The release from detention of two foreign television journalists last week and the continued imprisonment of two of their local colleagues underscores Bangladesh's sensitivity to media coverage relating to claims that religious extremists are operating there.

Two British-based television journalists, arrested in Bangladesh on Nov 25 on suspicion of anti-state activities, arrived in London after being held in prison for two weeks.

They were released on condition that they would not broadcast any material shot in Bangladesh. No formal charges were brought against the journalists, who used fake identities to enter Bangladesh.

But police said the two entered the country to gather ''twisted information with a motive to project Bangladesh as a base for extreme fundamentalists and a sanctuary for the members of dreaded al-Qaeda and Taliban''.

Since then, ''both the journalists, along with their employers gave a clear undertaking not to malign Bangladesh on false grounds,'' Reaz Rahman, the state minister, said.

In London, the journalists' lawyer told a press conference: ''My clients have apologised for their act of deception and they sincerely regret any misunderstanding that their conduct may have caused.''

Leopoldo Brono Sorrentino of Italy and Zaiba Naz Malik, a British national of Pakistani origin, working for British Channel 4, were arrested trying to cross the eastern border into India last month.

The foreign reporters' local aides and interpreters, Selim Samad, the local correspondent for Reporters Sans Frontiers, a Paris-based organisation, and Pricilla Raj, employed by a local non-government organisation, were also arrested and remain in custody.

Bitter debate

During their interrogation, the journalists confessed that they had entered the country as tourists to shoot a documentary about mainly Muslim Bangladesh for the London-based firm Mentorn Midland, as part of a series titled 'Unreported World'.

The arrests touched off a bitter debate over the wisdom of the government's decision to imprison the journalists.

They also highlighted suspicions by the government as well as by the local media of the foreign media's intentions when reporting about Bangladesh amid the international attention to religious extremists elsewhere in Asia these days.

''Suddenly, Bangladesh has become a saleable story as long as the story is about the existence of fundamentalists and Taliban elements. Such an agenda-driven journalism by leaders of the global press undermines our strength at home and creates suspicion against the free media,'' the Daily Star declared in a Nov 28 editorial.

Sensitivities are also high in the wake of the Dec 4 bomb explosions that rocked four packed movie theatres in Mymensingh,110km north of the capital, Dhaka

A judicial inquiry is underway into the blasts, which killed at least 18 people. Officials say the blasts were undertaken by a well-trained, well-organised group and at one point brought in 20 people for questioning.

Al-Qaeda sympathisers

Since coming to power in October last year, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Khaleda Zia has also strongly denied opposition claims that her governing four-party coalition has members of parliament sympathetic to the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

Zia says Bangladesh is a moderate Muslim country and one of the first nations to condemn the Sept 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.

But the opposition Awami League, in its running political exchanges with the government, argues that two hard-line Islamic parties in the government alliance have expressed open support for al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Former prime minister of Bangladesh and the present opposition leader Sheikh Hasina believes Islamic fundamentalists are operating overtly and covertly in Bangladesh, while opposition spokesperson Saber Hossain Chowdhury says the ruling coalition has around 11 MPs who support the Taliban.

The Islamic Unity Alliance (IUA) is one of the two hard-line parties in government whose members in the past have protested US involvement in the Middle East and Afghanistan.

''We consider an attack on one Muslim country to be an attack on all Muslim countries,'' IUA spokesperson and backbench government MP, Fazlul Haq Amini, has said.

Unnecessary taint

Reports in the foreign press have also attacked the supposed growth of radical Islamic groups this moderate country, reports that some here feel taint the nation unnecessarily with extremism.

In April, the Hong Kong-based Far Eastern Economic Review published a report depicting the nation as ''a cocoon of Islamic extremists'' where thousands of students were being picked out by religious zealots to train in the use of arms.

In a statement, the ministry of foreign affairs denied the veracity of the report by the western media outlet and said that there was no place for religious fanaticism in a moderate Muslim democracy such as Bangladesh.

Critics have also emerged in neighbouring India. In early November, Indian Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani and Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh suggested that Dhaka had become a sanctuary for al-Qaeda and Taliban fugitives.

Advani said India was aware that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence had increased its activities in Bangladesh since October 2001, by training insurgents to operating in India's north-eastern states. Dhaka has strongly denied these reports. IPS