A correspondent of a private television channel came under attack and two of his colleagues were intimidated when they were collecting information about misappropriation of rice intended for distribution among the poor at Raipura in Narsingdi on Thursday evening.

After being severely beaten up, journalist AH Bhuiyan Sajal, district correspondent of SA Television, was taken to Narsingdi District Hospital and he was undergoing treatment there until Friday evening.

He had severe wounds in his head, said Asian TV reporter in Dhaka Abdul Baten, who was accompanying Sajal during the incident at about 7:30pm.

Baten went there also to look into the allegations concerning misappropriation of public rice, meant for the poor people, against Amirganj union parishad chairman Nasir Uddin Khan.

Raipur police station officer-in-charge Mohsin Kadir said that although the injured journalist did not file any case, the police had started drives to catch the union council chairman.

Abdul Baten, who witnessed the scene but escaped the attack, said that they were working on an allegation that the chairman was swindling public rice instead of distributing among the poor people during the severe food crisis triggered by public holiday declared by the government to contain virus outbreak.

�After interviewing many poor people, we phoned the chairman for his comment and asked us to go to his office,� he said.

�A soon as we reached there, his men started beating my colleague. As I wanted to stop them, they took away our camera, mobiles and money. They threatened us with dire consequences,� said Baten.

�We apologised to them for our investigation and managed to save our camera and left the place with Sajal,� he added.

Nasir Uddin Khan was called many times on Friday on his official number for his reported involvement in assaulting journalists, but he did not respond.