the ‘anti-India’ protesters refused to leave the place at 6:35pm on Sunday.
The injured include their leaders Mustafizur Rahman and Md Solaiman, and a 10-year old boy, named Shanto.
 Joint forces officials, including Tejgaon division deputy commissioner Ruhul Kabir Khan, requested the protesters several times to leave the spot citing that people were suffering due to the blockade on the busy Karwan Bazar road.
But the protesters told police that they would not leave the spot until finishing their earlier announced programme of cooking Khichuri with beef and eating the food on the spot.
As the protesters did not stop their progarmme by 6:30pm, police baton-charged the protesters, dispersed them and cleared the road in front of the Prothom Alo office.
Police blasted at least four sound grenades, lobbed teargas shells and fired rubber bullets to disperse the protesters and brought the situation under control within half an hour by 7:00pm.
Earlier on the day, the group of protesters resumed a sit-in programme in front of Prothom Alo office in the afternoon for the consecutive third day, terming Pothom Alo and The Daily Star ‘agents of India’.
They alleged that India was dominating Bangladesh in various ways, and the two newspapers were working as India’s agents.
 Md Solaiman, one of the organisers of the progarmme, told ¶¶Òõ¾«Æ· that at least 10 people were injured due to police action on them.
‘As per our previous announcement, we slaughtered a cow in front of the Prothom Alo office and started cooking Khichuri, but police carried out attack at the peaceful sit-in programme,’ he added.
He also said, they would announce further programme in protest against the police action.
Tejgaon division DC Ruhul Kabir Khan said that the police charged baton to disperse the protesters as they kept the busy road blocked for long time despite repeated requests to leave the road.Â
Earlier on Friday, the protesters started demonstration at the entrance of The Daily Star Centre at Farmgate and then staged protest in front of Prothom Alo office in the afternoon.
They also held protests in front of the two media offices on Saturday afternoon.
Neither Prothom Alo nor the Daily Star authorities provided any official statement in this regard.