Bangladesh all-rounder Sakib al Hasan on Wednesday slammed media for sensationalizing their reports as he believe there were hidden agendas and ill intentions behind the demonstration of workers of his farm and was blown out of proportion, report agencies.
Several dozen workers of Shakib Al Hasan Agro Farm, a crab and swamp eel farming facility owned by the player, took to the street on Monday in Shyam Nagar area of Satkhiran demanding their unpaid wages for month.
The event drew widespread media attention, prompting Sakib to ask his business partner and former cricket Sahgir Hossain Pavel to clear the workers’ payment immediately. Sakib said the story was blown out of proportion and blamed media for failing to look at it with integrity.
‘Unfortunately, I realised that this story was blown out of proportion by the media who failed to look at the same in-depth and with integrity. It would have been better if they had tried to seek the truth rather than go for sensational headlines which was partly false and mostly misleading,’ he said.
‘I truly believe that the media have a strong role to play by verifying the truth and build their stories based on factual information or else they may end up hurting people like me for no apparent reason.
‘They could have easily raised the issue mentioning the overall scenario and every co-owners name rather than blaming me or mentioning me only. ‘Neither I nor anyone else deserves false accusations of this nature. I earnestly hope that the media and journalists will take more care when reporting.
‘As a nation, I sincerely think we have more important work to do given the current crisis and need to be vigilant and strong against any kind of misleading information and fabrication of the truth. I think we need to focus our attention on more vital topics,’ he said.
In a delayed response, Sakib said hardly gets a chance to get involved in his businesses' daily affairs or even visit the offices or premises. ‘Although my name is directly associated with the Agro Farm in question, due to my busy professional schedule, the company, like my other companies, are usually run by my co-owners/working partners,’ said Sakib.
‘I hardly get a chance to get involved in those businesses' daily affairs or even visit the offices or premises. ‘As you all know, I have been away from Bangladesh for most of the year as we are expecting our second child and over this period of time I was not updated with the business affairs of my Agro Farm at all and only came to find out about the employee dispute through the media.
‘My co-owners and working partners failed to inform me properly of what was going on over the last few months but they had promised the very few employees (who were retained ) with an agreed month's salary to be paid by April 30, 2020.
‘All of the employees were laid off by the end of January. Despite agreeing to wait till April 30, those employees surprisingly took to the streets and created chaos probably being instigated by some people with hidden agendas and ill intentions.
However, as soon as I realised there was a serious issue, I resolved the situation by taking full responsibility to pay all the due salaries from my own personal funds and without any assistance from company funds or the co-owners.
‘In any case, I believe this was an internal affair of a company which should have remained internal. I was very shocked to see the employees fail to wait till the end of the month as they had agreed or create so much unrest.
‘Like many others, I have been trying to gather funds for other people like them who are distressed under the current crisis so I'm confused as to why people would think I would deprive a handful of employees (and many more) of ours who have been paid regularly for over 3 years.’
Sakib said the story was blown out of proportion and blamed media for failing to look at it with integrity. ‘Unfortunately, I realised that this story was blown out of proportion by the media who failed to look at the same in-depth and with integrity. It would have been better if they had tried to seek the truth rather than go for sensational headlines which was partly false and mostly misleading,’ he said.
