Defunct Bangla daily The Amar Desh, which was shut down in 2013 by the then Awami League government, is set to hit the newsstands again this year resuming its regular paperback publication.
Editor of the daily Mahmudur Rahman came up with the announcement at a press conference held at the National Press Club in the capital on Friday morning.
"Whatever efforts we have to put into, if Allah allows, we shall present Amar Desh to you again in next December," he said expressing hope that bureaucratic bottlenecks will not hamper the process.
He also said all machinery and facilities of the newspaper's printing press had been vandalised and looted during the fascist regime in 2013.
"The vandalism that damaged all belongings of the press caused financial loss of an estimated volume of over Tk250 million according to the then market value," he said.
"We shall require a period of nearly one year to procure all the required equipment for resuming the publication from own press," he said.
Recollecting the memory, he said, on the day they wanted to transfer the computer and other accessories of the newspaper to a new address, the office was burnt down.
"I was in jail that day and one of the inmates- acting Secretary General of Jamaat Islami Azhar bhai- rushed to me to share the sad news," he said.
Before that a third party printing press will be hired for publishing the newspaper, which became an eyesore of the then government due to its publication of sensitive articles.
Criticising the existing media outlets of the country, Mr Rahman said no media raised voice against the atrocities unleashed on Amar Desh family.
"In the last 16 years, media became accomplices of the Hasina-led government. Shameless oiling took place in the name of press conference," he said.
He also came down heavily on the media owners and editors for not playing their due role.
Mr Rahman, who recently got membership of the National Press Club after deprivation for long, said he was not given the membership of Newspaper Owners' Association of Bangladesh (NOAB) and Editors Council.
Members of Amar Desh family were present during the press conference.
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