Netra News, which is being run from outside Bangladesh and known for controversial reporting against the government, has been proven wrong when a local newspaper rejected their claim in a report.
On August 11, Netra News carried a report mentioning the involvement of a state minister’s relatives in the LPG Terminal construction project in Matarbari of Maheshkhali.
But, an investigation debunked that myth, unearthing the fact that the project is still in the feasibility study phase. Thus the question mark hangs on how Netra News could come up with such a report.
On February 21, The Business Standard (TBS) published a story based on which Netra News claims to have started their so-called investigative journalism.
But, the reality is that that TBS story claimed that a certain consortium had secured a contract for the project.
Later, TBS conducted an investigation and found that the government had not made any decision on the LNG Terminal till then and the project was in the feasibility study phase.
The newspaper removed the story from their website.
Then Netra News and its editor Tasneem Khalil alleged that the state minister called The Business Standard to withdraw the news. But, the claim was turned down by a TBS story on August 16.
TBS said: “Our attention has been drawn to a news published on Netranews website on 11 August involving the Maheshkhali LPG terminal in which The Business Standard was mentioned.
“Since the website dragged us into their story, we believe we must clarify to our readers our position regarding the Maheshkhali LPG terminal story that we ran in February and subsequently withdrew from our website.
“We ran a story on the Maheshkhali LPG terminal on 21 February. The story suggested that the deal was being awarded to a certain consortium. However, following publication and upon receiving further information, we found some factual inconsistencies and therefore withdrew the story from our website.
“The $305 million Maheshkhali LPG terminal deal is yet to be finalised and the selection process for the deal is far from complete.
“However, unfortunately Netranews used our withdrawn content and made their own story to smear the government and question the necessity of the whole project.
“We categorically reject the slander that we have taken down the story under any pressure,” read the TBS statement.