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The investigation committee, formed to probe the incidents at Fazilatunnesa Mujib Hall on July 17 and 18, started functioning on Sunday.
   The committee on the day recorded the statements of ten house tutors of the hall apart from Professor Nasreen Ahmad who resigned as provost on July 17.
   It will also invite the residents of the hall from today to give their depositions. Member of the body, Siddiqur Rahman, also acting proctor, hoped that they would submit the report in time.
   The house tutors tendered their resignation demanding punishment for the residents who confined them in the hall on July 17 and 18.
   The residents, however, held a sit-in programme inside the hall in the afternoon and demanded immediate withdrawal of the demand made by the university’s teachers’ association. If anyone of the students was punished, the authorities will have to ensure the same punishment for all the students who took part in the movement, they said.
   Leaders of the Bangladesh Society for the Enforcement of Human Rights, a human rights organisation, also visited the hall and talked to the students. Leader of the organisation, Advocate Elina Khan, told New Age that she feels the need for immediate solution to the impasse, and statements from both the house tutors and residents should be brought under consideration.
   A three-day ultimatum, issued by the Dhaka University Teachers’ Association for punishing the ‘culprits’ who confined the house tutors, ends today. The association leaders said they would take the decision in this regard at a meeting this evening.
   The Students Against Repression, a platform of non-political students and cultural activists, on Sunday also went out on demonstrations on the campus to drum up support for the hall residents.
   They called upon the teachers’ association to withdraw its demand for expulsion of the students who led the recent movement at the hall. They demanded stoppage of the activities of the partisan teachers who are acting against the students’ interest.
   Members of the platform at a news briefing at Madhu’s Canteen said certain quarters are indulged in ploys to put the students and teachers in confrontation, and urged all to keep a close watch against such activities.
   They said the July 17 incident was not just an overnight incident rather the continuation of the movement for long four years.
   Terming the statements of the house tutors ‘baseless and illogical lying’, they said the house tutors became able to influence their colleagues through the false statements.
   A big banner has also been put up in front of the DUCSU Building demanding withdrawal of the demand of the teachers’ association for punishing the residents.

The family of Shirin Akhter, who was found dead at her husband's Kafrul residence on June 23, on Sunday demanded proper investigation of her unnatural death.
   Mohammad Abul Hossain, father of Shirin, told a news conference at the Crime Reporters Association of Bangladesh that his daughter had married Shahid Uddin Ahmed of South Kafrul in 1998 and the family members of Shahid used to torture her for dowry.
   As her husband and inlaws used to torture her, Shirin's father gave Shahid Tk 4 lakh in several instalments for business and to go to Saudi Arabia.
   He said his daughter had wanted to continue her married life and to stay with her inlaws as she had a three and a half years old son, Rijvi, but they killed his daughter.
   On the fateful day, they heard that she died after hanging herself from the ceiling fan in her room, but they found her laying on the floor and her motherinlaw informed them about the matter when they reached the house.
   He also alleged that elder brother of Shahid had filed an unnatural death case with the Kafrul police station without informing them.
   But Rijvi told them that his father had strangulated his mother. Shirin's brother Hossain Ahmed Avi filed a murder case with the Kafrul police station in this connection.
   The father also demanded a new autopsy of Shirin's body and proper investigation into her death to find out the truth.
   Shirin's mother Momotaj Begum, her aunt Aleya Ferdous, elder sister Salma Akther, and her cousin Taslima Bhuiyan were also present at the briefing.

A newborn, rescued by the police from the lintel of a building at West Shewrapara on July 19, is undergoing treatment at Dhaka Shishu Hospital.
   The police rescued the baby girl and took her to the hospital. She was admitted to the OBS ward. The police are now looking for the guardians of the baby.
   The guardians have been requested to contact with the officer-in-charge of Mirpur police station.

The Rapid Action Battalion and the Gulshan police arrested three persons from the city’s Motijheel and Gulshan areas and recovered counterfeit currency notes from their possession Saturday night.
   In a raid at a travel agency office in Motijheel, a RAB-3 team arrested two men, Khandakar Monir Hossain Badal and Habibur Rahman, at about 8:30pm and recovered 15 counterfeit notes of Tk 500 denomination from their possession.
   RAB said the two has been engaged in marketing the counterfeit currencies using the office of the travel agency for long.
   In another raid, the Gulshan police arrested a man, Sohel Rana, from the Gulshan-1 ferryghat at about 10:30pm and recovered 45 counterfeit notes of Tk 100 denomination and another counterfeit note of Tk 500 denomination from his possession.

Dhaka has sharply reacted over the suggestion of a Republican Congressman of the USA to bomb the Muslim holy sites of Makkah and Madinah.
   ‘The suggestion of the Republican Congressman of Colorado, Tom Tancredo, to bomb the Muslim holy sites of Makkah and Madinah in a recent radio-talk in Florida is a most insensitive and irresponsible comment,’ the foreign minister, M Morshed Khan, Sunday told the news agency.
   When asked to comment, Morshed Khan said a public figure of a democratic country like the US should not have made such a comment. ‘His remark has not only outraged the entire Muslim Ummah but also peace-loving and sensible people of all faiths worldwide.’
   ‘I believe that the US state department has labelled Tancredo’s remarks as ‘insulting to Islam’’, he said.