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Birds other than crows and kites no longer fly over the villages bordering on the Tengratila gas field that had two blow-outs in about six months — on January 7 and June 27.
   Reptiles and some other animals have also become a rare sight after the blow-outs at the gas field, known earlier as the Chhatak (west) gas-field, operated by the Canada-based Niko Resources Limited.
   The residents said the villages have become unfit for living. ‘Poor animals have left the area, but we have stayed back, as we have no place to go,’ said Jamilah Begum, showing an empty paddy field where birds in hundreds flocked at this time of the year in the past.
   The vast expanse of marshland on the northern border of Sunamganj was home to birds and fishes; but the sight of such animals has become rare at the place after the blow-outs.
   Muhammad Azimuddin, a teacher of the Tengra Secondary School, said emission of gas at all the places drove out the birds.
   He said the birds flew away as a large number of fruit-bearing trees died from burning gas.
   Most trees around one kilometre of the explosion site are dying. ‘Some trees burned partially. You might think they are alive as some twigs have sprouted because of rain. But they will all die in a few months,’ he said.
   Dead fishes keep coming afloat in water bodies in the area 25 days after the second blow-out. Few kites whirl over the places, but they do not get down to eat them.
   In addition to traditional farming, most villagers also earn their living from fruit farming, but the fire burnt all the gardens near the site.
   Sprouts of fruit in gardens in the villages near by were damaged. The villagers said heat and hot sand and ashes were responsible for the damage.
   ‘I sold jackfruits of Tk 1.5 lakh in the past year; but I did not get a single penny this year,’ said Majid Miah.
   Echoing Majid, Hazrat Ali of Shantipur said cultivable land was also damaged as gas bubbled out in the muddy paddy fields.
   He feared no one could harvest this season as the half-blown paddies already began to die out.
   He pointed to gas leaks with such a force that the muddy bubbles in the middle of a paddy field rise up to three to four feet. Such a sight has become common.
   Halima Khatun’s only piece of land was full of such fountains of gas, sand and mud. ‘I managed food for my children from farming on the land. How could I get rice next year?’ a widowed Halima asked.
   Villages around the site continue to face drinking water problems. All the tube wells, deep or shallow, went out of order as gas blows out with huge force through them.
   Water blows up to 14 to 16 feet from the tube well in the house of Abdul Majid Bir Pratik. Many villagers are drinking water from tube wells which were marked contaminated with arsenic.
   Even the lower-class employees at Niko drink the contaminated water although the officials drink bottled mineral water supplied from Dhaka.
   ‘What can we do for water?’ said Samiran Bibi. She took two pitchers of water from a hand-dug well two kilometres off her house. She said two pitchers of water last for few hours.
   Local union council chairman Amirul Huq said UNICEF would construct set up two water filters to supply water to the villagers.
   The villagers said two filters would be inadequate for the requirement.

With the stage now set for the election to the 45 reserved seats for women in the parliament after the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court struck down a writ against the polls and the law thereof under the 14th amendment to the constitution, scramble for nominations has ensued, particularly among the ruling BNP women leaders and members.
   Beginning on July 22, aspirants for the handouts have been crowding the corridors of power and rushing to the arbiters in the party hierarchy for the awards, and hence certain elevation to an indirect representative status, though only for 14 months of the remainder of the 8th parliament’s tenure.
   The latter again is precisely the reason a number eligible women leaders in the ruling party is in two minds about the short-term occupancy of the seat, or of a full tenure in the next term, other things remaining constant and the BNP-led alliance cruising to victory.
   The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court on July 19 rejected writ petitions challenging the constitutional provision of reservation of 45 parliamentary seats for women and the law on elections to those seats.
   According to the provision of the 14th amendment to the constitution, there shall be reserved 45 seats exclusively for women and that they will be elected by the members of the parliament in accordance with law on the basis of proportional representation in the parliament through single transferable vote.
   According to the provision, the ruling BNP will get 30 seats, the main opposition Awami League 9 seats, Jamaat-e-Islami and Jatiya Party led by HM Ershad 2 seats each.
   The remaining two seats will be distributed among the groups, if there are any, constituted by other lawmakers, including independent members.
   ‘There are many aspirants in the BNP; but it is the party policymakers, who will select the party candidates,’ Begum Selima Rahman, a BNP joint secretary general and state minister for cultural affairs, told New Age in the evening on July 20.
   ‘The policymakers will sit immediately after the Election Commission announces the election schedule to elect 45 women members to Jatiya Sangsad,’ Selima, also a top leader of Jatiyatabadi Mahila Dal, the women organisation of the party, said.
   ‘We believe that the policymakers will determine the eligibility of the candidates
   keeping in view their involvement in party activities and sacrifice during the anti-government agitation against the Awami League government,’ she said.
   Quoting the Jatiya Party chairman, HM Ershad, Tajul Islam Chowdhury, a Jatiya Party lawmaker, said, ‘a parliamentary party meeting will be held before finalising the names of the two party candidates.’

The Election Commission is likely to announce the election schedule of the reserved seats for women in Jatiya Sangsad within a week.
   ‘The preparation for the announcement of the election schedule is almost completed. After a meeting scheduled to be held this week, the commission will announce the election schedule, said a commission official assigned to conduct the polls. ‘The commission had completed preparation for holding the election before the High Court’s stay order on January 4,’ the official said.
   The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed the petition seeking leave to appeal against the High Court’s judgement that had rejected three writ petitions challenging the constitutional provision for reservation of 45 parliamentary seats for women, and the law on the elections to the seats.
   Prior to the stay order, the commission published separate lists of lawmakers belonging to different political parties and alliances, and also allocated the 45 reserved seats for women to the parties and alliances in line with the principle of proportional representation.
   According to the distribution by the commission, the BNP gets 30 reserved seats, Awami League 9, Jamaat-e-Islami 3, Jatiya Party (Ershad) 2, and Bangladesh Jatiya Party (Naziur) 1.
   The main opposition, Awami League, had earlier said it would not take part in the elections as it does not accept the law. According to the law, if any party boycotts the elections, the commission will have to fix another date of the election to its seats, and all the lawmakers will be allowed to nominate the candidates and to vote.
   As per the Jatiya Sangsad (Reserved Seats for Women) Election Act, the elections will have to be held within 90 days from December 7, 2004, when the act came into effect. But the commission could not hold the elections following the stay order issued by the High Court.
   The High Court, however, on May 30 made a ruling that the days spent in disposing of the cases would be excluded from counting the 90-day limit of holding the elections.
   Now the commission will have to hold the elections by August.
   The 14th Amendment to the Constitution was passed by the parliament on May 16, 2004, and the subsequent law for holding the indirect elections was enacted on November 24, 2004.

Fresh areas in some northern and north-eastern districts continued to submerge with almost all the rivers in the regions swelling because of rain coupled with onrush of water from the upstream.
   Five people died of diarrhoea in Nilphamari and Lalmanirhat in the past one week in the flood-affected areas and at places that remained under water for at least a couple of days.
   The overall flood situation, still under control, may worsen in these regions, particularly in Kurigram, Nilphamari, Gaibandha and Sylhet, as water continued to roll down from across the border.
   The inundation of low areas in and around Dhaka, Narayanganj and Munsiganj will continue, according to Friday’s bulletin of the Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre.
   ‘The flood situation in some areas may turn worse as the flow of water towards the sea is less than that coming from the upstream,’ an official of the centre said.
   The Ganges-Padma kept rising at all points. The Brahmaputra-Jamuna registered a fall at all points except at Aricha. Most rivers in the Meghna Basin recorded a rise; and water in the rivers of the South Eastern Hill Basin receded.
   Out of 86 monitoring points, 34 points registered a rise, and 29 a fall. Four of the points remained steady. Water
   flowed above level at eight points.
   Information on the remaining 11 points was not available.
   The eight points where water was flowed danger level are Balu at Demra, the
   Padma at Goalundo and Bhagyakul, the Surma at Kanaighat and Sunamganj, the Kushiyara at Amalshid and Sheola, and the Kangsha at Jariajanjail.
   The Met Office forecast light to moderate rainfall at most places over the Brahmaputra Basin, moderate rainfall a few places over the Ganges Basin, light to moderately heavy rainfall at many places over the Meghna Basin and the South-Eastern Hill Basin till period 9:00am today.
   The office recorded 78mm rainfall in Sylhet, 49mm in Ramgarh, 31mm in Panchagarh, 29mm in
   Dinajpur and 25mm in Sunamganj and Sherpur till 9:00am Friday.
   The civil surgeon of Nilphamari, Fazlul Karim, told New Age that hundreds of people suffered from diarrhoea by drinking contaminated water and adulterated food.

The government is yet to become properly equipped to monitor spending of the national budget, although the multilateral lending agencies and donors have pressed for effective expenditure monitoring and reporting, according to sources in the finance ministry.
   The lenders also insist on decentralising the budget-making process to increase focus on expenditure monitoring.
   The ministry officials reacted saying the stage is still ‘premature’ in the context of Bangladesh and any hurried move might destabilise fiscal discipline.
   The World Bank, Asian Development Bank, Department for International Development of the UK and the Japanese government, during their consultation with the government for preparing a joint country assistance strategy, stressed on the need for effective monitoring of development projects.
   The government pointed out that only the aid financed projects could be covered by their consultants who would monitor the quality of spending and results of the projects.
   ‘We still lack necessary manpower and expertise to cover all the projects. Even if the lenders cover 30 per cent of the projects, we would not be able to cover the rest. We are not in a position to do the job at the moment,’ a top official of the finance ministry told New Age.
   The World Bank, in a recent note to the government, has identified a number of weaknesses in the current public expenditure management.
   These include resource allocation, prioritisation and project selection and approval mechanism. The World Bank noted that the overly large annual development programme compared to available funds led to under-funding and slow budget execution. The weak implementation capacity of the line ministries is exacerbated by procurement problems, lack of motivation of the civil service, poor governance and political interference.
   A number of finance ministry officials blamed that the practice of appointing excessive number of consultants for technical assistance, had thwarted the development potential of the local officials.
   Neither did the practice contribute to capacity building of the local officials, said the ministry officials.
   At a consultation meeting last week, a presentation by representatives of a lending agency read, ‘Politicisation of the civil service, low salaries and inadequate financial and administrative controls on civil service performance have resulted in a steady decline of its quality with potential consequences for service delivery in the future.’
   Officials concerned also differed with the observation on ‘declining civil service capacity’ and argued that there was no study on the quality of civil service.
   ‘They have no yardstick, nor has there been any study, so they cannot make such comments,’ said an official.

London police have confirmed that they shot dead a man in an underground train station in south London.
   The man was shot apparently while trying to board a train on Friday morning at Stockwell station in south London.
   The Metropolitan Police commissioner Ian Blair said the shooting was ‘directly linked’ to the ongoing terrorist investigation,
   ‘The information I have available is that this shooting (in Stockwell station) is directly linked to the ongoing and expanding anti-terrorist operation,’ Blair told reporters.
   ‘As I understand the situation, the man was challenged and refused to obey police instructions,’ he said, a day after a failed attempt to repeat the July 7 suicide bombings in London that left 56 people dead.
   Passengers said that a man — described as South Asian — ran on to a train. They said police chased him, he tripped, then they shot him.
   ‘They pushed him on to the floor and unloaded five shots into him. He’s dead,’ witness Mark Whitby told the BBC. ‘He looked like a cornered fox. He looked petrified,’ said Whitby.
   Whitby said it did not look like the man was carrying anything but said he was wearing a thick coat that looked padded.
   ‘We were on the Tube, and then we suddenly heard someone say ‘get out, get out’ and then we heard gunshots,’ said passenger Briony Coetsee.
   Chris Wells, 28, a company manager, said he was travelling north on the subway and got off at Stockwell where he saw police, some armed, dash into the station as a man lept over the ticket barriers.
   ‘There were at least 20 of them (officers) and they were carrying big black guns,’ he said.
   ‘The next thing I saw was this guy jump over the barriers and the police officers were chasing after him and everyone was just shouting “Get out, get out!”’.
   The drama unfolded less than 24 hours after four bombs failed to go off on three subway trains and a double-decker bus, two weeks to the day after similar bombs killed 56 people including four suicide bombers.
   Traffic was diverted from the interchange outside Stockwell station — one stop away from Oval, one of the scenes of Thursday’s incidents — and workers were evacuated from the scene.
   People in nearby buildings peered out of windows to observe the scene as police held back onlookers on the street.
   Meanwhile, London police released Friday closed circuit television images of four men they were ‘urgently’ seeking in connection with the attempted suicide bombings the day before on London’s public transport.
   ‘We are going to be issuing CCTV images of four men we urgently want to trace,’ the Metropolitan police assistant commissioner, Any Hayman, told a press conference before showing images of the suspected bombers.
   The grainy images showed three casually dressed men in Underground stations — one wearing a dark-blue ‘New York’ sweatshirt — and one on the top deck of a bus.
   All four men appeared to be dark-skinned, and two were wearing baseball caps. One of them was looking over his shoulder as he walked with a bulging rucksack on his back, while another seemed to be running through a tunnel.

A 16-year-old British boy of Pakistani descent has said a mix-up led to his photograph being broadcast as that of one of the July 7 London suicide bombers, a report in Pakistan said Friday.
   The report cast doubt on statements by Pakistani immigration officials that all three suspected British bombers of Pakistani origin had recently visited the country before the attacks which killed at least 56 people and wounded about 700.
   Teenager Hasib Hussain — whose 18-year-old namesake blew up a double-decker bus in the attacks — said he was horrified to see his passport picture shown on TV this week, identified as that of the suicide bomber.
   ‘I first saw my photograph on (British TV network) Channel 4, and I was terrified,’ Hussain said in an interview broadcast by Pakistan’s Aryone television channel and published in local newspapers.
   ‘I didn’t want people looking at me saying “hey, you are supposed to be dead” or someone saying that there goes the London bomber,’ the boy was quoted as saying by Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper.
   The image of the boy’s passport page was leaked to media by Pakistani immigration officials, who have said the elder Hussein and two other London bombers had recently visited the South Asian country.
   The boy’s father reportedly said the family had indeed visited the southern Pakistani port city of Karachi last year and urged the British and Pakistani authorities to clear up the confusion.
   The Dawn said the case of mistaken identity had cast doubt on investigators’ claims that all three men had visited Pakistan.
   ‘We are verifying reports the man shown in our record as Hasib Hussain, who arrived in Karachi on July 15, is not the one who blew himself up in London on July 7,’ a Karachi immigration official told AFP Friday.
   Pakistani immigration officials, requesting anonymity, have said three of the British bomb suspects of Pakistani descent — Shehzad Tanweer, 22, Mohammed Sidique Khan, 30, and Hasib Hussain — all entered the country recently.
   The Pakistani government and foreign ministry officials, speaking on the record, have repeatedly said they were not aware of any trips by the three bombers to Pakistan, though other reports have backed claims Tanweer and Khan visited.

British Muslims said they feared police were operating under a ‘shoot to kill’ policy after a man was gunned down at an Underground train station Friday following a new wave of bomb attacks.
   Muslims said the shooting deepened their anxiety about a violent backlash against their community in the wake of two sets of bomb attacks blamed on Islamist militants, including one that killed 56 people on July 7.
   The Muslim Council of Britain demanded police explain why an Asian-looking man, reported as a ‘suspected suicide bomber’ by Sky News, was shot dead at Stockwell station in south London on Friday.
   A Muslim Council spokesman said Muslims were ‘jumpy and nervous’ and feared reprisal attacks.
   ‘I have just had one phone call saying ‘What if I was carrying a rucksack?’,’ said Inayat Bunglawala, referring to the rucksack bombs used in the London attacks.
   ‘It’s vital the police give a statement about what occurred (at Stockwell) and explain why the man was shot dead,’ Bunglawala said.
   ‘We are getting phone calls from quite a lot of Muslims who are distressed about what may be a shoot-to-kill policy.’
   Witnesses told Sky News that police shot the man five times at close range after shouting at him to stop. Others described seeing many heavily armed plainclothes officers in unmarked cars at the scene.
   ‘There may well be reasons why the police felt it necessary to unload five shots into the man and shoot him dead, but they need to make those reasons clear,’ Bunglawala said.
   The shooting is the latest in a series of incidents which have threatened to create a rift between Britain’s large Muslim community and the rest of the population in the wake of the terrorist attacks here this month.
   Analysts said the officers involved in the Stockwell shooting did not appear to be operating according to normal procedures.
   ‘These guys may have been some sort of plainclothes special forces,’ said terrorism expert Professor Michael Clarke.
   ‘To have bullets pumped into him like this suggests quite a lot about him and what the authorities, whoever they are, assumed about him.’
   Professor Paul Rogers of Bradford University said the shooting had parallels with the ‘very strong’ methods used by Israeli security forces and US troops in Iraq.
   ‘The kind of tactics the Met (Metropolitan police) appear to have used this morning are very similar to the very tough tactics that the Israelis use against suspected suicide bombers,’ he said.
   The government is drafting a range of tough new laws to crack down on Islamic extremism and those who advocate terrorism, including setting up special intelligence units to monitor Muslims nationwide.

An Al-Qaeda-linked group said Friday it carried out the latest London attacks, warning it will not relent until all ‘infidel’ forces quit Iraq, according to an Internet statement.
   ‘Our strikes in the heart of the British infidel capital are nothing more than a message to all European governments that we shall not relent until all infidel forces quit Iraq,’ the group known as the Brigades of Abu Hafs al-Masri said.
   ‘This is a warning to all those who follow the policies of the president of infidel America,’ said the statement, whose authenticity could not be confirmed.
   London’s transport system was targeted on Thursday, two weeks after July 7 attacks that killed 52 people plus four suicide bombers.

Muslim hardliners in Pakistan protested on Friday against a crackdown on suspected militants that has led to more than 300 arrests this week in response to the July 7 London bombings.
   The rallies in cities across the country came on the Muslim day of prayer as security forces said they made almost 100 more arrests overnight, and after the president, Pervez Musharraf, announced new measures against militants.
   Security forces kept a close watch as about 1,000 protesters took to the streets of the capital Islamabad and the southern port of Karachi, while smaller rallies were also staged in Lahore, Multan, Peshawar and Quetta.
   While most protests were noisy but peaceful, youths in the capital smashed and set ablaze a police motorcycle and attacked a police kiosk with sticks.
   ‘Down with Musharraf—dog, dog,’ shouted emotional protesters marching from a central Islamabad mosque that was raided by police earlier this week.
   ‘Down with his anti-Islam policies. A friend of the US is a traitor.’
   Musharraf, under international pressure to act against extremists, told the nation in a televised address late Thursday that he would tighten the rein on Islamic schools in a bid to stamp out militancy and those preaching hate.
   Within hours of the speech, security forces again raided Islamic schools or madrassas which have been in the spotlight since it emerged several of the bombers in the July 7 London attacks had recently been in Pakistan.
   ‘During raids overnight in all the four provinces, around 90 more suspected militants have been rounded up and the number of people in preventive detention is more than 300 now,’ said an interior ministry official monitoring the campaign.
   Raids targeted shops selling ‘hate material’ in print, audio and video form, and both police and intelligence services were instructed to arrest anyone inciting violence during sermons at Friday prayers, the official said.
   ‘It is the firm resolve of the government and we will not spare anyone found to be breaching the law,’ he said.
   An alliance of fundamentalist Muslim parties, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), called earlier in the week for Friday’s rallies outside mosques on and denounced the actions of Musharraf, a key Western ally since the September 11, 2001 attacks.
   ‘Musharraf has resumed the crackdown on religious seminaries and arrests of Islamic scholars and students to please Washington and London,’ the MMA said in a statement, condemning the ‘global conspiracy against Islam.’
   In his national address, Musharraf—who has been waging an often unpopular campaign against extremists and has survived at least two assassination attempts by suspected extremists—said there could be no let-up on terrorism.
   He appealed to moderates to pray for ‘Pakistan’s deliverance from the menace of extremism’ and said his nation would
   stand together with Britain ‘to the end, until we emerge victorious.’
   But he also had blunt words for Britain, where all the suspected bombers had been ‘born, bred and educated’ and where he said Muslim militant groups continued to operate.
   He named two groups, the Hizbul Tahreer and Al-Muhajiroun, which he said were responsible for spreading a message of hate and violence.
   ‘They had the audacity of passing an edict against my life and yet they operate with impunity,’ Musharraf said.
   The Pakistani leader launched the crackdown after both Britain and the United States expressed concern about the possible preaching of hate and extremism in some of the country’s 10,000 madrassas.
   Pakistan has also arrested more than 700 suspects linked to Al-Qaeda since the September 11 attacks, including the group’s number three Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
   But critics, including the government in neighbouring Afghanistan, accuse Pakistan of failing to do enough to control Islamic militancy, and many analysts suspect Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is in hiding in Pakistan.
   Analyst Monis Ahmar, a professor of international relations at Karachi University, pointed out one of the dilemmas for Musharraf as he tries to rein in extremists.
   He said Islamic militants had in the past received government support to fight against the 1979-1989 Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and in the conflict against India over the disputed state of Kashmir.
   ‘How can you defend the same people for one jihad in Afghanistan, term them mujaheedin (holy warriors), and than call the same people terrorists or extremists?’ Ahmar said.

An Indian court Friday jailed a man for plotting to crash passenger jets into the House of Commons and the Tower Bridge in London on September 11, 2001.
   The court in the western Indian city of Mumbai handed down a seven-year prison term to Mohammed Afroze, who had also confessed to plotting with a group of Al-Qaeda operatives to attack Melbourne’s Rialto Towers and the Indian parliament in 2001.
   Afroze told the police in Mumbai after fleeing from Britain to India four years ago that he and seven Al-Qaeda terror cell operatives planned to hijack the passenger jets at Heathrow and fly them into the two London landmarks.
   The suicide squads which included men from Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Pakistan booked themselves on two Manchester-bound flights but the group panicked and fled just before they were due to board.
   Afroze was arrested at a Mumbai city hotel in October 2001 and charged under a tough anti-terror Indian law.
   The Indian judge, AP Bhangale, charged Afroze with criminal conspiracy, forgery and for ‘committing depredation on territories at peace with India,’ court officials said.
   The judge, however, acquitted Afroze’s brother, Mohammad Farooq Abdul Razaq, because police failed to produce sufficient evidence for his prosecution, the officials said.
   Razaq was charged with helping Afroze to travel abroad and learn to fly passenger planes, officials said.

The Rapid Action Battalion is unable to take any actions against its members responsible for assaulting a business executive, Sheikh Abubakkar Sultan Bitan, in Uttara, Dhaka on July 15 as no such rules exist for action to be taken.
   ‘Although the home ministry has finalised a rule to govern the battalion, it is yet to be approved by the government and until it comes into effect, the authorities cannot take any punitive actions against its deranged members,’ said a battalion official.
   ‘At most, these members can be sent back to their parent forces at the moment with recommendation for action against them,’ he said.
   Earlier, a high-powered probe committee, formed by the authority, submitted its report on Wednesday holding 12 members of the battalion responsible for the incident.
   The committee recommended punitive action.
   It was reported that that some battalion members led by the assistant superintendent of police, Ashraful Islam, forcibly took Sultan, executive director of the Harnest group’s Relic Label Industries to the RAB-1 office at Uttara and tortured him over an altercation between Ashraful and
   Sultan.
   Soon after the incident, the battalion filed a general diary with the Uttara police claiming that Sultan came under attack by a mob, and the battalion had in fact saved him from the people’s wrath.
   Following the incident, the battalion chief formed a four-member probe committee headed by the director (finance and administration), Mokhlesur Rahman. The other members of the committee were the deputy director (intelligence) Zafrul Haq, senior assistant director, Ainul Bari, and the deputy assistant director, Mohsin Kabir. The committee was asked to submit its report within three days.

A Patuakhali court cancelled the bail prayer of a local Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh leader and sent him to jail for alleged appropriation of money collected for hajj Thursday afternoon.
   The convicted, Maulana Solaiman, Jamaat president of municipality unit, also upazila president of Jatiya Imam Samity, is the Arabic teacher of Khepupara Nesaruddin Senior Madrassah under Kalapara in Patuakhali.
   The police and court sources said Nurul Islam, a local businessman, lodged a criminal case on April 20, 2005 against five persons, including Maulana Solaiman and Khalilur Rahman, his close relative and owner of Al-Khalil Haj Kafela, with the Kalapara upazila magistrate court.
   The complainant alleged that the accused collected Tk 92 thousand from him as travel cost for hajj last year.
   But, they failed to send him to hajj and did not give back the money after several intimations.
   Maulana Solaiman appeared before the court on May 25 was granted interim bail on some conditions and again appeared before the court on July 21 with permanent bail prayer.
   But, the magistrate ordered to send him to jail.
   The madrassah authorities also suspended him temporarily.

A 10-member national committee, comprising of experts and experienced intelligence officials, has strongly recommended an integrated, complete and accurate database system as a prerequisite for authentic passport issuance.
   Currently there is no mechanism to check the authenticity of a person’s nationality and prevent issuance of more than one passport, said the committee.
   In its report on ‘system study and design for machine readable passport, machine readable visa and national identity card’, the committee, headed by an additional secretary of home ministry, SM Johrul Islam, recommended functional birth and death registration.
   The report said an integrated database incorporating birth registration should be introduced to issue national identity cards. ‘Passport applicants will first receive an ID card.’
   The ID card will be a ‘smart’ card with a memory chip. The digital information of the applicant and digital images of two fingerprints will be stored in the chip, along with a barcode and other information.
   The report said hand-written passports are not only vulnerable to forgery but also susceptible to suspicion abroad.
   The home ministry took up a project — Modernization of Bangladesh Passport —costing about Tk 48.75 crore and submitted a project concept paper to the planning commission on May 13, 1998.
   An inter-ministerial meeting on April 17, 2004 with Lutfozzaman Babar, the state minister for home, in the chair revived the issue and formed the 10-member committee to prepare a comprehensive report.
   The members visited Singapore, Malaysia, Maldives, Mexico and Canada, studied present passport and visa issuance and immigration process and submitted the report recommending the integrated system that would be compliant with the standards of the International Civil Aviation Organisation.
   The report said passport issuance process requires adequate verification to prevent fraud and malfeasance.
   It proposed to develop an infrastructure for the first phase of the system with a capacity to provide 50 lakh passports a year. In five years, with the implementation of the second phase, the system would be able to issue two crore identity cards per year.
   The National Registration Department will be established to collect, store and create a database with the information of Bangladesh citizens.
   The committee proposed to establish regional registration centres for digitisation and verification of information. The first phase will have 18 such centres, followed by 50 in the second phase.
   There would also be 120 centres for receiving application and delivery of documents, in the first phase and another 360 in the second phase. These centres would be established at the upazila level.
   According to the report, applications and fingerprints will be received at these centres. The fingerprints will be sent to the central database and applications to the regional registration centre. The digitised data, after necessary verification, will be fed into the central database.
   In the central database the verified data will be integrated with the fingerprint, examined against duplication and security information, and the data will then be restored in the database.
   The documents will be issued upon verification of the data. The centres would be equipped with network connectivity.
   The regional passport offices are suggested to be converted into regional registration centres in the first phase while the Dhaka regional passport office is to be converted into headquarters of the national registration department.
   Bangladesh missions abroad will be equipped with facilities for providing machine readable visa and issue passports.
   The 33 check posts of the country, including three international airports, 28 land ports and two sea ports, will be equipped and be connected to the national passport and visa database.
   It will become mandatory for citizens to collect identity cards between the age of 12 and 18. Each ID will cost Tk 125 and each passport will cost Tk 3,000.
   The implementation of the project will require about Tk 184 crore in the first year, 320 crore in the second and 269 in the third year. The project would require Tk 185 crore for each subsequent year.
   The committee strongly recommended that local expertise should be used to implement the project, since it is a question of national security and secrecy.
   The ID cards will be used in population census, help in disciplined and organised voting, public examinations, medical services, bank transactions, income tax tracking, job tracking and human resource planning.

The government will set up a common platform in order to monitor the voice traffic data and to ensure revenues from voice over internet protocol operators.
   Thanks to the government’s foot-dragging and the collusion of a section of Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board and posts and telecommunications ministry top-guns, the cap on internet telephony continued to remain in place.
   Meanwhile, illegal VOIP operations, though punishable under the Telegraph and Telephone Act, have yielded windfall gains to some highly connected people on one hand and deprived the government of its revenue from legitimate operations, on the other.
   The common platforms will be established in Dhaka, Chittagong, Sylhet and Bogra at a cost of Tk 20 crore to provide VoIP services through a single channel.
   The telephone board will set up the platforms to ensure the monitoring of VoIP traffic and calculate revenue from individual VoIP licensees, said sources in the ministry.
   VoIP, also called internet telephony, is a technology for transmitting ordinary telephone calls over the internet as voice information in digital form in packets, rather than in the traditional circuit-committed protocols of the public-switched telephone network.
   Earlier, a meeting of the executive committee on information and communication technology, with Kamal Uddin Siddique, principal secretary to the prime minister, in the chair, formed two separate committees — one to suggest the routing medium for voice traffic data and another to finalise the terms and conditions of the licensing procedure for VoIP operators.
   The two committees were asked to submit their reports to the Bangladesh Telecommun-ications Regulatory Commission within six months of their formation.
   The first committee suggested the establishment of a common platform to channel all the voice traffic data while the
   licensing committee has recommended that the licence fees should fixed on the basis of bandwidth use.
   Meanwhile, the commission on July 5 sent a proposal for establishing a common platform to the telecom ministry and requested the ministry to
   fund the project from its annual development programme
   budget.
   The government is expected to open the sector for private operators by this year.
   The cabinet on November 10, 2003, approved VoIP and asked the telecom regulatory body to open the sector soon to make overseas call cheap.

Exports of the fiscal 2004-05, just ended, is most likely to cross $8.6 billion, according to a preliminary calculation of the Export Promotion Bureau.
   In a report to the commerce ministry, the bureau said its calculation showed exports worth $8.669 billion, exceeding the target by 1.2 per cent with a growth of 14 per cent over the previous fiscal.
   If the figure does not increase in the final calculation, export growth would be less than that of the fiscal 2003-04, when exports grew by 16 per cent and exceeded the target by 2.2 per cent.
   ‘We will be able to figure out the exact amount of exports by next week,’ said an official of the bureau.
   In an addendum to the report, the bureau included the lacklustre performance of the commercial wings of Bangladesh embassies across the world in pushing exports.
   Bangladesh has 46 diplomatic missions abroad and 19 commercial wings affiliated with 16 missions.
   Half of these wings failed to achieve their export target for the fiscal 2004-05, showed the reports.
   The commercial wings of the Bangladesh embassies in Berlin, London, Brussels, Dubai, Beijing, Yangon, Tokyo and Moscow missed their export targets.
   The report showed that 17 missions failed to achieve their targets. Among them seven missions, including those in Dubai and Beijing, failed to match exports of even the previous fiscal.
   The government has set an export target of about $9.6 billion for the current fiscal, 2005-06, worth $8.57 billion with a growth of 12 per cent.

The White House on Thursday threatened to veto a massive Senate bill for $442 billion in next year’s defense programmes if it moves to regulate the Pentagon’s treatment of detainees or sets up a commission to investigate operations at Guantanamo Bay prison and elsewhere.
   The Bush administration, under fire for the indefinite detention of enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and questions over whether its policies led to horrendous abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, put lawmakers on notice it did not want them legislating on the matter.
   In a statement, the White House said such amendments would ‘interfere with the protection of Americans from terrorism by diverting resources from the war.’
   ‘If legislation is presented that would restrict the president’s authority to protect Americans effectively from terrorist attack and bring terrorists to justice,’ the bill could be vetoed, the statement said.
   Arizona Republican Senator John McCain, who endured torture as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, said after meeting at the Capitol with the vice president, Dick Cheney, that he still intended to offer amendments next week ‘on the standard of treatment of prisoners.’
   South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who was working on legislation defining the legal status of enemy combatants being held in Guantanamo, also said he would offer an amendment.
   They were working with Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner of Virginia on amendments intended to prevent further abuses in the wake of the scandal over sexual abuse and mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison and harsh, degrading interrogations at Guantanamo.
   Possible measures included barring the holding of ‘ghost’ detainees whose names are not disclosed, codifying a ban against cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment, and using the Army manual as a basis for all interrogations.
   Democrats on Thursday said they would push an amendment to establish an independent national commission to investigate policies that led to abuses of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and elsewhere.

Fifty-two prisoners have launched a hunger strike at the US Guantanamo Bay terror suspect’s camp, apparently in protest at their detention, military authorities said Thursday.
   The detainees have refused nine consecutive meals, said a statement issued by Joint Task Force Guantanamo, which is in charge of a facility opened in 2002 to hold captives from the US anti-terror campaign.
   ‘Indications are that this is a temporary effort by some detainees to protest their continued detention,’ the statement said.
   Prisoners who refuse food are treated with intravenous drips, and oral rehydration solutions including Gatorade energy drinks, water and oral nutritional supplements, and the statement said.
   ‘All are monitored by medical professionals and have their vital signs checked daily. They continue to be offered food and water.’
   The US military statement came a day after one of two Afghan men released from the camp after three years said after arriving back in Kabul that 105 prisoners had just staged a hunger strike.
   Former Taliban soldier Habibul Rasoul said the protest was aimed at highlighting ‘inhuman’ conditions at the camp.
   The US-based Centre for Constitutional Rights, a non-profit legal foundation, meanwhile said it had established back in late June that prisoners, frustrated by ‘inhuman’ conditions at the camp, planned a hunger strike
   Inmates described the strike as ‘peaceful and nonviolent’ and promised ‘starvation until death,’ CCR said, quoting what it said were recently declassified notes.
   They were also demanding respect for their religion, free trials, and ‘proper, human food and clean water,’ CCR said.

The 80th anniversary of birth of the late Tajuddin Ahmad, the first prime minister of Bangladesh, will be observed today.
   He was born at village Dardaria under Kapasia in Gazipur on July 23 in 1925.
   Tajuddin played a pioneering role in forming the Mujibnagar Government in exile — the first government of Bangladesh — and provided a political legitimacy to the liberation war in 1971.
   He was involved in politics from his student life. He also played a key role in secular movements after 1947, including the language movement.
   He was the general secretary of the Dhaka District Awami League between 1953 and 1957. Tajuddin was one of the leaders in formulating the 6-point movement of 1966.
   Tajuddin headed the Bangladesh government, until Sheikh Mujib returned from Pakistani, where we he was in jail.
   He served as the finance and planning minister in Mujib’s cabinet. He resigned from cabinet on October 26, 1974.
   On November 3 that year he was killed inside the jail with three other national leaders, who were also founders of the Mujibnagar Government.

The general secretary of the Awami League, Abdul Jalil, on Friday said, no election would be allowed in the country without reform of the caretaker government.
   He was addressing the triennial conference of Raninagar upazila Awami League at Raninagar Girls’ High School as chief guest.
   He said, AL-led 14-party placed the reform proposals aimed at ensuring a free and fair election without government interference.
   ‘We are ready to go to the negotiating table with the government outside the parliament as discussion in parliament would turn into a farce due to the two-thirds majority of the ruling party,’ said Jalil.
   Presided over by the Raninagar upazila AL president, Majed Ali Mridha, the conference was addressed by the Naogaon district AL general secretary, Abdul Malek.

The police fired rubber bullets and burst tear gas canisters to disperse the rioting groups of the Jaiyatabadi Juba Dal, leaving more than 100 people injured at Ashuganj in the district on Friday.
   The violent clashes erupted following slogans and counter-slogans by the two groups at the Ashuganj upazila Juba Dal conference in the afternoon. This led to scuffles and throwing of chairs and tables between the activists of Charchartala and Sohagpur villages, ending the conference in pandemonium.
   Later, the clashes spread to Ashuganj bazar resulting in damaging and looting of shops and businesses.
   More than 100 people were injured during the clashes that continued till 7:00pm.
   The police used rubber bullets and tear gas to control the situation. Additional police forces were sent to Ashuganj.
   The Bangladesh Red Crescent Society chairman, advocate Harun Al Rashid MP, was present at the conference as chief guest.

A special tribunal in Comilla on Thursday sentenced a man to death for throwing acid on his wife and two sisters-in-law.
   Monir Hossain was given the death sentence in absentia. The court sentenced his accomplice, Habibur Rahman, in absentia to life in prison with a fine of Tk 25,000.
   Monir and Habib entered his father-in-law Lil Miah’s residence at village Daribhasania under Homna upazila on the night of June 4, 2004 and threw acid on his wife Asma Khatun, 25, his sisters-in-law, Tanjin, 7, and Swapna, 6, while they were sleeping.

Members of the Bangladesh Army dismantled a criminal hideout in Chakmajhiri area of Roangchari upazila in the district early Friday.
   They, however, could not nab any criminal as they fled the hideout sensing presence of army members, army sources said.
   They recovered a SBBL rifle, an empty magazine of AK-47 rifle, six empty magazines, five sets of military uniform, a powerful antenna, three covers of pistol and valuable documents from the spot.

The suspected Purba Banglar Communist Party (M-L) regional commander, Abdus Samad alias Lal Samad, 48, was abducted from the jail gate after his release from the Naogaon jail on Thursday.
   He was not rescued after 36 hours of the abduction.  Family members of Samad first thought that the Rapid Action Battalion or the Detective Branch of police might have picked him up but now they fear that the banned Jagrata Muslim Janata activists might have abducted him.
   Sources said the Rajshahi detective branch on July 23, 2004 had arrested Samad of Bagmara from Vharalipara area on the charge of killing Bagmara’s BNP leader Maru Hamid.
   Rumi, daughter of Samad, told journalists that her father had not returned home till Friday evening. He might have been abducted and killed by the men of Bangla Bhai, the wanted leader of the JMJ, she feared.  The family members are preparing to lodge a complaint with the Naogaon police.

The detective branch police are yet to nab another accused police and recover booty of 13.5kg of silver ornaments till Friday night 36 hours after five policemen mugged two employees of the City Silver House.
   Four policemen including an assistant sub-inspector were arrested early Thursday in the city’s Tantibazar for mugging the ornaments and Tk 28,000.
   The police produced them before the Chief Metropolitan Magistrates Court seeking a five-day police remand on Thursday but the court granted a three-day remand.
   A high official of the detective branch police told New Age, ‘We launched several drives to nab constable Rafiqul Islam, who was also involved, within and outside the city early Friday. We also sent a massage to the Bakerganj police station in Barisal, Rafiqul’s village, to arrest him.’
   ‘We interrogated them and they confessed their involvement in the mugging but denied about the bag containing the silver ornaments. We are trying to find out the truth,’ the official added.
   The businessmen of Tantibazar will observe a day-long strike protesting against the extortion and mugging on Saturday.
   Anisul Haque told New Age, ‘The local extortionists, and even the cops took regular tolls from us. It should be stopped, so that we may run our businesses smoothly.’