UPL’s Banglabazar outlet forced to close over sale of ‘Asamapto Atmajiboni’
The Banglabazar sales outlet of publishing house, The University Press Limited (UPL), was locked up following objections to its sale of The Unfinished Memoirs, the autobiography of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
There were also allegations that two employees of the outlet were taken away and detained. Police said they were subsequently released.
The incident took place at around 5.30 pm on Monday.
In a statement, UPL said the complainants had been informed that the book was not banned. The publisher said it stood by every book it had published and that banning a book required following a specific legal process and notifying all concerned. It also required certain legal measures to be taken.
UPL further said it was unaware of any such action having been taken in the case of this book. If the government or a court were to take any such action, the publisher said it would act accordingly.
Matiur Rahman, officer-in-charge of Sutrapur police station, told Prothom Alo that the two employees who had been taken away were not brought to the police station. Instead, they were taken to the Faridabad police outpost, where they were later released.
The OC said Asamapto Atmajiboni (The Unfinished Memoirs) had not been reprinted since 2024. The two employees were therefore released from the police outpost on condition that the book would no longer be sold.
No complaint has been lodged with the police station in connection with the incident, he added.
According to police, citing local residents, two young men arrived at the Banglabazar outlet at around 5.30 pm. When they asked to buy Asamapto Atmajiboni, written by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the employees brought out a copy for them. The two men then objected to the sale of the book, claiming that it was banned.
At one point, they gathered several more people from the surrounding area. They then pulled down the outlet’s shutter and put a padlock on it. At the same time, the two employees, Aminul Islam and Humayun Kabir, were detained.