DHAKA, Feb 22: Journalists will keep themselves off from work for one hour at all the media houses-newspapers, news
agencies and television channels- across the country on February 27 to press home the demand for arresting the killers of Sagor Sarwar and Meherun Runi.

From a huge rally held in front of Jatiya Press Club here today, journalist leaders announced the programme saying that they would also hold a symbolic day-long hunger strike on March 1, if the killers are not captured by Feb 27.

On Feb 27, journalists will observe the work abstention programme from 12 noon to 1 pm wearing black badge.

The journalist couple Sagor and Runi, a news editor of Masranga Television and a senior reporter of ATN Bangla, was
brutally killed at their city residence on the night of February 11. But the killers are yet to be identified or arrested.

All the journalist organizations including two factions of Bangladesh Federal Union of Journalists (BFUJ) and Dhaka Union of Journalists (DUJ), Jatiya Press Club (JPC) and Dhaka Reporters Unity (DRU) jointly organized the rally which was presided over by BFUJ president Iqbal Sobhan Chowdhury.

President of other faction of BFUJ Ruhul Amin Gazi, Secretary General Abdul Jalil Bhuiyan, acting Secretary General M Abdullah, DUJ presidents Omar Faruque and Abdus Shahid, General Secretaries Shaban Mahmud and Baker Hossain, JPC president Kamal Uddin Sabuj and General Secretary Syed Abdal Ahmed and DRU President Shakhwat
Hossain Badsha addressed the rally conducted by DRU General Secretary Sajjad Alam Khan Tapu.

Expressing deep concern over the dilly dallying in arresting the killers of Sagor-Runi, journalist leaders said that they have become united under one umbrella not seeking the trial of the killers of the journalist couple only but of the trial of all behind the killing incidents including journalists Manik Saha, Humayun Kabir Balu, Shamshur Rahman, Belal Uddin, Harun-ur- Rashid, Saiful Islam Mukul and Dipankar Chakraborty.

Veteran journalists ABM Musa and Nirmal Sen also expressed their solidarity with the movement of the journalist community.

ABM Musa extended his support to the rally over telephone from city's Labaid Hospital where is under treatment. Nirmal Sen attended the meeting seating on a wheel chair.

The journalist leaders urged the government to take stern action against the killers so that none dares repeating such
heinous act in future, and to create an environment where media workers can perform their duties with a sense of safety.

It is not a good sign for a democratic society that the killers of a journalist couple are not held within 11 days after
the incident, they said.

Meanwhile, all the journalists unions outside the capital affiliated to BFUJ, district and upazila level press clubs and
other journalists organizations simultaneously organized rallies and formed human chains across the country voicing the same demand.