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The Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal, the student wing of the ruling BNP, and its cadres severely beat up at least 20 Chhatra League leaders and activists of the Rajshahi University of Engineering and Technology early Thursday.
   Of them eight were injured severely and admitted to Rajshahi Medical College Hospital and private clinics of the city.
   Additional police has been deployed at different points on campus to avert further clash.
   Students said, at around 1:30pm, more than 100 activists and outside cadres stormed on the Chhatra League leaders of Shahidullah, Hamid and Selim halls and beat them up.
   At least 20 were injured and Asif Abedin, Abdullah, Suman, Naowazis, Mahabub, Faruque, Mukta and Saikat were sent to hospital treatment.
   The terrorists vandalised at least five rooms and robbed valuables including a number of computers of general students, alleged the students.
   The Chhatra League men alleged that the Dal stormed on their rivals without any provocation. The Dal cadres also ousted a number of Chhatra League activists from the three residential halls.
   They alleged that the Dal’s acting general secretary, Sajib Barua, organising secretary Tamal and cadre Shisir led the attack, who had earlier issued a threat to rid the campus of Chhatra League men.
   On the other hand, the Rajshahi unit of Chhatra League president, Ibrahim Hossain Moon, general secretary Ayen Uddin, city unit president Abdul Mamin and Zedu Sarker in a statement condemned the attack.
   They demanded punishment of the Dal cadres or threatened with a revenge for th attack.
   Ibrahim Khalil, Dal’s acting president of the university told newsmen, ‘The Dal slightly punished the unruly Chhatra League men.’
   The university vice-chancellor, Anwarul Haque said, ‘It was very regrettable and unexpected.’

Peshajibi Samanway Parishad, a platform of different professional groups, on Thursday demanded withdrawal of the defamation suit filed by the law minister against its joint convener, Enayetur Rahim.
   At a press conference at the Bangladesh Bar Council, the council also demanded repeal of the legal provisions on the defamation from the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), claiming that in no country, defamation is dealt with criminal laws.
   The law, justice, and parliamentary affairs minister, Moudud Ahmed, however, told reporters on Thursday that he had filed the suit seeking justice, and the court would finally decide whether the derogatory statement made by Enayet against him was false.
   Addressing the press conference, the council convener, Rokanuddin Mahmud, said, ‘In every country, one has to file a civil suit against defamation, and the similar provisions are very much in the civil laws of Bangladesh.’
   The defamation should be deleted from the CrPC as the provisions have been abused against the press, and to prevent the movements, he added saying, ‘the press is the worst victim of the criminal provisions of defamation’.
   The law minister filed the suit on Tuesday against Enayet, also the secretary of the Supreme Court Bar Association, for issuing a statement blaming Moudud for fixing the presidential clemency given to a leader of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party Sweden Unit who had been awarded death penalty in a double murder case.
   Rokan claimed that the magistrate had issued warrant of arrest against Enayet upon influence of the law minister.
   Brushing aside the allegation, Moudud told reporters that it was baseless, and had been raised with an ill political motive.
   ‘There is no option for any court other than the issuance of a warrant of arrest against any accused in a defamation case,’ said Moudud quoting the CrPC. ‘The court has done no exception to me as the law minister, and the court has to pass the same order in such a case, regardless of whoever files it.’
   He also reiterated his claim of the rightness of the presidential clemency, given by the president applying his conscience and exercising his powers conferred by the constitution.
   He mentioned that granting such clemency was nothing new, and in 80’s a number of similar convicts, awarded different types of penalties including death sentence by Martial Law courts, had been released from the charges upon the demand of the Awami League which is now opposing the much-talked-about clemency.
   ‘One of such convicts, awarded death penalty by a Martial Law court and released subsequently, was appointed as a judge of the High Court during the erstwhile Awami League government,’ he said.
   At the conference, the professionals’ council also declared the cancellation of its seminar, scheduled for Sunday, in which Moudud was supposed to be present as chief guest. Rokan said the seminar was cancelled following the defamation case.

Abdus Samad, a freedom fighter, who narrowly survived ‘crossfire’ of the Rapid Action Battalion has been hiding for life to escape ‘Bangla Bhai’ operatives in Rajshahi.
   ‘Now I’m leading a life in death. I’ve just escaped death and I’ve to bear the nightmare throughout my life’, he said breaking into tears with his family members.
   RAB members arrested Samad and took him for ‘crossfire’ identifying him as ‘Lal Samad’, an alleged leader of Purbo Banglar Communist Party, Samad told journalists here Thursday.
   The RAB members picked the freedom fighter from Naogaon on July 21 for his alleged link with the party.
   Later, he was taken to the RAB headquarters in Rajshahi from where he was released after interrogation on July 25, he added.
   However, they could not prove their allegations despite their whole night interrogation, as he was neither an outlaw nor a murderer.
   ‘In early hours, they (RAB) blindfolded my eyes and took me to an isolated area near a river. They asked me if I have any last desire’. Suddenly an officer’s cell phone rang. Few minutes later, the officer asked me whether I was a freedom fighter.’
   He continued, ‘When I said, yes, I fought for the country in the War of Liberation. They took me back to RAB office again’.
   Samad and his relatives told that he was asked to hide for a week or so after his release. RAB suspected that Bangla Bhai operatives could kill him.
   ‘As a freedom fighter, I never wanted anything from the country. Even I did not take any government allowances as a freedom fighter.
   But it’s an irony of fate, the RAB members, wrongly branded me an enemy of the country,’ he said.
   Samad’s daughters Rumi and Shirin alleged that the police libellously branded their father as ‘Lal Samad’ to undermine his image.
   Now Samad has been listed in police book as the second top local leader of the PBCP. Because several of the outlaws held last year informed them so about Samad, claimed police sources.
   Samad, a businessman, was falsely accused in fabricated murder cases, was harassed and persecuted by the joint forces during ‘operation clean heart’ in 2001. After his release in October 2002, he shifted his entire family from Bagmara to Rajshahi city and has been living there.

The inquiry committee formed to investigate the cause of the June 24 blow-out at the Tengratila gas field failed to submit its report by the second deadline, which expired on Thursday.
   The government gave the seven-member committee, headed by the president of Institution of Engineers, Bangladesh, Anwarul Azim, 18 days more to submit the report, after it had failed to submit its report by July 10.
   The committee was formed on June 25, following the blow-out on June 24 at the field, operated by Canadian Niko Resources. It was asked to submit the report by July 10.
   The energy and mineral resources adviser, Mahmudur Rahman, told New Age Thursday evening that the committee had not submitted the report till evening.
   ‘They might contact me on Saturday as tomorrow [Friday] is a holiday.’
   Sources in the committee said they could not complete the report till Thursday and would need a few more days to complete their report.
   They might apply for further extension of the deadline by three to four days on Saturday, they said.

The Rapid Action Battalion arrested a suspected underground operator from his rented residence in Jhenidah on Thursday evening and recovered five firearms with ammunitions and bomb-making materials.
   Acting on secret information, a RAB-6 team raided a house Firoza Manjil in Jhenidah town in the evening and arrested Sakhawat Hossain from the first floor of the house.
   The law enforcers recovered a sawn-off rifle, two pistols, one revolver, one shutter-gun, 54 rounds of ammunitions, four cocktails and four sacks of bomb-making materials from his flat.
   A top leader of Purba Banglar Communist Party (ML-Janajuddha), Sakhawat is the number 1 listed criminal in Chuadanga and he has been residing in the flat in Jhenidah to avoid arrest, the RAB claimed.
   The RAB officials were interrogating him to nab his associates and more firearms till filing of this report at 9:30pm.

Locals of Khilkhet put up a barricade on the Dhaka-Mymensingh Highway following an accident at Khilkhet footbridge that injured a woman on Thursday.
   They also damaged a number of vehicles, resulting in a severe traffic jam on the Airport Road.
   According to the locals, a Dhaka-bound minibus hit a black cab from behind injuring the cab passennger, an unidentified middle-aged woman, at around 10:30am.
   Protests started immediately after the accident, when locals tried to rescue the injured woman but four other minibuses and a taxi bumped into the rescuers one after another.

Two teenage sisters were kidnapped allegedly by the cadres of the Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal from Ghatarchar Wednesday afternoon and then gang-raped.
   Sources said on Thursday a cowboy first found one of the victims lying in naked and subconscious condition in an abandoned house but the other remained missing.
   On information, Mohar Chan, a resident of the area, came to the spot and identified the victim as his sister-in-law Nihar (not the real name). She was immediately taken to Salimullah Medical College Hospital.
   Mohar Chan said Nihar, 18, and Nilu, 14, (not the real name) were the workers of Nipa Garments at Kalyanpur and staying with their parents at south Paikpara in the capital.
   On Wednesday, they were coming to his house to see their eldest sister but on the way they fell victim to the rapists, he said.
   The wailing elder sister said JCD cadres of Luterchar and Ghatarchar abducted her sisters. She feared that the rapists might have murdered Nilu. Mohar Chan filed a case with the Keraniganj police against Altaf, Imon, Rubel, Billal and four or five others. The police admitted the incident but none was arrested till the evening.