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Thousands of mourners on Friday paraded the Dhaka streets carrying the coffin of the slain former finance minister, Shah AMS Kibria, killed in a grenade attack on a rally he was addressing in his constituency on Thursday.
   Hundreds of agitators also went on the rampage in different parts of the city, clashing with the police and damaging vehicles.
   People from different walks of life paid homage to the deceased Kibria who sustained severe injuries in the grenade attack and died on his way to BIRDEM Hospital in Dhaka from Habiganj Thursday night.
   Politicians, colleagues, party followers, relatives and eminent personalities filed by the coffin of the deceased diplomat-turned-politician at the hospital and at the Central Shaheed Minar.
   They placed floral wreaths on the coffin simultaneously as the police lobbed scores of teargas canisters and charged at them with truncheons to disperse the agitators who went on the rampage near by in the afternoon. The body was kept at the BIRDEM mortuary.
   Thousands of people attended two janazas, at the Baitul Mukarram and on Bangabandhu Avenue at noon. In the morning, the Awami League president, Sheikh Hasina, visited BIRDEM and paid her respect to Kibria, her cabinet colleague as finance minister in 1996–2001. After paying tribute to the deceased, Hasina went to Kibria’s Dhanmondi residence to console his family members.
   Other party leaders also visited BIRDEM. Awami League leaders Abdus Samad Azad, Abdul Hamid, Sajeda Chowdhury, Amir Hossain Amu, Abdur Razzak, Tofail Ahmed, Mohammad Nasim, Motia Chowdhury, Sheikh Fazlul Karim Selim, Kazi Zafrullah, Obaidul Kader and Saber Hossain Chowdhury, Jatiya Party Chairman Hussain Mohammad Ershad, Workers Party leader Rashed Khan Menon, CPB leader Mujahidul Islam Selim, Bikalpadhara chief Badruddoza Chowdhury, JSD leaders Hasanul Haq Inu and ASM Abdur Rab, Gano Forum leader Pankaj Bhattacharya and Ganatantri Party leader Azizul Haque were among those who paid tributes and attended the janaza.
   The janaza of Abdul Hossain, an Awami League leader who died from his injuries in the hospital, was also held in Dhaka.
   After the second janaza, a huge mourning procession carrying the coffin paraded from Bangabandhu Avenue to the Central Saheed Minar. The procession turned into a protest parade as the mourners turned agitated.
   The mourners resorted to vandalism when they reached the Doel crossing on the Dhaka University campus. They chased a number of police vehicles. Failing to catch the police vehicles, they started vandalising private transports and traffic signals.
   The protestors set two buses, a microbus and a number of auto-rickshaws on fire and broke the windshield of many others at about 2:15pm.
   They chased a police subinspector, Rafik Uddin, who works for Special Branch, and beat him up until his shirt and trousers were torn off. Rafik escaped with injuries, but lost his wireless set.
   As the agitators threw stones, a press photographer of the Daily Sangbad, Sohrab Hossain, sustained injuries in the head. He was immediately taken to Dhaka Medical College Hospital.
   The mob then turned towards the Shaheed Minar where the police lobbed teargas canisters and charged truncheons to disperse them.
   The demonstrators continued clashing with the police and torched several vehicles at the Shaheed Minar and the surrounding areas. The mob also beat up a deputy commissioner of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police.
   As the police lobbed teargas canisters and the demonstrators torched tires, the entire Shaheed Minar area was enveloped in smoke.
   Amid the violence, hundreds of people went up to the Shaheed Minar steps to pay respect to the deceased whose coffin lay there.
   Traffic movement was halted for hours as the police sealed off the university entry points after the clashes.
   At 3:45pm, the mourners again started for BIRDEM, where the body has been kept at the mortuary until Kibria’s daughter arrives from the United Kingdom. The body might be buried in the Banani graveyard.
   Conventionally, a sitting lawmaker’s janaza takes place at the south plaza of the Jatiya Sangsad Bhaban. But Kibria’s family refused to take the coffin there although the Jatiya Sangsad speaker, Jamiruddin Sircar, had made the arrangements.
   The deputy leader of the opposition in the parliament, Abdul Hamid, conveyed to the speaker Kibria’s family’s wishes. The Awami League supporters at Sutrapur damaged and set fire to a minibus at Moorgitola at abut 5:45pm.
   In another incident, the agitated supporters set fire to and damaged the Dandy Dying, a showroom of clothes owned by Tarique Rahman, the BNP’s senior joint secretary general, at Mirpur 10 at about 6:30pm. Property worth about Tk 10 lakh was burnt.
   The party supporters also damaged and set fire to a BRTC double-decker at the Darussalam bus stand at Mirpur 11, at around 7:30pm.

Bereavement and shock are too inadequate to describe the kind of violent deaths that have been occurring to political personages in 2004 till date as of January 27, 2005. SAMS Kibria, the immediate-past finance minister in the 1996-2001 Awami League government and a former top-order diplomat and international civil servant, was done to death, along with four others by his side, on the stage of a party rally in Habiganj.
   The routine regularity and the pattern of killer violence, in which the AL partisans and leaders have been eliminated or maimed either by design or randomly during this brief span of time, do not brook excuses of external handiwork and some conditioned governmental responses bordering on dismissiveness. The spate of unchecked criminality, political in such cases, appears to send a message to one and all: the right to the security of life and limb exists only in the breach; and that the government of the day is neither obliged nor responsible to grant or uphold the same.
   Shah AMS Kibria is dead, as Mrs Ivy Rahman was, along with a number of others, who, though, were no lesser to their kin. We are not shocked and benumbed. We are simply angry, with all our senses alight at the recurrence of the gory events. They either burn us or burn everything else not because SAMS Kibria was a political personage belonging to a particular political party, but because he was a fellow citizen. The government of late seems to have forgotten that they are at the service of the citizens, and not their masters.
   If odious comparisons are there for hiding behind, there are plenty of similar instances in the years past, and here and elsewhere. But they are no excuses again, nor the precedents as in an argument. Most of us have lived through those times, enduring the pre- and the post-Bangladesh terror, the latter punctuated by so many struggles as would exhaust the count on the ten fingers. But the last two tenures in particular — this one still to last another two years of more violence amid a killer power-struggle between, among and within the political class and its progenies — have literally made a caricature of a representative political order with the omissions in governance and commissions in self-aggrandisement.
   Given the gravity of the circumstances of such killings and the utter absence of accountability and transparency on the part of the administration in bringing to book the killers, British high commissioner Anwar Choudhury’s close shave not excepted, the first quarter of 2005 can indeed be harrowing for the people. It can also be more harrowing for the political class because they have more at stake and hence more to lose.
   The 60-hour unremitting hartal called by the AL and its allies is a corollary to the drastic events overtaking the government. It will have to be endured by the public and business at a cost but not at that of the political class on either side of the political divide. Nor does it bring Ivy Rahman and SAMS Kibria back to life. But that’s how it is and how it will be.
   Meanwhile, Bangla Bhai will continue to haunt the north-western district, blackening the country’s face all the more. The Aminis will shout blue murder to Ahmadiyas. The succession drama in the BNP will have its twists and turns, including some comic relief of Hasina’s son joining the race come elections in favour of his mother, though not directly claiming the mantle like his counterpart.
   Till then, we may keep our fingers crossed, be on guard for staying alive, and condemn the killings, including those of Ivy Rahman and SAMS Kibria, with our anger burning within, the impudence of late SAMS Kibria’s kin against this newspaper notwithstanding.

The grenade attack on the Awami League rally on the Baidyer Bazar primary school ground in Habiganj that killed five people, including the former finance minister, Shah AMS Kibira, has similarity with that of the August 21 grenade attack on an AL rally in Dhaka and other attacks in Sylhet, experts said on Friday.
   After a quick inquiry, the investigators confirmed that it was a powerful grenade charged at the Awami League meeting and, maybe, of the same type exploded at Hazrat Shajalal’s shrine in Sylhet.
   The members of different law-enforcing agencies and all the intelligence agencies have got down to investigation of Thursday’s incident.
   The high-powered investigation team comprises the National Security Intelligence, Rapid Action Battalion, Criminal Investigation Department and Special Branch, with the Sylhet range deputy inspector general, AKM Mahfuzul Haque heading the team.
   Reaching Habiganj in an army helicopter, the investigators visited the spot in the afternoon and collected some evidences from the place of attack. They talked with some witnesses to the incident. The investigators also visited the local hospital where the injured were under treatment since Thursday and talked with them. The local Awami League has filed two cases with the police in connection with the grenade attack.
   The Habiganj Awami League organising secretary, Abdul Majid Khan, filed the cases — one murder case and another under the explosives act.
   The police instituted two inquiry committees, headed by the additional police superintendent of Habiganj and Sumanganj, to assist the investigation officer, who is also officer-in-charge of the Habiganj sadar police, in the investigation process, the Sylhet range deputy inspector general told New Age on Friday.
   The government has, meanwhile, formed an investigation committee, headed by a deputy inspector general of the police, to unearth the bomb blast in which Kibria and four others killed.
   ‘An investigation committee, headed by a deputy inspector general of police, has been formed,’ the minister for LGRD and cooperatives, Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan, said at a news briefing in Dhaka Friday.
   ‘The members of the Rapid Action Battalion, Detective Branch, Special Branch and other law-enforcing agencies have also been included in the committee,’ he said.
   An international investigation may also be carried out to solve the mystery of the blast, Bhuiyan, also head of the cabinet committee on law and order, said. ‘The international investigation agencies may be called in, if necessary, to investigate the incident.’
   The New Age correspondent in Moulvibazar reports from Habiganj that the police had failed to identify or arrest anyone in connection with the attack till Friday.
   Witnesses to Thursday’s incident said that they saw two young men getting away in a motorcycle from Baidyer Bazar after the attack.
   The attackers had waited at the north gate of the primary school before they threw the grenades, they said.
   One of the young men, sporting beard, is known a former union council member, Ali Azgar of Baidyer Bazar, witnesses said.
   The police picked up Ali Azgar for interrogation. The law enforcers took him in raiding several places, but failed to trace the man till the evening.
   The police on Friday cordoned off the place where the grenades were exploded. Splinters of the grenades were seen on the gate of the school, fence of a nearby shop and on a Kadam tree.
   An injured in the attack, Osman Gani, said that he saw two people, who were standing beside a motorcycle to the north of the place, throwing ‘something’ towards them. ‘The blast followed immediately.’
   Another witness, Mohammad Alauddin, president of the Laskarpur Union Juba League, said that the attackers threw grenades at Kibria immediately after he had crossed the gate of the school, after getting down from the dais on hearing the call for the isha prayers.
   He said that he fall down on the ground after the blasts of the grenades had been heard.
   The Habiganj police superintendent, ABM Fakhrul Islam Khan, declined to comment on the progress of cases.
    ‘I do not want to talk about the cases in the next two to three days. But we will identify the criminals,’ he said.
   The Awami League activists and supporters, meanwhile, alleged that the police had not provided made any security arrangement for the place although it was a ‘well-publicised’ rally. The police said no protection was sought.
   The deputy inspector general of police, AKM Mahfuzul Haque, of the Sylhet range and the Habiganj police superintendent said the police knew nothing of the arrival of Kibria as he went to the rally at Baidyer Bazar directly from the Dhaka–Sylhet Highway.
   An Awami League leader, Shahid Chowdhury, also a former municipal chairman, and Shahbaz Chwodhury, a neighbour of Kibria, said Kibria had exchanged post-Eid greetings with people in his residence in the district town between 10:00am and 1:00pm.
   They said reports were published in local newspapers about the rally before Thursday and they announced the news on PA system in the area. They said no written application was made for security at the rally.

A Lebanese analyst has defined tomorrow’s election in Iraq as the world’s first election to be conducted by ‘ghosts and invisible people’ following reports by international news agencies that potential voters, and even most candidates, are laying low for fear of being killed.
   And they have reasons to be afraid. With a day to go for elections to the 275-member national assembly and 18 provincial councils in a country still under siege by foreign troops, the oil-rich Middle Eastern nation more and more resembles a battle zone.
   On Thursday and Friday alone, at least 36 people were killed in different forms of violence, according to Agence France Presse.
   The widespread violence has justifiably inspired fear into candidates, voters, election officials and even the international monitors.
   The guerrillas, who have been fighting to end the occupation of the US-led forces, have released a videotape that apparently shows three kidnapped election workers. Several guerrilla groups, including the one led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who has been endorsed by Osama bin Laden, have already declared a war on the election and vowed to attack polling stations and kill those who vote.
   ‘We have declared a fierce war on this evil principle of democracy and those who follow this wrong ideology,’ the Associated Press quoted Zarqawi of having said in an audiotape, released last week. The United States has a $25 million reward for al-Zarqawi’s capture or death.
   The traditional Shia-Sunni tension has also dictated the lead-up to the elections. Sunnis, who fear loss of power to the majority Shias, have been the driving force behind the battle against the occupation forces.
   ‘For the first time in centuries, Shias are about to come into their own as the rulers - or at least the politically dominant community - in a key Arab country,’ writes David Hirst in the Guardian. ‘In the Arab world, except for Lebanon with its largely Christian population, the rulers of all 22 states have traditionally hailed from the orthodox Sunni majority. But until now that has included two countries, Iraq and Bahrain, where, against the broader trend, Shias compose the majority.’
   The fact has ample reflections on the elections. There are over 100 registered parties and coalitions (fielding 7,500 candidates), but the favourite is the Shia ‘United Iraqi List’ led by Abdul Aziz al-Hakim of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and more importantly endorsed by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.
   The other serious contenders are the secular Iraqi List of the interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi and the Kurdistan Alliance List led by Jalal Talabani and Massoud Barzani, the two of the most prominent Iraqi Kurds.
   ‘Sistani’s endorsement is expected to put the United Iraqi List (which also includes the party of Ahmed Chalabi, the Pentagon’s former darling) ahead of its rivals. Not all of Iraq’s Shia population will wish to vote for a religious party, but the use of religious symbols and the respected cleric’s image is a powerful call for those that do,’ writes Simon Jeffery in the Guardians.
   Meanwhile, there have been clear indications that the elections, which the US and Great Britain have been in pains to portray as the first step towards peace and stability in the war-torn country of 25 million people, will bring neither.
   The AFP reports the International Crisis Group as saying ethnic tensions in the disputed northern Iraqi oil hub of Kirkuk are the biggest threat hanging over stability and could spark a regional conflict.
   ‘In northern Iraq, largely unnoticed, a conflict is brewing that, if allowed to boil over, could precipitate civil war, break-up of the country and in a worst-case scenario Turkish intervention,’ says a report of the group, an international conflict resolution think-tank.
   Aggressive rhetoric has been festering unchecked in the ethnic tinderbox of Kirkuk since the April 2003 fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime, as Kurds seek to the right the wrongs of the old regime, it adds.
   Kurds were massively expelled from Kirkuk under Saddam’s policy of Arabisation and are now seeking to tighten their grip on a city which holds huge oil resources and which they want as the capital of a future region, or state.
   A recent decision brokered by the Iraqi government gave tens of thousands of displaced Kurds the right to vote in Kirkuk, effectively tipping the balance to the Kurdish community and drawing the ire of neighbouring Turkey.
   The Guardian reported on Friday that the US and Britain have privately agreed an exit strategy from Iraq based on doubling the number of local police trainees and setting up Iraqi units that would act as a halfway house between the police and the army.
   Washington and London have banked on the Iraqi police to get ready as soon as possible and pave the path for the Anglo-American forces to pull out.
   The Guardian, however, quotes a British military source as saying it would take years before the Iraqi police were ready.

The Awami League and its allies in the opposition political camps separately announced on Friday a non-stop 60-hour countrywide general strike to protest against the killing of former finance minister Shah AMS Kibria and four other Awami League activists in a deadly grenade attack.
   A joint emergency meeting of the Awami League presidium and the central working committee finalised the programme, which the leader of the opposition in parliament Sheikh Hasina announced in the afternoon.
   The meeting, presided over by the Awami League president, strongly condemned the Habiganj grenade attack on an opposition rally that killed at least five persons, including Kibria, and injured as many as 150 people.
   Announcing the stoppage programmes, which will begin at 6:00am on Saturday and end on Monday evening, Hasina said that the opposition parties would come up with tougher actions and would continue until the Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led alliance government, which she blamed for repeated grenade attacks on the opposition, is toppled.
   ‘No more of this killer government,’ she told a press conference at her Dhanmondi office. Asked what would be the next course of action, the opposition leader said she would consult the leaders of the other opposition parties and announce it jointly later.
   The 11-party Alliance, a combine of the left and left-leaning parties, announced a similar programme at a press conference
   The left-combine, earlier at a meeting of the central steering committee, decided to enforce the hartal across the country for three days.

Blaming the ruling BNP-Jamaat alliance for killing ‘popular and respected’ opposition leaders, the Awami League president, Sheikh Hasina, urged the conscious section of the people to stand united to overthrow the government.
   ‘No more of this killer government, which has launched a cleansing operation against the Awami League to cling to power,’
   Hasina said at a news briefing on Friday.
   The statement came in the wake of a grenade attack on a rally of the Awami League, the main opposition in the parliament, killing 5 and injuring about a 100 in Habiganj on Thursday. The victims included an Awami League lawmaker and the former finance minister, Shah A M S Kibria.
   Hasina announced a country-wide, three-day general strike protesting against the killing and threatened with tougher action until the BNP-led government steps down. She alleged that the killing of a dedicated leader like Kibria was part of a blueprint of the BNP-Jamaat alliance government’s cleansing operation against the main opposition, which according to Hasina began in 2001 immediately after the general elections.
   Naming a number of Awami League leaders either bombed to death or shot by the ruling party elements, Hasina said the government became desperate to cling to power by eliminating the opposition as the government has realised it has no chance of winning the next elections.
   She said the present government would never bring the perpetrators to book because the alliance government masterminded the killings. ‘Those who are involved cannot ensure justice for the killings.’
   ‘The resignation of the alliance government and the establishment of a democratically elected government can only ensure trial of the killers,’ she said.

The pressure of risking their lives to vote for their futures is too much for many Iraqis who have been bombarded with threats ahead of Sunday’s historic election.
   The US military and Iraqi authorities admit that the fear and intimidation instilled by guerrillas is as much a concern as their car bombs, rockets and bullets.
   Voters have been threatened with death, to have their children kidnapped and their houses burned down, according to residents and military officials. And they know the threats will remain long past Sunday’s vote.
   Carlos Valenzuela, the UN representative on the Iraqi election commission, has described voting on election day as a courageous act by Iraqis. ‘This process is not risk free. People have to take collective chances,’ he said.
   Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaeda associate with a 25 million dollar US reward on his head, has claimed many of the attacks carried out in recent months and vowed that anyone who votes will be a target of his fighters.
   Other groups have joined Zarqawi’s war cry.
   ‘Do not cooperate with evil and the enemy,’ warned one poster stuck on the wall of the Al Tawiyah school in the El-Amin neighbourhood of Baghdad this week. The school was attacked three days in a row this week.
   ‘The hand of the mujahedeen, will reach all of the polling stations and the workers in it and all people who take part in it. Anyone who does not listen must fear the result and he should blame himself.’
   Another leaflet thrown around the streets of Baghdad this week warned people to stay 500 metres (yards) from any polling station or be the target of snipers, rockets and bombs.
   Despite the pleas of government leaders, the US president, George W Bush, and other influential figures, many Iraqis say they are just too scared to vote around central Iraq’s five main provinces—Al-Anbar, Salahuddin, Diyala, Nineveh, Tamin – and parts of Baghdad.
   That is why many US and Iraqi officials say even a 50 per cent turnout in the central region would be a success and the United Nations is prepared to give its backing to a result that could be overshadowed by violence.
   Despite the violence spiralling out of control in central Iraq, a huge turnout is anticipated in the Kurdish north and Shia south, where the two communities persecuted under Saddam are keen to express their voice.
   ‘If the American president was here with his family, I wonder what he would do on Sunday,’ said Tawfik Salim, a Baghdad store owner, who was uncertain whether he would vote.
   Saad Hariz, an activist in Tikrit for one party taking part in the election, said he and many others in Saddam Hussein’s hometown had received threats.
   ‘They said they would kill us, kidnap our children, burn down our homes. I have had to take measures to protect my family.’
   The fear factor is also a concern for the US military. Top generals admit that suicide bombers are a major threat to Sunday’s vote.
   According to the US military, seven members of the provincial council in Diyala, north of Baghdad, have been assassinated in less than 10 months and the governor has been the target of eight assassination attempts.
   ‘One assassination carries a lot of intimidation with the local populace, with those who are thinking of running’ for office, said Captain Carrie Prezelski, an intelligence planner with 1st Infantry, which patrols four difficult provinces in central and northern Iraq, including Diyala.
   ‘Even if you only take out one person, the impact is greater than many would think,’ she added.
   But an election day attack would be ‘the most dramatic’ act guerrillas could carry out.
   ‘They are not only discrediting and de-legitimising the Iraqi security forces—if they can get a car bomb close to a polling site—but they are also discrediting coalition forces as we were unable to secure that voting site either,’ Prezelski told reporters this week at the military headquarters in Tikrit.
   ‘It is a black eye for both organisations,’ said Prezelski, ‘and it also makes the internal Iraqi government look weak.’
   ‘If they can intimidate—one or two attacks like that early on election day—it is going to scare enough people away from the polls so that the claim can be made that they are completely illegitimate as there are not enough people to vote.’

The death of former finance minister, Shah AMS Kibria, and four others in Thursday’s grenade attack on an Awami League rally in Sylhet sparked off countrywide protests on Friday.
   A dawn-to-dusk hartal was observed in Habiganj and clashes took place between the agitators and the police in Chittagong in which at least 25 people, including five policemen, were injured.
   The New Age correspondent reports from Habiganj that the hartal was observed spontaneously amid stray clashes between the pickets and the police.
   The pickets damaged vehicles, including a Channel i transport, and smashed windowpanes of some banks and other business establishments.
   They also set fire to some vehicles and a furniture shop, owned by a brother of the district BNP general secretary, GK Gaus.
   The agitators attacked the Channel i microbus at Shayestaganj and damaged a video camera. They assaulted the reporter, Arefin Faisal, and cameraman, Modhu Tripura.
   All shops and business establishments remained closed in the town; transports were off the road. Hundreds of long-route buses were stranded on the Dhaka-Sylhet Highway.
   The pickets also uprooted railways at different points, forcing Parabat and Paharika to remain stranded at Akhaura railway station, Jayantika at Srimangal and Kushiara at Shayestaganj. The rail communication resumed at 5:00pm.
   The bodies of three of the victims — Shah Manjurul Huda, Siddik Ali and Abdur Rahim — were sent to their village homes after janaza at Shirishtala after the juma prayers.
   The New Age correspondent in Chittagong said at least 25 people, including five policemen, were injured and nine Awami league activists were arrested during a clash between the activists and the police at New Market crossing in the evening. The protesters then damaged a number of vehicles.
   Awami League leaders Fazle Karim MP, MA Salam and Gias Uddin were among the injured.
   The New Age correspondent in Bogra reports that the local Awami League held a rally and a mourning procession with the district unit president, Momtaz Uddin, in the chair.
   The district unit of Bangladesher Samajtantrik Dal also held a rally in the afternoon.
   The New Age correspondent in Rangamati reports that the local Awami League held a rally in front of the party’s district unit office in the afternoon.
   The Rajshahi correspondent said hundreds of leaders and activists of the Awami League-led 14-party alliance brought out a procession and held a rally at Sahib Bazar.
   The Khulna correspondent reported that the district and city units of the Awami League, its different front organisations and the 11-Party Alliance went out on demonstrations and brought out separate processions. The agitators blocked roads during the procession.
   The Khulna unit of the 11-Party Alliance held the rally in front of the Communist Party of Bangladesh office.
   The Barisal correspondent said the local Awami League and its front leaders at a gathering in the city blamed the four-party alliance government for the attack and demanded its immediate resignation.
   Participants in a daylong workshop on the Beijing Plus 10 Resolution on gender issues and its review at grassroots in the Barisal Social Service auditorium observed a one-minute silence in memory of the victims of the Habiganj incident. The programme was by half a day.
   Similar programmes were reported from Patuakhali, Bhola, Barguna, Pirojpur and Jhalakati.

Family members of the slain Awami League leader Shah AMS Kibria think that chances are slight that the government will find and try the killer(s) of the former finance minister who was murdered in a grisly grenade attack on Thursday at a rally in his constituency.
   ‘We want to see the killers being brought to justice, but the possibility of justice from this government is very thin,’ Dr Reza Kibria, son of the former minister, told reporters after his father’s second janaza was held at Bangabandhu Avenue.
   Reza, who flew into Dhaka from Kuwait on Friday after receiving information that his father had died in a grenade attack, broke down in tears when he entered his father’s Dhanmondi residence. He embraced his wailing mother Asma Kibria and started weeping for his deceased father.
   Earlier, Asma Kibria, the widow of SAMS Kibria, while talking to reporters in her home had expressed similar views, saying, ‘I know this government will not try the killers. They know only how to commit crimes.’
   Asked whether she suspects anyone, a fuming Asma told the reporters to question the Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led alliance government. ‘We want justice; we want to see that the killers are punished.’
   ‘There are opposition parties in all the countries. But it does not mean that the opposition leaders have to be murdered,’ said Asma. She said good people are not being valued in the country.

The president, Iajuddin Ahmed, and the prime minister, Khaleda Zia, on Friday expressed their deep shock at the death of Shah AMS Kibria, a former finance minister and AL lawmaker, and four others in the Thursday’s bomb attack on a public meeting at Habiganj by unidentified miscreants.
   The president, in a condolence message, strongly condemned the incident and termed the attack on the public meeting as barbaric and cowardice.
   He said the culprits involved in the attack were the enemy of the country and the people.
   In a separate message, Khaleda strongly condemned the attack and said the duty of the hour was to find out the culprits and give them stern legal punishment.
   Such attack at Habiganj is a part of deep conspiracy against the country at a time when the present government with the support of people has taken stern measures against the criminals, the prime minister said.
   Khaleda said she had already given directives to all authorities concerned to identify the criminals at any cost and to take proper action against them. She urged all quarters concerned and the people of all spheres to extend their cooperation in this regard.
   The prime minister said the people of this country had always shown their courage, dutifulness, responsibility and sagacity during such situation by maintaining patience, tolerance and unity. ‘I hope there will be no exception this time also.’
   Khaleda also sought cooperation of all to help the investigation to identify the offenders for taking action against them to stop recurrence of such incident.
   The president and the prime minister expressed their deep sympathy to the members of the bereaved family. They lauded the contributions of Kibria to the country as a top government official, diplomat, economist and politician.
   They wished early recovery of those injured in the attack and directed the authorities concerned to ensure proper treatment for them. Meanwhile, the speaker, Jamiruddin Sircar, also expressed his deep shock at the death of Kibria. In a message, the speaker described Kibria as a successful diplomat, who highlighted the Bangladesh’s position in the world community.

Failure to investigate previous grenade and bomb attacks has created an anarchic situation, encouraging the continuation of such incidents, observed ambassadors of the European Union’s diplomatic missions in Dhaka in a joint statement on Friday.
   ‘The EU ambassadors are deeply concerned that the apparent failure to properly investigate previous attacks has led to a climate of impunity which encourages a continuation of such incidents,’ said the statement, issued after meeting with the family members of the former finance minister, SAMS Kibria, also a lawmaker of the main opposition in the parliament, killed on Thursday night in a grenade attack on a rally at his constituency in Habiganj. The British high commissioner in Dhaka, Anwar Choudhury, read out the statement on behalf of the ambassadors before the journalists.
   ‘Under these circumstances, the EU ambassadors cannot emphasize enough the need for swift action by the government of Bangladesh,’ he read. In the statement, the ambassadors called upon the government to take all necessary measures to thoroughly and transparently investigate the attack and ensure due process of law.
   Esko Kentrschynskyj, the head of the delegation of the European Commission, led the EU delegation to SAMS Kibria’s residence and expressed their sympathy.
   The Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh, and the external affairs minister, Natwar Singh, conveyed their deep condolences to Asma on the tragic death of her husband.
   The official spokesman for the Indian ministry of external affairs, Navtej Sarna, in a statement issued on Friday said, ‘All right-thinking persons must join in condemning such violent acts of terrorism, which constitute a direct attack on the fabric of democracy that the people of Bangladesh are striving to create for themselves.’
   The United News of Bangladesh adds that the United States embassy in Dhaka on Friday urged the government to vigorously pursue the investigation into the grenade attack that killed Kibria and others.
   ‘We are deeply saddened at the death of Kibria and we strongly urge the government to pursue the investigation vigorously,’ a spokesman for the embassy said when asked to comment on the incident.
   The government of Japan urged Bangladesh to immediately probe into the series of terrorist incidents including the latest grenade attack that killed former finance minister and AL lawmaker, said a statement issued by the press secretary of the Japanese foreign affairs ministry on Friday.
   The British minister of state for trade, investment and foreign affairs, Douglas Alexander, on Friday evening telephoned Sheikh Hasina, leader of the main opposition, and offered his government’s condolences.
   Saber Hossain Chowdhury, Hasina’s political secretary, told UNB that Alexander made the phone call at around 8:00pm on behalf of the British foreign secretary, Jack Straw. Condemning the incident, the British minister said appropriate investigation should be carried out to trace out the perpetrators behind the latest grenade attack to ‘stop recurrence of such tragic incidents’.
   He also assured Hasina that the British government would contact the Bangladesh government to convey their concern over the incidents.

The BNP secretary general, Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan, also minister for LGRD and coopera tives, admitted the authorities failed to solve the blast mysteries.
   ‘It is true that we could not dig out the mystery of the incidents for various reasons,’ he said at a news briefing, referring to unresolved similar incidents of the past, in his official residence Friday afternoon.
   ‘Maybe, it is a weakness of the authorities concerned,’ Bhuiyan, also head of the cabinet committee on law and order, said. He did not elaborate on the causes of the failure.
   ‘But efforts are still on to investigate the incidents and the culprits will not be spared,’ he said.
   Terming the attacks ‘planned,’ the minister said, ‘Someone has been carrying out the plans with specific motives.’
   Replying to a query regarding the allegations of government link with the attack put forward by the Awami League president, Sheikh Hasina, and Kibria’s family, Bhuiyan said, ‘Those are emotional reactions as they are shocked.’
   ‘It is easy, especially for an opposition party, to raise question regarding the government’s involvement in such blasts,’ he said.
   ‘Why will a stable, democratic government be engaged in such a heinous incident that destabilises peace?’ Bhuiyan, also a policymaker of the four-party alliance government, said.
   Describing the masterminds of the attacks as enemies of humanity, democracy and the country, he said the government was determined to bring them to book.
   The government has directed the authorities concerned to take action against the culprits, he said. He urged all, irrespective party affiliations, to exercise restraint and cooperate with the government in hunting down the killers.
   ‘We have sought cooperation of all, irrespective of party affiliations, and we are still seeking cooperation in unfolding the incidents and put the culprits behind bars,’ he said. ‘If necessary, we will again formally seek cooperation from the opposition.’
   He urged the Awami League not to call for general strikes. ‘General strikes only compound people’s sufferings.’ ‘It may also hamper the forthcoming SAARC summit.’
   Quoting the state minister for home affairs, Bhuiyan said, ‘The deputy inspector general of Sylhet and the police superintendent of Habiganj were asked to arrange a helicopter to carry the injured Awami League leaders, including Kibria, to Dhaka for better treatment.’
   The deputy commissioner and the police superintendent talked to the families of Kibria and other local Awami League leaders; but they refused to avail of the offer, thinking that the helicopter would take time to reach the place.
   As for lapses in security measures, if there were any, at the meeting place in Habiganj, the minister said, ‘Anyone of the police found guilty of negligence in duties will be punished.’
   The adviser to the Ministry of Commerce, Barkatullah Bulu, the BNP joint secretary general Gayeswar Chandra Roy, the BNP city general secretary Abdus Salam, and whip Zahed Ali Chowdhury were also present at the news briefing.

A fear of eviction has gripped as many as 6700 inhabitants of the St Martins Island following a recent government decision to turn the island into a tourist resort recovering the lands there occupied by illegal grabbers.
   ‘We fear that we will be ousted from our ancestral homes as government will take this Island,’ said Farid Ahmed, one of the islanders living on deep-sea fishing for generations.
   Anxiety was found rolling around eyeballs of many whom this correspondent talked to during a visit to the small island.
   Ismail, a student of class II in Creed School and the eldest of Farid’s six children, met the visitors’ group in the beach and became delighted to see new faces there. He even did not forget to invite them to their house.
   ‘Locals are gripped by rumour of eviction,’ said Mahe Alam, the acting head teacher of Creed School, an NGO-run primary school in the Island.
   He said that people of St Martins organised processions two days, even on the Eid day, against such a possible eviction.
   Rumour started airing from the previous week of Eid when the government announced that the island would be developed as an exclusive tourist spot.
   Mahe Alam, one of the very few islanders who completed college level education staying in mainland Cox’s Bazar, thinks that they would not be evicted finally.
   ‘I think new settlers like Myanmar-Rohingyas would be taken out from the island finally if the island is developed as a tourist spot,’ Alam said, admitting that visit of tourists to the island will ultimately benefit the islanders.
   Many inhabitants alleged that Rohingyas were engaged crimes like burglary, snatching in the peaceful island where there was almost no crime earlier.
   At least 10,000 people from across the country visited the St Martins during the four-day Eid vacation, estimated Naser Ahmed, manager of the Angel Tours, a tour operator stationed in Cox’s Bazar that offers package tour to the St Martins.
   And incoming of tourists has brought fortunes to some islanders, and also outsiders, who opened up tourism facilities including restaurants and residential hotels in the sea shore.
   St Martins, the small coral island fringed with coconut palms and bountiful marine life is a 10-kilometre trip from the mainland Teknaf in Cox’s Bazar.
   On January 16, the government decided to prepare a master plan for the development of the island as a tourist spot.
   As per the decision of an inter-ministerial meeting, the ministries of local government and rural development, civil aviation and tourism and environment and forests will jointly prepare the master plan.
   The meeting also decided to evict illegal occupants and recover the occupied khas lands and bring new lands emerged from sea in record.
   The deputy commissioner of Cox’s Bazar has been assigned to complete the task while the police authority of the district has been asked to evict the unauthorised Rohingyas from the island immediately stopping their further influx.

Guerrillas bent on wrecking Sunday’s landmark election killed 10 Iraqis and two US soldiers on Friday as the government announced the capture of two al-Qaeda lieutenants.
   The government imposed extraordinary security restrictions to try to safeguard the polls. Land borders were closed and travel between provinces was banned. An extended curfew was imposed in most cities from 7:00pm to 6:00am
   A top US general warned Friday of a spike in attacks for Iraq’s historic election as Iraqi security forces slapped down curfews and sealed off Baghdad ministries and bridges with cement barricades and barbwire.
   ‘On election day, we expect to see an increase in violence in cities such as Baghdad, Mosul, and Ramadi,’ said Brigadier General Erv Lessel, the chief military spokesman in Iraq.
   The senior commander cautioned that guerrillas would use all the weapons in their arsenal.
   ‘I think they’ll continue to conduct the attacks they’ve traditionally done: car bombs, suicide bombs, rocket-propelled grenades, mortars, small arms fire, they’ll use the full arsenal’ to attack polling stations, he said.
   Security was tight at polling venues in Syria, Jordan, and Turkey and police kept traffic away with roadblocks. Guards with metal detectors searched everyone going into the stations.
   Al-Qaeda’s leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has vowed to kill anyone who votes in a poll he says is designed to bring Iraq’s ‘infidel’ Shia majority to power.
   Iraq’s minister of state for national security said two of the Jordanian militant’s aides had been captured, including his alleged chief of operations in Baghdad, seized on December 31.
   In a statement, the government said the Baghdad operations chief, named as Salah Salman Idaaj Matar al-Luhaybi and also known as Abu Sayf, had met Zarqawi four times in December.
   It said the second captured Zarqawi lieutenant, Ali Hamad Ardani Yasin al-Isawi, had met Zarqawi 40 times in the past three months and was caught west of Baghdad on January 20.
   The government says several Zarqawi aides have been captured this month, but some officials have cast doubt on the significance of the arrests and say the announcements have been timed to boost public confidence ahead of the elections.
   In southern Baghdad, a car bomb exploded next to a police station, killing four Iraqi civilians, police said. A second car bomb detonated nearby shortly afterwards, close to a school that will be used as a polling station.
   In the western city of Ramadi, a guerrilla stronghold, six Iraqi soldiers were killed in ambushes, an Iraqi officer said.
   The US military said a soldier was shot dead in northern Baghdad. A roadside bomb killed an American soldier and wounded two others in the south of the capital.
   Since Wednesday, at least 54 Iraqis and nine US troops have been killed in guerrilla attacks. A helicopter crash also killed 30 American Marines and one sailor on Wednesday, the deadliest single incident of the war for the US military.
   Ahead of the start of the extended curfew, Iraqis rushed to the shops to stock up on essentials as shelves emptied.

A suspected underground party leader in Natore and a listed criminal in Rajshahi were killed in cross-fires between the police and their associates on Friday.
   The deceased were identified as Entaz Ali, 38, of village Baigunipara under Singra upazila in Natore, and Abul Kasem, 40, of village Senpara under Bagmara upazila in Rajshahi.
   In Natore, a Singra police team arrested Entaz Ali, a suspected leader of the underground Purba Banglar Communist Party, from his village home Wednesday night.
   Entaz told the police that some underground party men would hold a meeting in the house of one Hajrat Ali at Khirpouta Bazar in the area early Friday.
   The police, along with Entaz, reached Khirpouta Bazar at about 1:45am when his associates opened fire on them. The police fired back.
   Entaz sustained bullet injuries when he tried to get away. His associates managed to run away.
   The police recovered a pipe gun and 12 bullets from the place. The police took Entaz to Singra Health Complex where doctors declared him dead.
   The police claimed that Entaz was an underground party leader and accused in several cases, including murder.
   In Rajshahi, the police arrested Abul Kasem, wanted in seven murder cases, from village Senpara of Bagmara Thursday morning.
   Based on his statement, the police went to Sadhanpur under Puthia upazila along with him to recover arms, but his associates fired on them while the police retaliated.
   At one stage, Abul Kasem tried to get away from but he was caught in the cross-fire and died on the spot.
   The police recovered an Indian made pistol and two rounds of bullets from his possession.

The education ministry has asked non-government schools, colleges and madrassah not to recruit teachers by creating new posts or additional sections without its approval.
   The ministry on January 8 issued an order that said action would be taken against the head of the institution or official or employees involved in creating new posts or additional sections.
   Besides, all the new posts and sections, which were created without the permission of the ministry, would be cancelled.
   There are around 30,000 non-government schools, colleges and madrassahs in Bangladesh with about five lakh teachers and employees on the payroll. The number is increasing every year with a huge involvement of government fund.
   ‘The ministry has issued the order amid frequent allegations of irregularities in recruitment of teachers in the newly created posts and additional sections,’ the state minister for education, ANM Ehsanul Haque Milon, told New Age last week.
   The Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education must send a proposal to the ministry with recommendations or opinion of the upazila nirbahi officer and the education board concerned, should there be any need to create new posts or sections, says the order.
   ‘Recruitment of teachers in these posts or opening new sections would be considered according to the ministry order, only after issuance of the government order, i.e. the ministry’s approval.’
   The ministry has also ordered that teachers for newly introduced subjects in intermediate and degree colleges must not be listed for monthly pay orders without the approval of the ministry.
   The institutions must have recognition of the education board concerned or the National University for introduction of a new subject, according to the order.
   ‘To include the teachers in the monthly pay order, in the newly opened subjects, the director general of the Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education has been asked to send proposal to the ministry with recommendations,’ says the order.

At least seven persons were killed in separate road accidents across the country on Friday.
   Three persons were killed and 15 others injured at Konakhola under Keraniganj upazila of Dhaka Friday night, according to the United News of Bangladesh.
   The police said the accident took place at about 7:30pm when a Nawabganj-bound bus from Jinjira fell into a road side ditch, killing three passengers on the spot.
   The injured were taken to Dhaka Medical College Hospital where condition of three was stated to be critical.
   In Sherpur, a child labourer was killed and 60 people were injured when a Dhaka-bound bus overturned at Kendua Char in sadar upazila.
   The deceased was Matin Mia, 12, son of late Kashem Ali of Chattamari village in Rahumari upazila in Kurigram.
   The injured were admitted to sadar and Jamalpur hospitals.
   In Comilla, one person was killed when a Dhaka bound bus collided head-on with a trolley at Khadghar under Chandina upazila, according to the Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha.
   The victim was Alamgir, 35, son of Nuru Miah of Chaerpara village under Daudkandi upazila.
   In another accident, two persons were killed when a Dhaka bound bus hit another bus at Satbaria in Chouddagram upazila. Twenty passengers were also injured in the accident.

The family of the former finance minister, Shah AMS Kibria, also an Awami League lawmaker, denied New Age reporter and photographer entry to his residence for unknown reasons, when the EU delegation visited there Friday evening.
   As the New Age newsmen, along with their community colleagues, entered the gate of the slain leader’s Dhanmondi residence, his family members showing the waiting journalists into the sitting room, checking identity of the members of the press, stopped the New Age men and announced clearly that no one from the newspaper would be allowed to enter.
   As one of the two New Age men politely asked the reason, the family members refused to answer.

The Rapid Action Battalion on Friday searched the central office of the Awami League, the main opposition in the parliament, on Bangabandhu Avenue where the Awami League leaders and activists were waiting for the janaza of the former finance minister, Shah AMS Kibria, killed in the grenade attack of Thursday night.
   Witnesses said the battalion reached the party office at about 12:45pm with handheld metal detectors and sniffer dogs and searched all the floors of the multi-storey building.
   Nothing was found, the battalion members told newsmen.

Different organisations on Friday condemned the killing of the former finance minister, Shah AMS Kibria, and four other activists of Awami League, the main opposition in the parliament, in a bomb attack and demanded immediate arrest of the criminals.
   They also criticised the government for not solving the previous bomb attacks.
   The Bangladesh Economic Association in a statement asked the government to identify and arrest Kibria’s killers within 24 hours.
   The association also demanded exemplary punishment of the killers and the masterminds behind the killing.
   Kibria, an Awami League lawmaker and a lifetime member of the Bangladesh Economic Association was killed in a bomb attack on an AL rally at Baidyer Bazar in Habiganj on Thursday evening.
   The statement said the killing of Kibria proved that fundamentalists and anti-liberation forces in the country are active and trying to destabilise the country through killings in a planned manner.
   The statement said if the pro-liberation forces in the country fail to thwart the anti-liberation forces, similar incidents will follow with frequency.
   Odhikar, a human rights organisation in a statement demanded judicial probe into the incident adding that the bomb attack on Thursday is a follow-up of the August 21 grenade attack on an Awami League rally.

The scheduled union and ward level representative meetings of the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party scheduled for January 30, February 4 and 5 in Comilla, Bhola and Barisal have been postponed.
   ‘We cancelled the scheduled dates for holding meetings in Comilla, Bhola and Barisal on account of SAARC Summit. Fresh dates for the conferences will be announced later but the dates for other conferences in the list will remain unchanged,’ Ashik Islam, a spokesman of BNP chairperson’s office, Hawa Bhaban, said.
   With the focus on next general election, the ruling party has been holding conference in 19 venues covering representatives from all 64 districts.
   Four conferences have already been held in Thakuragaon, Kushtia, Cox’s Bazar and Gopalganj.
   The senior joint convener of the party, Tarique Rahman, is working as chief coordinator of the conferences, which started from January 4.

The Bagmara police arrested Mostafizur Rahman alias Mostaq, 25, a commander of Jagrata Muslim Janata and one of the top leaders of the Islamist group, at village Palashi on Friday.
   A Special Branch arrested him in possession of arms in the area.
   The police also arrested Hamir Kutsha union council members Hekmat Ullah and Akber on charge of alleged involvement with the underground Purba Banglar Communist Party.
   Another source said, Jagrata Muslim men also beat up six people, after picking them up from a field at Dakta under Hatgangopara. Sources said they were hung on the tree upside down at the Hatgangopara square.
   The hearing in the case of 26 Jagrata Muslim activists, arrested from the procession on Monday, will be held in the court of Class I magistrate on Saturday. The police sought a seven-day remand for the accused.