Titu, local correspondent for the dailies Inqilab and The New Nation, was detained on October 2 in his hometown of Pirojpur in southwestern Bangladesh, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) from Dhaka. The arrest was made under emergency ordinances put in place by the military-backed interim government in January. No reason was given for his apprehension, and there was no immediate move to bring him to trial, according to local press freedom advocates. Titu, a former general secretary of the Pirojpur Press Club, wrote on a variety of topics. Titu and his elder brother, Shafiul Haque Mithu, Pirojpur reporter for the Dainik Janakantha, had been targeted for their reporting in the past by activists with the Bangladesh National Party and their fundamentalist allies in the Jamaat-e-Islami Party. Titu was hospitalized after a December 2006 attack, according to the Bangladesh Federal Union of Journalists.