Dhaka: Chief Adviser’s Press Wing has debunked media reports published on the ancestral home of renowned Bengali poet Atul Prasad Sen, terming those false ones.
According to Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha, a false claim recently circulated online alleging that due to negligence and lack of government oversight, the ancestral home of renowned Bengali poet Atul Prasad Sen had been illegally seized by extremists. The press wing stated in a post on its verified Facebook page, CA Press Wing Facts, that this narrative is being weaponized on social media, attempting to link it to broader claims of attacks on Hindus, Bengali culture, and secularism under Bangladesh’s interim government.
The rumor gained traction after Bangladesh’s daily Kaler Kantha published a sensational piece asserting that the poet’s ancestral home in Naria upazila of Shariatpur had been unlawfully occupied by a local influential individual. The press wing’s statement criticized the report for lacking credible sources or evidence and for not meeting basic journalistic standards.
Indian outlet OpIndia subsequently echoed Kaler Kantha’s claims, further alleging that ‘extremists’ had occupied the property, thus amplifying the original misinformation. However, historical records and local accounts thoroughly disprove these claims, as noted in the statement.
Atul Prasad Sen, born in 1871 at his maternal uncle’s residence in Dhaka, relocated to Kolkata for his education and eventually settled in Lucknow, where he passed away in 1934. He is not known to have lived in the Shariatpur property. Following Partition, his younger brother, Basanta Kumar Sen, sold all family property before leaving the area, and the property in question has changed hands through lawful transactions since the 1960s.
Currently, the property is owned and inhabited by the family of the late Ali Azam Munshi, who legally acquired it through documented sales. It has never been recognized by any governmental or archaeological authority as heritage or protected land and was not treated as abandoned property under prevailing laws, unlike many other Hindu-owned assets from that era.
One of the houses left by the Sen family was renovated by the Munshi family, who continue to reside there without dispute. Thus, any claims of ‘encroachment’ or ‘extremist takeover’ are factually inaccurate and appear designed to incite communal tensions, the statement emphasized.
The press wing further noted that platforms like OpIndia and other Indian media outlets have recently published numerous articles aiming to portray Bangladesh’s interim government as fostering religious extremism. However, these reports lack journalistic integrity and may simply echo the talking points of the recently ousted Awami League regime.