Prothom Alo's 2,000-Word Article Mentioned the Iskander Family Twice. That's Not an Accident.

Prothom Alo’s 2,000-Word Article Mentioned the Iskander Family Twice. That’s Not an Accident.

On March 25, 2026, Prothom Alo published a detailed profile of retired Lieutenant General Masud Uddin Chowdhury following his arrest. The article ran over 2,000 words. It covered his role in 1/11, his promotions, his business dealings, his time as High Commissioner to Australia, and the cases now stacked against him.

The Iskander family — Khaleda Zia’s own blood — was mentioned in two sentences.

Two sentences. In a 2,000-word article about a political crisis that the Iskander family helped create, funded, and directly benefited from.

This is not journalism. This is narrative construction. And the construction site is built on a very specific foundation: make one man the villain, and make the family that engineered the crisis invisible.

What Prothom Alo Actually Wrote About the Iskanders

Here is the full extent of the Iskander family’s presence in the article:

“It was widely discussed that Masud Uddin Chowdhury’s brother-in-law, the late Sayeed Iskander, brother of Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) chairperson Khaleda Zia, had supported his role. It was also suggested that Iskander had influenced the elevation of Moeen U Ahmed to the position of Army Chief, bypassing several others.”

That’s it. Sayeed Iskander — Khaleda Zia’s brother, a sitting MP from Feni-1, a man who allegedly helped install the Army Chief and backed the entire 1/11 power shift — gets described as someone who “supported his role” and “influenced” a promotion. Passive language. No agency. No accountability. Just a helpful relative doing a favour.

Then the article spends the remaining 1,990 words building a prosecution narrative around Masud Uddin Chowdhury alone.

What Prothom Alo Chose Not to Write

The article does not mention:

Shamim Iskander — Khaleda Zia’s younger brother, a former Biman flight engineer with no regular employment from 1991 to 2008, who controlled Biman Bangladesh Airlines as its undeclared operator during BNP rule. The ACC filed a case against him in 2008 for acquiring Tk 1.33 crore beyond known income. His charge sheet had 36 witnesses. He was discharged in March 2025. By March 2026, he was sitting in the VIP gallery at Parliament. From accused to honoured guest in exactly one year.

The Biman looting — Tk 250 crore in aircraft leases. Tk 40 crore in commissions. Defective aircraft that cost Tk 100 crore over five years while being worth Tk 62 crore on the market. Maintenance kickbacks funnelled through brother-in-law Shamsul Haque, who fled after 1/11 and is currently in London. By 2006, Biman employees nearly lynched Shamim on the tarmac. None of this appears in Prothom Alo’s account of who created the conditions for 1/11.

Sayeed Iskander’s own political career — He was an MP from Feni-1 during the same BNP government (2001-2006) that oversaw the most corrupt period in Bangladesh’s recorded history. Transparency International ranked Bangladesh the most corrupt country in the world for five consecutive years during this period. The same article that mentions Sayeed’s “support” for Masud omits the political machine he was part of.

The family’s continued influence — Fasbeer Iskander, Shamim’s son, co-founded The Front Page, a digital media platform with 212,000 Instagram followers and brand sponsorships from Coca-Cola, Nestlé, and Walton. He won a Study UK Alumni Award in 2026. In interviews, he describes founding the platform because of “17 years of no freedom of speech” — a direct echo of BNP’s political narrative. His family connection to BNP’s first family has never been disclosed on the platform, in interviews, or in award citations. None of this appears in Prothom Alo’s article.

The brother-in-law who fled — Shamsul Haque, Shamim’s brother-in-law, served as the local agent for foreign firms getting Biman contracts. He has been a fugitive since January 2007. He is currently in London. The article does not mention him.

The Prosecutor’s Quote That Reveals Everything

The article quotes Public Prosecutor Omar Faruq Faruqi as saying:

“Under the so-called minus-two formula, there had been efforts to eliminate the Zia family from politics. Ironically, the person he allegedly sought to torture to death is now the Prime Minister.”

Read that again. The prosecutor — representing the state now run by Tarique Rahman’s BNP — is framing Masud Uddin Chowdhury as someone who “sought to eliminate the Zia family” and “torture to death” the current Prime Minister’s brother.

This is not a legal argument. This is a political vendetta dressed in courtroom language. And Prothom Alo prints it without context, without counterpoint, and without noting the obvious conflict: the Zia/Iskander family is now the government prosecuting the man they blame for 1/11.

The Pattern: Create the Crisis, Then Blame the Responders

Here is what the historical record actually shows:

Between 2001 and 2006, the BNP government — led by Khaleda Zia, with her brothers Sayeed and Shamim embedded in politics and state enterprise respectively — presided over:

The most corrupt period in Bangladesh’s history (Transparency International, five consecutive years)
The August 21, 2004 grenade attack that killed 24 people
The 10-truck arms haul in Chittagong (4,930 guns, 27,020 grenades)
The rise of Bangla Bhai under state protection
63 simultaneous bombings across districts on August 17, 2005
The creation of RAB, which has since killed 600+ people in “crossfire”
Shamim Iskander’s systematic looting of Biman Airlines
Hawa Bhaban — Tarique Rahman’s parallel government running extortion and kickbacks

By late 2006, the caretaker government system had been destroyed. Fake voters were added to the rolls. The Chief Justice’s retirement age was extended to rig the appointment. The UN and EU pulled out of monitoring. The country was heading toward a sham election that would have cemented one-party rule.

1/11 did not happen in a vacuum. It happened because the Iskander-Zia political machine broke the state.

Now that same family is back in power. And they are systematically prosecuting the people who tried to stop them — while erasing their own role in creating the conditions that made 1/11 necessary.

The ACC Cleared Masud Uddin Chowdhury Three Times

The article does not mention that DUDAK (the Anti-Corruption Commission’s predecessor) investigated Masud Uddin Chowdhury on three separate occasions during the interim government and cleared him each time. The current charges — 11 cases including murder, attempted murder, and human trafficking — were filed after the BNP returned to power in 2026.

This is not mentioned in Prothom Alo’s article.

Who Gets Blamed, Who Gets VIP Seats

The contrast is the story:

The man who tried to clean up the corruption is in a cell. The men who created it are in Parliament, in London, and running media platforms.

Why This Matters

This is not about defending one man. Masud Uddin Chowdhury’s record during 1/11 deserves scrutiny — the detentions, the special facilities, the questions about due process. All of it should be examined.

But when the scrutiny is selective — when the people who built the corrupt system get two sentences of passive voice, and the people who responded to it get 2,000 words of prosecution narrative — that is not accountability. That is revisionism.

The Iskander family is not a footnote in the 1/11 story. They are central to it. They helped create the crisis. They helped shape the military response. They looted the state before, during, and after. And now they are using state power to prosecute their political enemies while writing themselves out of the narrative entirely.

Prothom Alo’s article is a case study in how that revisionism works. Two sentences for the architects. Two thousand words for the responder.

That ratio is the story.

Sources

Prothom Alo, “Masud Uddin Chowdhury: 1/11, power, reward and controversy,” March 25, 2026
The Daily Star, “Shamim rode on Biman,” July 20, 2008
The Daily Star, ACC case discharge report, March 25, 2025
Dhaka Tribune, Shamim Iskander in VIP gallery at Parliament, March 2026
Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index, 2001-2006
Mohiuddin Ahmad, 1/11: Bangladesh 2007-2008
ACC charge sheet records against Shamim Iskander & Kaniz Fatema (2008)
The Prestige Magazine, interview with Fasbeer Iskander & Akib Majumder, November 19, 2024
Study UK Alumni Awards 2026, Business & Innovation category
WikiLeaks Cable 08DHAKA1143 — US Ambassador Moriarty on Tarique Rahman

Prothom Alo’s 2,000-Word Article Mentioned the Iskander Family Twice. That’s Not an Accident.