Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) on October 5 served a legal notice on Amar Desh Publication Ltd to apologise before the commission within seven days for publishing false, fabricated, baseless and politically ill-motivated news.

BTRC, through its lawyer, issued the notice on the newspaper's publisher, editor-in-charge, chief reporter and reporter concerned for publishing two news items headlined 'BTRC under Indian's grip' and 'The state security will be threatened' on October 2 and 3 respectively, said a press release.

The reports defamed BTRC as well as the government said the release, adding criminal and civil legal action would be taken against them on their failure. It said the Amar Desh alleged that the BTRC employed Indian nationals in sensitive posts of BTRC, so as to divulge state secrets to the Indian government, which is an old trick to terrify people in the name of "Indian Terror". It also said the fact remains that BTRC does not employ any foreign national as its employee.

To justify their point, the newspaper named five Indian citizens as BTRC's employees and also claimed that the said Indians are still in the service of BTRC which is an utter lie as the said Indians were working under a World Bank Project not with BTRC, the release said. The scope of work of the said citizens was very limited and they had already left the country after completing their assignment, it said adding the citizens had no access to any sensitive and secret information of BTRC.

Amar Desh also reported that by removing the army personnel of Signal Core, BTRC appointed Indian nationals, which is baseless as the said army personnel were succeeded by other army personnel after the expiry of their tenure, it added. The legal notice was served on editor-in-charge Mahmudur Rahman, publisher Al Haj Md Hasmat Ali, chief reporter and reporter Oliullah Noman.

-Daily star