Poor civic amenities in Old Town
ALPHA ARZU
Residents of a large portion of Old Town are out of the coverage of civic amenities which forces them to spend a considerable amount of money on alternative facilities, complained the residents.
Most of the Old Town residents do not get electricity, gas, water, sewerage and drainage which have been arranged for the residents of the new part of the Dhaka city on a priority basis, they complained.
The areas include Chawkbazar, Shankhari Bazar, Islampur, Sutrapur, Lakshmibazar, Tanti Bazar, Bangshal, Swarighat, Gandaria, Moulavibazar, Armanitola, Mitford Hospital area, Babu Bazar, Naya Bazar, North South Road, Nawabpur, Jurain, Faridabad, Tipu Sultan Road, Tikatuli and Gopibagh.
‘I need to spend Tk 600 a month on gas cylinder, Tk 500 on power from generator operators, and Tk 500 on water from water suppliers,’ said Anwarul Azim, a resident at Islampur. ‘I was born here and have been living at the place since then. This has become a curse for me. I have planned to buy a piece of land at Uttara for my children.’
‘Living in these areas has become almost impossible because of wastes piled up at places. The city corporation cleaners hardly collect the garbage from the places,’ said Jahangir Alam, a resident at Lakshmibazar.
Employees and traders living in Old Town have always faced traffic congestion.
Narrow roads, often in a bad shape with craters and potholes at places, are responsible for traffic jam, they said.
There are a limited number of public transports, which force the residents to shelve out extra money on transport.
Hawkers have occupied the pavements, making them unusable by the residents, said Abu Taher, a businessman at Chawkbazar.
The residents have complained several times to the city corporation, Water Supply and Sewerage Authority, Dhaka Electric Supply Authority and the Ministry of LGRD and Cooperatives.
‘We have taken initiatives to improve our services for all the residents and the residents in Old Town will not be excluded from the project,’ a high official of the water supply agency told New Age on Sunday.
A city corporation official said, ‘We do not know why Old Town residents are deprived of civic amenities.’
BCS computer show begins in Ctg
STAFF CORRESPONDENT, Chittagong
An eight-day computer show, BCS Computer Show 2005, organised by the Bangladesh Computer Samity and the Information and Communications Technology Forum, Chittagong, began at the VIP Tower in Chittagong on Sunday.
‘The government is interested in setting up a computer village in Chittagong under the supervision of private operators,’ said the state minister for civil aviation and tourism, Mir Mohammad Nasir Uddin, who opened the show.
He said the government would even give a tax rebate of up to 10 per cent if the Computer Samity took the initiative in this regard.
The show has 42 participants, including computer hardware, software, multimedia, and internet service providers. They have set up 26 pavilions and 13 stalls.
The organisers will hold seminars, 3-D film shows and a children’s painting competition every day.
The show will remain open between 10:00am and 8:00pm every day. The price of entry tickets has been fixed at Tk 10.
The director of Sonali Bank, Ershad Ullah, was present at the inauguration ceremony as chief guest.
6 accused in Ira murder case
OUR CORRESPONDENT, Barisal
The Criminal Investigation Department on Sunday submitted charge sheet in the Ira murder case, accusing six persons.
Mohammad Mahbubur Rahman, a CID inspector of Patuakhali, submitted the charge sheet before the Barisal magistrate’s court about four years after the killing.
The accused — Masudur Rahman alias Masud, Waliullah alias Oli, Harun Jamadder, Farhad Hossain, Moniruzzaman alias Monir, and his sister Nasima Begum — have been absconding since the murder.
A separate charge sheet was also submitted against Monir to try him in a juvenile court in consideration of his tender age.
According to the case history, Ira, 5, only daughter of Iqbal Kabir Farhad, was abducted and killed on December 18, 2000 when she went to her maternal grandfather’s house at Kashipur on the outskirt of the Barisal city to celebrate Eid-ul-Fitr.
Her body was recovered from a derelict pond behind her grandfather’s house two days after the killing.
Later the victim’s father filed a case with the Kotwali police station on December 27 without naming any persons.
Though the police arrested four suspected criminals, including Masud, a cadre of the Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal, all of them were shortly released on bail as the police failed to submit charge sheet on time.
Writers, publishers protest against
attack on Humayun Azad
STAFF CORRESPONDENT
The Ekushey book fair ground turned into a place of protests on Sunday, with writers and publishers holding programmes to mark the first anniversary of the attack on Humayun Azad.
The writers held a rally near the fair information centre and marched towards place by Suhrawardy Udyan where Azad was hacked on the day in 2004 on his way home.
They lighted candles at the place in memory of Humayun Azad, who later died in his room on the campus of the University of Munich on August 11, 2004.
Writer Muhammad Zafar Iqbal, Mohan Raihan, Aslam Sani and Humayun Azad’s publisher Osman Gani addressed the rally.
They condemned the death threat to Osman Gani and demanded that the government immediately identify the culprits.
The writers and publishers wore black and red badges in memory of Azad.
Humayun’s last compilation of essays, Amar Natun Janma, and the last novel, Paksar Zameen Shad Bad, was among the highest sold books on Sunday.
The sale was the highest on Sunday. Most of the visitors bought books. Asjadul Kibria, a journalist and organiser of Sudhijan Pathagar in his locality, said he bought books worth about Tk 18,000 for the library.
‘I have chosen the day as I expected the crowd would be thin. Stepping into the fair, I found the place crowded. Many stalls sold books on a 30 per cent discount today,’ he said.
The information centre reported the arrival of 21 titles. The Bangla Academy officials said 1,331 titles came out in the fair.
The figure was 1,402 in 2004 fair and 1,200 in the 2003 fair. Most of the titles were novels. Volumes of poems were the second on the list. About 49 books were published a day on an average.
The total sale at the Bangla Academy pavilion was Tk 28,99,673 till Sunday. The figure was Tk 33,00,000 in 2004 and Tk 26,00,000 in 2003.
The Bangla Academy Award 2004 was distributed. The academy director general, Abul Kalam Manjur Morshed, gave away the awards among Asaddar Ali, Muhammad Zafar Iqbal, Amjad Hossain, Zafar Alam, Faridur Reza Sagar and Mozamel Hossain Mintu. The academy chairman, Wakil Ahemd, presided at the award ceremony.
The members of Agnibina and Kranti held a programme of songs later.
Prisoners beyond capacity in Barisal jail
OUR CORRESPONDENT, Barisal
The Barisal jail was crammed with the prisoners much higher than that of the capacity.
Now there are 1,504 prisoners in the jail against the capacity of 1,135. Of them, 1054 are accused and 450 under-trial prisoners.
Jailor Anwarul Huq told New Age that the number of prisoners in the jail is increasing day by day and they have to suffer a lot due to lack of much space.
There are only six condemned and six general cells apart from two for the women prisoners.
Forty-four prisoners sentenced to death by the courts are also passing their days in an inhuman condition. It was the highest number of such prisoners since the inception of the jail.
Thirty-nine of them were sentenced to death by Speedy Trial Tribunal in the last three years.
The jailor also said though the number of prisoners is increasing, the number of security guards is not increasing accordingly.
Protests mark one year of
attack on Humayun
STAFF CORRESPONDENT
Litterateurs, cultural activists, teachers and students in separate programmes across the city commemorated Humayun Azad on Sunday, the day he was attacked in 2004.
Humayun survived the attack, but later died on August 11 in his apartment on the campus of the University of Munich, Germany.
The Dhaka University teachers and students brought out a silent procession on the campus, marking the first anniversary of the attack on Humayun.
They protested against the negligence of the authorities concerned, saying that the assailants had not been brought to book even after a year of the incident.
The Bangla department, where Humayun taught for more than three decades, also held a rally at Aparajeya Bangla, demanding the arrest and trial of those involved in the assault on Humayun.
The Dhaka University Teachers’ Association general secretary, Professor M Aktheruzzaman, Professor Ahmed Kabir, Professor Rafiqullah Khan and Saumitra Sekhar attended the rally.
The Sammilita Nagarik Samaj held a rally at the Central Shaheed Minar in the afternoon.
The speakers said Azad’s death was not an ordinary case. He was killed in planned way by the fundamentalists. They blamed the government for patronising the attackers.
‘If the killers were brought to book, such killings might be prevented,’ the teacher’s association president, AAMS Arefin Siddique, said.
Humayun’s wife Latifa Kohinoor urged the university authorities to establish a memorial monument in front of the Bangla Academy where he was hacked.
Professor M Aktaruzzaman, Jatiya Kabita Parishad vice-president Muhammad Samad, Bangabandhu Parishad general secretary SA Malek, and Azad’s eldest daughter Mouli Azad also spoke.
Nagarik Samaj convener, Kamal Lohani, presided at the rally.
The Progressive Students’ Alliance of eight left-leaning student bodies brought out a procession on the campus demanding the arrest and trial of attackers.
The Bangladesh Chhatra League and its five allies also brought out a procession and held a rally in front of the arts building.
The Chhatra League president, Liakat Sikder, and JSD-backed Chhatra League president, Shariful Kabir Swapan, addressed the rally.
They said the government was responsible for the attack and no one had been brought to book for this reason.
Muhammad Zafar Iqbal, Mohan Raihan, Aslam Sani, Osman Gani and Humayun’s eldest daughter Mouli Azad addressed the rally.
The protesters also brought out a candle-light procession and marched towards the place where Humayun was attacked.
After surviving the attack, Humayun Azad was sent to a hospital in Thailand for further treatment.
He left for Germany on August 7 on a fellowship from the International PEN Centre for research.
He was found dead in an apartment of Munich University on August 11.
5 satellite towns likely on Dhaka outskirts
BDNEWS, Dhaka
The government will develop five satellite towns at Savar, and in Narayanganj and Gazipur to ease the growing housing problems of middle-class families.
Some 2 lakh families will be benefited from the satellite town to be set up on about 6,000 acres of land, sources said.
The ministries of land and works will build the towns of plots of three, five and seven kathas of land.
These plots will later be distributed through lotteries.
The parliamentary standing committee on the ministry of land chairman, Mahbubur Rahman, said, ‘The government will employ local and international developers to build the towns.’
RAB team leaves for Malaysia
STAFF CORRESPONDENT
A 20-member Rapid Action Battalion team left Dhaka Saturday night for a weeklong training programme in Malaysia.
Beginning March 1, the training will be held at the North Brigade General Operation Force Headquarters, Ulu Kinta Perak State. The training will help the battalion to discharge its duties more efficiently, said a release on Sunday.
Headed by the battalion director, Muhammad Faruk Hussain, the team includes directors Kazi Emdadul Haque, M Aminul Islam and Gulzar Uddin Ahmed, deputy directors Badrul Ahsan, Ekramul Haque Khan, Atiqur Rahman, Enamul Karim, MMK Rashid and Forkan Uddin Ahmed, senior assistant directors SM Zahidur Rahman, Mohammad Abu Sufian, BM Harunor Rashid, K Mahid Uddin and ABM Faisal Haider.
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CITYLINE
Young man
killed in Ctg
A young man was killed allegedly by his friend at Mailermatha in Chittagong Sunday afternoon. The dead has been identified as Dilwar Hossain, 17, of the locality. The police said Dilwar and his friend Mofazzal got into a scuffle over a game of carom and Mofazzal punched his friend, injuring him critically. He was taken to Chittagong Medical College Hospital where he was declared dead. A case was filed and Mofazzal was arrested.
JU education fair
A daylong education fair, Rotaract International Education Fair 2005, was held at Jahangirnagar University on Sunday. The university Rotaract Club organised the fair with the help of the BSIB Global Network as part of international service projects of the junior wing of the Rotary International District 3280. The mathematical and physics faculty dean, Professor Mohammad Rabiul Islam, opened the fair at 11:00am. The network chief executive officer, NK Bashar, was present as special guest. Taslim Zaman of the club was guest of honour. More than 1,000 people visited the fair. A seminar on education abroad was held in the auditorium seminar room. The Global Network also held a news briefing on the fair. The organisers said above 50,000 students went abroad for higher education through the network in 12 years.
IHM lecture session
The Institute of Hazrat Mohammad arranged a lecture session by the US Military Imam and the Navy Muslim Chaplain Lieutenant Commander, Mohiyal Deen Ibne Noel, on February 24. The lecture was followed by a question-answer session. The institute chief adviser, Nooruddin Khan, the institute president, Syed Muhammad Ibrahim Bir Pratik, and former ambassador Ahmed Farid took part in the session. The institute executive director, Ahmad Shafi Maqsood, was also present.
New body of police service assoc
The Rapid Action Battalion director general, Anwarul Iqbal, and the police superintendent, Shahidul Islam, have been made president and general secretary of the 37-member executive body of the Bangla-desh Police Service Association for the year 2005. The committee was formed at the association’s annual general meeting at the police headquarters on Friday. The committee members vowed to continue the activities of the outgoing committee and urged cooperation of all, said a press release on Sunday.
DU IT festival
A three-day IT festival will be held tomorrow at 10:00am at the Teachers-Students Centre of Dhaka University to mark the 12th anniversary of the university computer science and engineering department. The science and ICT minister, Dr Abdul Moyeen Khan, will be the chief guest while the department chairman, Dr Hafiz Mohammad Hasan Babu, will preside over the inauguration ceremony. The university vice-chancellor, Dr SMA Fayez, pro-vice-chancellor Dr AFM Yusuf Haidar and the department founder chairman, Dr Lutfor Raman, will be present. The festival will comprise IT related seminar, programming competition, IT quiz, IT debate and software and hardware exhibition. The 2nd issue of the department research magazine will also be published on the occasion. The concluding session will be held at 4:00pm at RC Majumdar Auditorium of the arts faculty.
— New Age
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