"How dare you? Do you know where you are standing? This is my home."

An angry policeman burst out at two newspaper reporters at the Government Railway Police (GRP) office at Kamalapur railway station yesterday noon as the two journalists approached the cop for information on the two dead bodies found on its premises Monday.

A Daily Star correspondent along with a staff reporter of Banglar Bani arrived at the Kamalapur GRP office at arou-nd 1 pm. When the reporters inquired about the fate of the two bodies whose photographs The Daily Star carried yester-day, the duty officer Rahman and another policeman who was busy reading a tabloid reacted sharply and said, "we have no information about what you are inquiring, better go to your newspaper office and you will get the answer."

When the reporters reminded the officer that the incident had happened in areas within the GRP's jurisdiction so he should have a comment, suddenly the policeman started shouting and threatened the two corres-pondents at the top of his voice. He also started condemning reports published in the newspapers.

Kamalapur Railway station is the largest of its kind in Bangladesh. The station is known to be used as a shelter by prostitutes, snatchers, rapists, and traffickers. It is alleged that the GRP is either directly involved in such crimes within its premises or looks the other way while others do it. A number of organised gangs are also active in the station where innocent passengers are often victimised.

Railway officials said that the reason the policemen were angry was probably because they did not like the presence of reporters in this peak time of selling tickets in the black-market. They said the GRP has a 'big share' in the organised crime of illegal ticket sales during the festive seasons.