Shykh Seraj, 4 others sued in fraud, extortion case

Shykh Seraj, chief news editor of Channel i, and four others were sued today on charges of fraud and demanding Tk 50 crore extortion.
Farzana Rashid Brownia, a presenter of Channel i and also a chairman of Swarna Kishori, filed the case against them with the court of Dhaka Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Md Hasibul Haque.
The four other accused are: Zahir Uddin Mahmud Mamun, Mukit Majumder Babu, Abdur Rashid Majumder Parvez and Riaz Ahmed Khan.
The magistrate recorded the statement of the complainant and asked the Criminal Investigation Department to submit a report after an investigation into the matter.
In her complaint, Brownia said she was appointed to the post of marketing manager (event) in Channel i at a salary of Tk 1 lakh in October 2014. In the same year, she started hosting a programme titled Swarna Kishori. But the authorities stopped broadcasting the programme without any notice during the quota reform movement in 2018, she said.
The accused also suspended the payment of Brownia’s honorarium as a host of the programme, she said.
“Whenever I reminded the Channel i authorities about my arrears, I was told that my Tk 79 lakh dues would be paid later,” she said.
“On September 7, some of the accused stopped me on the road when I was going to my Tejgaon residence. They demanded Tk 50 crore as extortion, and also threatened to kill me as per the instruction from No 1 accused (Shykh Seraj),” Brownia said in her complaint.