Dhaka: A Dhaka court on Monday issued a warrant for the arrest of Bangla daily Janakantha editor Atiqullah Khan Masud and two others in a case filed for publishing ‘defamatory’ reports on chief justice SK Sinha.

Metropolitan Magistrate Snigdha Rani Chakrabarty issued the arrest warrant as the accused did not appear before the court in compliance with its earlier order.

The two others who face the arrest warrant are advisory editor of the vernacular daily Toab Khan and its executive editor Swadesh Roy.

Earlier on February 22, the same court summoned them to appear before it on March 21 after president of Dhaka Metropolitan Bar Association Arfan Uddin Khan filed the case.

In the case statement, the complainant mentioned that the Daily Janakantha published two articles on February 4 on the Chief Justice which were ‘false and defamatory’.

He said it was mentioned in one of the articles that ‘22-year-old Mr Sinha joined Ghulam Azam-created Shanti Bahini instead of going to the Indian frontier, just four miles off Habiganj’.