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Rangamati Local timber traders started transportation of timbers under a ‘controversial’ decision of the environment and forest ministry on Friday after an eight-month impasse.
   Some 100 trucks, each laden with about 350 cubic foot of timber, left Rangamati on the day for the destinations in Dhaka and elsewhere.
   However, the start of the timber transportation created enthusiasm for a large number of people in the CHT region who largely depend on timber trade directly and indirectly.
   Commercial transportation of timbers from Rangamati to other parts had been stopped for the past eight months following the allegation of plundering of huge trees from reserved forests.
   A probe committee, formed by the ministry, during its investigation found that the timbers felled down were illegal, and the committee members also seized some logs in the town while visiting Rangamati in March.
   But ignoring the probe committee’s recommendations, the ministry allowed all of the stacked logs, including the seized ones, for transportation under Compound Offence Report.
   The ministry’s decision caused controversy among different quarters as there was no virtual measure for conservation of reserved forests.
   Under the decision taken at a meeting at the ministry on May 24, it allowed some 5 lakh cubic foot teak and other timbers, worth over Tk 50 crore, for transportation elsewhere from Rangamati alone.
   Most of the timbers were felled down from the reserved forests illegally to smuggle out of the district undercover of false and fabricated ‘free permits’ locally known as ‘jote permits’.
   Jote permits are usually issued jointly by the forest department and the district administration against timbers planted on private land in response to application by the landowners when the trees become matured for felling.
   But in the name of the jote permits, trees from the reserved forests are frequent felled down in connivance with the corrupt forest officials.
   To facilitate the seized logs for transportation, the forest department issued transit pass to promote the business.
   During the visit recently, the probe committee also found that the forest officials issued false jote permits, and transit passes, issued against the jote permits, were reused, violating the existing transit rule.

At least 50 people were injured in a clash between two rival groups at Hakur Bazaar under Kanaighat upazila on Friday.
   Three of the injured — Ata Miah, Abdus Samad, and
   Abdul Kuddus — were admitted to Sylhet Osmani Medical College Hospital, and the rest to Kanaighat Upazila
   Health Complex and different clinics.
   The police and local people said the supporters of Masabbir Ahmed and Rabbani Miah clashed at noon over leasing of the bazaar, leaving 50 people injured from both sides.
   A tense situation was prevailing in the area till filing the report on Friday evening.
   Locals fear that untoward incident might be occurred at any moment.
   The upazila nirbahi officer, and the officer-in-charge of the Kanaighat police station visited the spot in the afternoon.

Two siblings were hanged in Jessore jail one minute past Thursday midnight.
   Elderly convicts Azgar and Rafiq, who were jailed for 100 years, executed Monwar, 40, and Sanwar, 37, in presence of the DIG (prisons), civil surgeon, jail super and magistrate.
   Sons of a well-to-do peasant of Pachlia village of Alamdanga in Chuadanga, Monwar and Sanwar had last meeting in the afternoon with their mother, wives, children and brothers.
   Their father Abdul Aziz, serving life term in the jail, was also present at the meeting, said the jail officials.
   Their five brothers failing in the legal battle had moved the president with mercy petition, which was rejected.
   The father and two sons were sentenced to death by the district court on October 8, 1997 for chopping to death co-villagers Ebadat, Anwar Ali and Gopal in a clash over harvesting paddy in a disputed land on November 11, 1993. The Supreme Court had commuted the death penalty of Aziz to life term considering his old age.

The police on Friday arrested two more people in connection with the killing of Mohammad Golam Mahfuz, editor of Muktakantha, a local daily.
   Mohammad Shukur was arrested at Shashangaccha and Mohammad Manzil at Sattara.
   ahfuz, also publisher of the daily, was found dead at his residence at Bagichagaon in Comilla town on May 31.

The Awami League general secretary, Abdul Jalil MP, on Friday expressed his deep concern over another spate of price hike of essential commodities and demanded that the government should take immediate steps to arrest the price spiral.
   The prices have continued on an upward curve since the alliance government came to power, he alleged in a statement.
   The price of rice should have come down as harvesting of boro was complete but it has actually gone up, Jalil claimed.

The Chittagong city mayor, ABM Mohiuddin Chowdhury, placed a wreath at the grave of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman at Tungipara in Gopalganj on Friday.
   Mohiuddin, with his wife, 46 commissioners and top-level local leaders, also offered Jum’a prayers at a local mosque and attended a special prayers session.
   Earlier, Mohiuddin stopped in front of the Awami League’s Gopalganj office for three minutes on his way to Tungipara and exchanged greetings with leaders and workers of the district AL unit and its front organisations.
   Later, Mohiuddin attended a meeting at Tungipara with leaders and workers of the Awami League and journalists.
   He left Tungipara for Chittagong in the afternoon.

Robbers shot dead a man and injured another while committing robbery in a resident at the Chittagong city’s Shamsherpara area under the Chandgaon police station early Friday.
   The robbers also took away valuables and cash worth about Tk 3 lakh from the house of the deceased, Monsur Ali, 25, son of Malek Misturi.
   The police said the robbers entered the house at around 2:00am and looted gold ornaments, electronics and cash from at gunpoint. When the inmates tried to resist them, the robbers opened fire on Mansur, killing him on the spot.
   The robbers also fired shots while fleeing away after the robbery, injuring one Abul Bashar of a neighbouring house. He was taken to Chittagong Medical College Hospital.

Bangladesher Samajtantrik Dal on Friday held rallies and brought out processions in different parts of the capital in protest at increase in the prices of fuel and essential commodities.
   The party held rallies at Ramna, Mohammedpur, Mirpur and Badda, a party press release said.
   Leaders of the party called on the government to retract its decision to hike the prices of fuel and to immediately
   control the prices of essential commodities.

The Rapid Action Battalion on Friday arrested Arman, one of the top 23 suspected criminals on the Dhaka Metropolitan Police list, from Mirpur area in the capital, the battalion and intelligence sources said.
   Arman, who had been dubbed by the police as a byword for crimes and atrocities and for whose arrest the home ministry had declared a reward of Tk 50 thousand, had gone into hiding after the end of the Awami League regime in 2001.
   He was arrested in Kolkata along with his mentor Liakat Hossain Liakat in November 2002 but the court released them. Liakat is now in Dhaka Central Jail.
   Acting on a tip-off, a 12-member team of RAB-4 raided the hideout of suspected notorious criminals at Mirpur area to arrest Arman, who had been dodging arrest for five and a half years.
   But his family members said, ‘We heard that RAB-4 arrested Arman from one of his hideouts at Keraniganj area Friday morning and we tried to find his whereabouts but failed.’
   He stands accused in 13 cases including 11 murder cases filed with different Dhaka metropolitan police stations, said the police quoting primary statistics immediately after his arrest.
   A close associate of another notorious criminal Liakat Hossain Liakat and his younger brother Mohammad Hannan, Arman operated across the Dhaka city with strongholds in Moghbazar, Tejgaon, Agargaon, Malibagh, Dhanmondi, Mirpur, Pallabi and Keraniganj area.
   He and his family, tenants of Moghbazar area, forcibly occupied the house for more than 20 years with the help of other wanted criminals and some dishonest police personnel. But the local people and the owner of the house managed to evict them from the house on April, 1, 2005.
   As a close associate of Liakat, he had run all the key crime routines including arms purchase, collection of extortion money, establishing control over auto-rickshaw stands, committing murders, snatching of tender bids, issuance of threats, and blackmailing until his prior arrest in 1998.
   While in prison, he became acquainted with other top-notch criminals and underworld bosses that helped him to build and run a criminal network comprising a core team of 60 accomplices in Moghbazar, Tejgaon, Agargaon, Malibagh, Dhanmondi, Mirpur, Pallabi and Keraniganj area after he came out of the jail.

The Sabujbagh police recovered the body of an unidentified young man near the Basabo footbridge Friday morning. The deceased is aged about 35.
   He was in a check-printed lungi and a white full-sleeve shirt. He might have been strangled sometime Thursday night, the police suspected.
   The motive for the killing could not be immediately known. The body was sent to the Dhaka Medical College Hospital morgue for post-mortem examination.

Two police personnel of the Brahmanbaria sadar police were suspended Friday on charge of negligence of duty.
   Assistant sub-inspector Abdus Shahid and constable Ratan were suspended in the morning after an accused of a murder case had committed suicide in the police custody.
   Police sources said a mob caught Ershad Mia, an accused of a murder case, from Nabinaganr upazila Wednesday evening. The mob beat him and handed him over to the detective branch of police.
   Ershad was produced before the court and taken on a two-day police remand for interrogation.
   But Ershad committed suicide early Friday by hanging himself with a window grill.
   The two policemen were suspended on the basis of a report submitted by the inquiry committee.

Two persons, including a house wife, were killed in separate incidents at Singra and Lalpur in Natore Thursday night.
   The dead were identified as Khabir Hossain, 17, son of Mozammel Hossain of village Dhupail under Lalpur upazila, and Bilkis Banu, 28, wife of Sahidul Islam of village Kaigram under Singra upazila.
   The police said Khabir Hossain went out of his house Thursday evening and local people saw his body in a sugar cane field near his village. The police recovered the body and sent it to hospital morgue.
   The police said he was hacked to death but reason behind the killing was not known immediately.
   Bilkis Banu was beaten to death allegedly by her in-laws Thursday night for dowry.
   Informed, the police recovered the body and sent it to hospital morgue.

The Ahle Hadith Movement Bangladesh on Friday said it would go to international court to secure release of its leader Asadullah Ghalib, arrested on February 24 for suspected involvement with Islamic militant organisations and implicated in a number of cases.
   At a rally at the Shaheb Bazar Zero Point in the Rajshahi city, leaders of the movement said the government had made a grave mistake by arresting Ghalib and would pay the price in the next general elections.
   The amir of the movement, Muslehuddin, who was chief guest at the rally, alleged that every vital decision related to affairs of the state was being dictated by the US ambassador, Harry K Thomas.
   He praised the main opposition Awami League and said although ‘an anti-Islam party’ it never banned any Islamic organisation when in power.