Farzana Brownia withdraws fraud case against Shykh Seraj, 4 others

Farzana Rashid Brownia, a TV presenter and also a chairman of Swarna Kishori, today withdrew a case filed against Shykh Seraj, chief news editor of the private TV station Channel i, and four others on charges of fraud and demanding Tk 50 crore as extortion.
The four other accused are Zahir Uddin Mahmud Mamun, Mukit Majumder Babu, Abdur Rashid Majumder Parvez and Riaz Ahmed Khan.
Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Md Saifuzzaman passed the order after she submitted an application seeking withdrawal of her case saying that she would not run it against the accused.
Following the application, the magistrate withdrew its earlier order that asked the Criminal Investigation Department to probe the matter.
Earlier on September 25, Brownia filed the case with the court of Dhaka Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Md Hasibul Haque.
The magistrate asked the CID 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 honourium 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,” Brownia said in her complaint.