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The High Court on Monday rejected three writ petitions—two against the 14th amendment to the constitution and the other against the Jatiya Sangsad (Reserved Seats for Women) Election Act 2004—that challenged the constitutional provision for indirect election to the reserved seats for women in the parliament.
   The law minister, Moudud Ahmed, hailed the judgement, saying the Election Commission would now hold the elections.
   The writ petitioners—leaders and activists of different political, and women’s and human rights organisations—vowed to continue their movement for direct election to the reserved seats and will appeal to the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court against the verdict.
   In the verdict, the court said a similar writ petition had been filed by Ahmed Hossain challenging the 10th amendment to the constitution, made on June 23, 1990, incorporating the provision for reservation of 30 parliamentary seats for women though indirect election.
   In Ahmed’s case, the Appellate Division said the provisions of keeping reserved seats for women in parliament through indirect election were not contradictory to the spirit and basic structure of the constitution, and gave certain guidelines. ‘The Appellate Division’s guidelines are binding for the High Court,’ the court observed.
   While discharging the writs, the court turned down the argument of the petitioners’ counsels and a number of amici curiae that the 14th amendment and the subsequent law providing for women’s representation proportionate to the parties in parliament through indirect election had damaged the basic structure of the constitution.
   It is a special provision in favour of women and for the advancement of women who are considered a backward section of citizens, and Article 28(4) of the constitution empowers the parliament to make such special provision for any backward section of citizens, especially for women and children, observed the court.
   The framers of the constitution, applying their wisdom, made a similar provision for reservation of seats for women in the parliament through indirect election, the court added.
   Turning down the plea of the absence of territorial constituency for members to be elected to the reserved seats, the court observed, ‘The constitution of the country has never incorporated the provision for any territorial constituency for lawmakers elected to the reserved seats.’
   As the framers of the constitution have not incorporated such a provision, the court should now rely on their wisdom and the provision of seat reservation may not be declared unconstitutional for absence of territorial constituency, the court observed.
   The court also turned down the plea of the petitioners’ counsels that the aspirants for the reserved seats had been made dependent on the parties in parliament in the name of proportional representation.
   It is better than the earlier provisions, as the majority parties have taken all the reserved seats in the past, but now all the parties in parliament will have the right to elect their representatives to the reserved seats on the basis of proportional representation, the court observed.
   The court also mentioned that in the past the reserved seats had played crucial roles several times.
   By getting all the reserved seats, Ershad could manage to pass the seventh amendment to the constitution, and in 1990 the Bangladesh Nationalist Party could manage to secure absolute majority by getting 28 reserved seats with the help of Jamaat, which got two of the reserved seats for supporting the BNP, the court mentioned, adding, ‘So sharing of reserved seats has been done earlier also.’
   The court upheld the system of single transferable vote, introduced in the Jatiya Sangsad (Reserved Seats for Women) Election Act 2004.
   It is a modern and specialised system of electing representatives in multi-candidate elections and especially in the system of proportional representation, and the system is being practised in a number of countries including Ireland and Australia.
   Regarding the election pledges of the ruling party, the court observed that election pledges have no legal implication.
   The court, however, observed, ‘The parties should play a positive role in implementing their election commitments to the nation, and they might be accountable to the parliament for violation of election pledges.’
   The 14th amendment to the constitution was passed by parliament on May 16, 2004 and the subsequent law for holding indirect election was enacted on November 24, 2004.
   But the election could not be held within the stipulated period because of the stay order issued by the High Court after three public interest litigation writs were filed by 13 women’s rights groups and individuals and leaders of some political parties.
   Dr Kamal Hossain, Dr M Zahir, Sigma Huda and Tania Amir appeared for the petitioners, Mahmudul Islam, Khandker Mahbubuddin Ahmad, TH Khan and Mainul Husein appeared as amici curiae, and former attorney general, AF Hassan Ariff, and attorney general, AJ Mohammad Ali with deputy attorneys general, Adilur Rahman Khan, Zaman Akter Bulbul and Razik-Al-Jalil appeared for the government.

The Election Commission is now free to hold elections to the reserved seats for women in Jatiya Sangsad, as the High Court on Monday rejected three writ petitions challenging the constitutional provision for seat reservation and the law for elections to those seats.
   ‘The Election Commission can now take immediate steps to hold the elections,’ the law, justice and parliamentary affairs
   minister, Moudud Ahmed, told New Age.
   The petitioners, however, will go to the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court to challenge the verdict.
   They told New Age that they would also continue their movement for introduction of the system of direct elections to the reserved seats.
   ‘In the judgement, the court has made a number of observations in favour of the writ petitions, and we think we might get the justice we deserve from the Appellate Division,’ said Farida Akhter of Ubinig, one of the petitioners.
   Moudud said the verdict proved that ‘the constitutional amendment and the election act have been made in conformity with the constitution and no basic structure of the constitution has been damaged by those laws.’
   ‘I am happy that the court has observed that the system of single transferable vote, which has been introduced in the election act, is a modern system of electing representatives in a multi-candidate election, as it is being exercised in a number of countries,’ he said.
   He expressed the hope that the Election Commission would take immediate steps for holding the elections.
   According to the Jatiya Sangsad (Reserved Seats for Women) Election Act, the election has to be held within 90 days after the act comes into effect. The act came into effect on December 8, 2004.
   In the verdict, the High Court, however, ordered that the days spent in trying the cases would be excluded in counting the 90-day limitation of holding the elections.
   The Election Commission on January 5 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 accordance with the principle of proportional representation.
   The commission published the lists and distributed the reserved seats a day after the High Court on January 4 asked it not to hold elections to 45 reserved seats for women till February 23.
   The days starting from January 5, when the court stayed the election, to the date of receiving the certified copy of the judgement will be excluded from the counting of 90 days, said petitioners’ counsel Asaduzzaman.
   According to distribution of the reserved seats by the Election Commission, the alliance led by the BNP deserves 30 reserved seats, Awami League 9, Jamaat 3, Jatiya Party (Ershad) 2 and the alliance led by Bangladesh Jatiya Party (Naziur) 1.
   According to the final lists of lawmakers of the parties and alliances that the commission has published, the BNP-led alliance has 198 lawmakers after adding independent lawmaker MM Shaheen, the Awami League 59, the Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh 17, the Jatiya Party 14 and the BJP-led alliance 5 after adding Islami Oikya Jote lawmaker Fazlul Haque Amini.
   Four other alliances have also been formed, but they deserve no reserved seats because they have less than 0.5 vote marks.

Dhaka University students continued to protest on the third consecutive day on Monday demanding resignation of the vice-chancellor and the proctor holding them responsible for the attacks on students for the past couple of days.
   The agitating students said the two top men of the university should resign as they failed to ensure safety of the students.
   The student organisations brought out procession, held rallies and burnt the vice-chancellor, SMA Faiz, and the proctor, Aka Feroze Ahmed, in effigy in protest at Sunday’s attack on students by the Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal, students wing of the ruling BNP.
   The students said they would lay siege to the vice-chancellor’s office today and stage a sit-in demonstration at the place until the vice-chancellor resigns.
   The campus became tumultuous after the police had attacked the students who were protesting against the killing of a third-year student of psychology, Shammi Akhtar Happy, in a road accident on Saturday.
   They announced to boycott classes and examinations from today to press home their demands. The university will, however, go on summer vacation for a month from today.
   The Bangladesh Chhatra League-led Alliance Against Violence and Communalism laid siege to the vice-chancellor’s office for half an hour on Monday.
   The Progressive Students’ Alliance, a group of eight student bodies, held a rally in front of the central library and demanded resignation of the vice-chancellor and the proctor.
   Bangladesh Chhatra Union activists burnt the proctor in effigy near the library.
   The Dhaka University Students’ Association of Panchagarh submitted a memorandum to the authorities concerned demanding the construction of a monument commemorating Happy at the place where she died or on the Roquiah Hall premises.
   The students blindfolded the characters of Raju Memorial Monument, with black strips of cloth in a symbolic protest at Sunday’s attack at the Institute of Fine Art.
   The Students Against Repression, a platform formed Sunday by non-political students of the institute and other departments, held a rally near the DUCSU building and announced to boycott classes and examinations from today.
   Many teachers of the university extended solidarity with the students’ demands.
   The students put forth an eight-point charter of demands that also included withdrawal of police from the campus, punishment for the attackers at the institute, restriction on heavy vehicle movement through the campus and the construction of footbridges or underpasses at Shahbagh and other entry points to the campus.
   They also demanded that the road stretching from Shahbagh to the Teachers-Students Centre should be named after Happy.
   The Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal opposed the demand for the resignation of the vice-chancellor and the proctor.
   The organisation activists remained silent on Monday, standing at different points. They organised a blood donation programme in front of the arts building.
   Clarifying the position they took on Sunday, the Chhatra Dal, at a briefing at Madhu’s Canteen, claimed, ‘The Chhatra Dal showed the highest degree of tolerance at the Institute of Fine Art.’
   ‘We did not attack anybody. We were rather attacked there,’ said Hasan Mamun, the university unit president of the organisation.
   The Chhatra Dal leaders, at the briefing, found no logic in the demand for the resignation of the vice-chancellor and the proctor.
   They demanded exemplary punishment for the police personnel who attacked the agitating students on the campus and in the compound of the Institute of Fine Art on Saturday and immediate arrest of the driver of the bus that knocked down Happy.
   They also asked the university authorities to compensate Happy’s family for its losses.

The editor of a local Bangla daily, Comilla Mukta Khabar, was slaughtered at his residence at Bagichagaon in the town early Monday.
   The body of the victim, Muhammad Golam Mahfuz, 46, also publisher of the daily, was found lying on the bed of his residence-cum-office at noon.
   The incident was revealed when a part-time housemaid came to the residence of the slain journalist at about 11:30am and saw the door shut from outside. There was no response from inside, the maid said, and later, with the assistance of neighbours, she entered the room and found the body lying in a pool of blood.
   The police later recovered the body and sent it to the Sadar Hospital morgue for autopsy.
   Fellow journalists and locals rushed to his residence hearing the news of the brutal killing.
   Family members said that the confirmed bachelor Mahfuz was living alone at the house while the other members of his family have been living in another house in the town.
   A hijra, Ayub, was picked up by the police, said that he also stayed at the house as the journalist’s wife.
   But Ayub was not at the house on Sunday night, the police said.
   The victim was engaged in money lending due to which conflict might have developed with the borrowers, the police suspect.

The government plans a Tk 640-crore farm subsidy in the next fiscal year, accounting for a fourth of the demand raised by the parliamentary standing committee on the agriculture ministry and a tenth of the limit set by the World Trade Organisation.
   The agriculture ministry is learnt to have sought agriculture subsidy ‘not in the form of specific amount but in terms of covering prices of various inputs’ like diesel that has witnessed frequent price rise in recent times.
   ‘The amount we will probably receive is just inadequate for providing the farmers with a reasonable amount to reduce high cost of production in agriculture,’ an official of the ministry told New Age.
   In the budget for the current fiscal year, the government earmarked Tk 600 crore for farm subsidy with which neither all aspects of agro inputs nor post-flood rehabilitation programme could be covered, the official pointed out.
   The finance and planning minister, M Saifur Rahman, once again declined to give subsidy for diesel on the plea of possibility of corruption in case the agriculture department officials are engaged in disbursement of money.
   In view of Saifur’s ‘reluctance to widen subsidy coverage’, the agriculture ministry has refrained from demanding specific amount rather than seeking subsidy to make up for enhanced production costs, sources in the agriculture ministry said.
   The parliamentary body recently demanded allocation of Tk 2,700 crore as farm subsidy whereas Bangladesh can provide such a subsidy up to Tk 6,600 crore as per the WTO rules, which is 10 per cent of the gross domestic product in agriculture.
   The ministry, which has already been given certain authority to prepare its budget, will be given an amount of Tk 1,985 crore for the 2005-06 financial year.
   However, the finance ministry will monitor centrally the budget implementation process of the agriculture and three other ministries.
   Eighty-two development projects at an aggregated cost of Tk 1,625 crore under the agriculture ministry have been included in the annual development programme for the next fiscal year.
   Following ‘special directive’ from the prime minister, Saifur increased the allocation by Tk 1,000 crore or 131.73 per cent for the fiscal compared to the current fiscal, competent sources said.
   With this, the percentage of amount earmarked for agriculture development projects in the annual development programme constitutes 4.53
   per cent of the amount allocated for the 2005-06 fiscal year, compared to 3.14
   per cent in the FY05 development programme.
   The sector-wise comparison in statistics shows that education amalgamated with religion tops the allocation accounting it for 13.46 per cent of the
   development programme, power sector captures 12.73 per cent, rural development 12.23 per cent, transport 12.20
   per cent and health sector 9.26 per cent.

The ruling BNP and its front organisations on Monday observed the 24th death anniversary of the party’s founder and late president, Ziaur Rahman, across the country.
   The president, Iajuddin Ahmed, in the morning laid floral wreath and offered prayers at Zia’s grave. After the president, the prime minister, Khaleda Zia, placed a wreath. Party leaders stood in silence for a few moments beside the grave to pay respect to Zia. A contingent of army personnel saluted the late president as the bugle played the Last Post.
   Khaleda, also chairperson of the BNP, placed another wreath on behalf of her party. She also took part in a prayers session, organised by the BNP in the grave’s premises.
   Khaleda later drove around the capital to different places where party units had organised prayers and distributed food and clothes among the destitute. The central BNP has drawn up a 10-day programme, and similar three-day programmes have also been taken up at divisional headquarters and two-day programmes at district and thana headquarters.
   The BNP and its front organisations also published separate posters to mark the anniversary.
   Party flags were hoisted at half-mast along with black flags atop the party’s offices, including the central office, across the country on Monday. The front organisations will also hold a series of discussions on the life and works of the late president between May 31 and June 7, said party sources.
   A group of army officers assassinated Zia in the Chittagong Circuit House on May 30, 1981, five years after he had assumed state power amid political turmoil. The New Age correspondent reports from Chittagong that the BNP units observed death anniversary in the city and its outskirts.
   Leaders of the BNP and its front organisations placed floral wreaths at the first graveyard of Ziaur Rahman at Shahid Nagar of Rangunia in the morning.
   The convening committee of the newly formed Chittagong city unit of BNP went to the graveyard in a motorcade from the city and placed floral wreaths at the first graveyard. The fisheries and livestock minister, also joint secretary of BNP’s central committee, Abdullah Al Noman, former president of city unit of BNP and state minister for civil aviation and tourism Mir Mohammad Nasir Uddin, city unit convenor and whip Wahidul Alam, parliamentary affairs adviser to the prime minister Salauddin Quader Chowdhury, state minister for forest and environment Jafrul Islam Chowdhury were present at that time.
   Later, a discussion meeting was held in Zia’s graveyard premises and the city BNP also organised a discussion meeting at Engineering Institution’s auditorium in the afternoon. The Bangladesh Press Institute offered special prayers for the late president.
   The Gopalganj correspondent reports that the BNP and its front organisations held a discussion meeting, brought out a procession and held a prayers session to mark the day. Similar programmes were also held in Kotalipara, Tungipara, Muksudpur upazilas.
   The Islamic Foundation also organised a discussion meeting and offered special prayers at the Aliya Madrassah mosque in town. The Natore correspondent reports that the district BNP held a discussion on the life and works of Zia at the Natore Zila Parishad Hall where the deputy minister for land, Ruhul Quddus, spoke as chief guest.
   Discussion meetings and special prayers were also held at five upazila headquarters of the district.
   Our Rajshahi correspondent reports that the president and general secretary of the district BNP arranged separate programmes to mark the day.
   The city unit’s president, Saleh Uddin Baby, organised programmes at the BNP Sonadhighi Mor office while the general secretary, Nadim Mostafa, held programmes at Shaheb Bazaar.
   Rajshahi city’s mayor, Mizanur Rahman Minu, joined the programmes organised by Baby.
   Our JU Correspondent reports that the Jahangirnagar University unit of Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal brought out a mourning procession from the Arts Faculty to Chourongi crossing. Later, a rally was held in the administrative building’s premises on the campus. The university authorities, led by vice-chancellor Professor Khandakar Mustahidur Rahman, also placed wreaths at Zia’s grave at 12 noon.
   Reports reaching Dhaka from other districts including Narsingdi, Jamalpur, Kurigram and Kishoreganj said that BNP units marked the day with different programmes.

French voters massively rejected the first-ever EU constitution Sunday, dealing a slap in the face to the president, Jacques Chirac, and a potentially fatal setback to the continent’s ambitious plans for deeper political union.
   ‘For me—a European at heart—this is a profound disappointment,’ said the prime minister, Jean-Pierre Raffarin, likely to be the first political victim of the treaty’s rejection.
   Final results from the interior ministry early Monday put the ‘no’ vote at 54.87 per cent. That result had been predicted, but the wide margin—45.13 per cent voted ‘yes’—deepened a sense of crisis across the European Union.
   Thousands of ‘no’ campaigners braved a chill rain to converge on the Place de la Bastille in Paris to celebrate their victory, waving banners and yelling slogans.
   A sombre Chirac appeared on national television to ‘take note’ of the constitution’s rejection which came after months of heated national debate.
   He said he would continue to speak out for France in the EU, but added: ‘Let us make no mistake; France’s decision inevitably creates a difficult context for the defence of our interests in Europe.’
   The result was a crushing blow to the 72-year-old president, who put his authority on the line with three televised appeals for a ‘yes’ vote—warning that rejection would marginalise France’s voice in Europe and do nothing to safeguard its social model.
   Instead the public was swayed by fears that the treaty would destroy the country’s generous welfare system, leach new powers to Brussels and shift jobs to low-cost economies of Eastern Europe.
   The rejection opened up a period of deep political uncertainty within the EU, as the constitution needs to be ratified by all 25 members.
   In Brussels, the Luxembourg prime minister, Jean-Claude Juncker, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, insisted that the treaty was not dead and that the process of ratification must continue in the other countries.
   By creating the posts of EU president and foreign minister and streamlining the process of decision-making in an enlarged bloc, the treaty’s 448 articles are intended to build European muscle at a time of intensifying global competition.
   So far nine countries have approved the constitution and the rest aim to continue the procedure up to a deadline of October 2006.
   But it is unclear how the text can survive now that it has been nixed in one of the EU’s six founder members and half of the key Franco-German axis.
   European leaders fear the French ‘no’ could have a domino effect in other countries planning to hold referendums—first of all the Netherlands which has a non-binding national vote on Wednesday.
   For all the gloom, few were talking about a full-blown collapse of the EU.
   The German chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder, a key ally of Chirac and the other half of the Franco-German motor behind much of the EU integration drive, said the vote was ‘a setback’ but did not mean the end of the road.
   ‘The outcome of the referendum is a setback for the process of ratifying the constitution, but not its end,’ Schroeder said.
   ‘It is not a question that the European Union is going to disintegrate or that the single currency will disintegrate or anything like that,’ the director of the European Policy Centre in Brussels, John Palmer, said.
   The French president—who marked ten years in office earlier this month—ignored calls for his resignation, instead hinting he would dismiss the unpopular Raffarin in the coming days.
   Hotly-tipped to replace him was the interior minister, Dominique de Villepin, 51, who made his name as the suave spokesman for French opposition to the US war in Iraq. Other names mentioned are the defence minister, Michele Alliot-Marie, and Chirac’s arch-rival Nicolas Sarkozy, head of the ruling UMP party.
   The rejection marked further evidence of the chronic rift separating the French public from the political establishment, nearly all of which—on left and right—lined up in support of the constitution.
   Chirac’s Union for a Popular Movement was joined by the centrist Union for French Democracy and the opposition Socialists and Greens in calling for a ‘yes’ vote—meaning that parties holding 96 per cent of seats in the National Assembly were disavowed by the public Sunday.
   The ‘no’ vote was urged by a disparate array of forces, including the far-right of Jean-Marie Le Pen, nationalist Eurosceptics, Communists and Trotskyists, dissident Socialists under former prime minister Laurent Fabius, and anti-globalisation groups.
   While supporters argued that the constitution was a necessary next step towards France’s destiny as the leader of a united Europe, rejectionists said it was a charter for unbridled capitalism and would entrench US-style ‘liberal’ economics at the heart of the EU.
   Many ordinary voters caught the message that the constitution would open up France to cheap competition from eastern Europe and lead to ‘dumping’ as norms of social protection are dragged downwards.
   Some saw a ‘no’ vote as a way of blocking Turkish entry to the EU, even though the issue is not in the text.

The Bangladesh Bank has observed that significant foreign funding to finance budget deficit in the next fiscal year will cushion inflationary pressure, if there is any.
   There is apprehension that higher development expenditure outlay and additional revenue spending for the new pay scale will increase inflation.
   ‘Further inflation will depend on deficit financing which is mostly expected to be financed by foreign funds in the next budget,’ said the deputy governor of the central bank, Allah Malik Kazemi, in a meeting with members of the Economic Reporters Forum on Monday. ‘If there is significant foreign financing, there will be little inflationary pressure.’
   He also added that fiscal deficit within the limit agreed on with the International Monetary Fund under the Poverty Reduction Growth Facility programme would be helpful to contain inflation. The annual rate of inflation stood at 6.2 per cent at the end of March 2005, mainly fuelled by increase in food prices. ‘We are observing the situation so that we can avert any adverse effect of inflationary pressure,’ said the central bank governor, Salehuddin Ahmed. ‘If necessary we will advise the government to reduce bank borrowing.’
   The annual budget for the current fiscal year has projected the budget deficit to be 4.3 per cent of the gross domestic product, in line with PRGF agreement. Of this, 2.4 per cent of the GDP is expected to be financed from foreign sources.
   Top bosses of the Bangladesh Bank have also rejected the contention that the International Monetary Fund has been dictating a ‘contractionary monetary’ policy to central bank.
   ‘The notion of IMF influence on the Bangladesh Bank is not true and we have differed with the IMF on several policy steps,’ said Salehuddin. ‘Moreover, the IMF doesn’t give any blueprint for reforms and policy initiatives.’ He said several suggestions from the IMF have been received but implementation has been going at the local level.
   The central bank officials justified its current position on ‘contractionary monetary’ policy by allowing banks to raise interest rates as a ‘short-term adjustment’ process. ‘It is a temporary shock and banks have to manage their assets and liabilities to avoid any disturbance,’ said Salehuddin.
   ‘It is an adjustment process and interest rates will come down again,’ said the deputy governor, Nazrul Huda. ‘There was a higher growth in credit than deposit, causing imbalance.’ He said the Bangladesh Bank had not instructed banks to raise lending rates, but advised them to contain the credit flow to unproductive sectors, mostly consumer credit through banking instruments. ‘Globally the interest rate on consumer credit is very high but in Bangladesh it is lower.’
   Huda also said banks could reduce the spread on lending and deposit without penalising borrowers. In reply to a question on a Bankers’ Association of Bangladesh move seeking intervention from the Prime Minster’s Office to tackle the foreign exchange crisis, Salehuddin said, ‘The Bangladesh Bank is well equipped to address this problem.’
   Among others, executive director Ziaul Hassan Siddiqui, advisor to the governor Sahabuddin Ahmed, general manager Jamsheduzzaman and the ERF president, Monwar Hossain, were present on the occasion.

No end to the deadlock created over infighting in the city Awami League is in sight, as the eight-member committee, assigned by the party to look into the disputes, made a little progress, party sources said.
   The Awami League central working committee at an emergency meeting with Sheikh Hasina in the chair Monday night reviewed the situation of the city unit and directed the committee members to submit reports in a month to Hasina.
   ‘As the committee members did not make any progress in a week, Sheikh Hasina gave one month to investigate the dispute,’ said a member, who attended the meeting.
   The meeting also decided to warn the two city leaders — Mohammad Hanif and Mofazzal Hossain Chowdhury Maya — so that the rivalry does not hamper the organisation.
   The party may take organisational step against them otherwise, the meeting decided.
   The meeting handed over responsibilities of eight parliamentary constituencies in the city to the supervision committee.
   ‘Besides collecting information and patching up the discords, the committee members will collect information on the murder, for which they need some time,’ said a high-ranking city Awami League leader.
   The Awami League on May 26 suspended the Dhaka city committee to avert any possible clashes between two groups — one led by unit president Mohammad Hanif and the other by general secretary Mofazzal Hossain Chowdhury Maya.
   The conflict that brewed between the two factions over the formation of thana and ward committees reached its peak after the killing of the city unit legal affairs secretary, Khorshed Alam.
   The presidium members were first asked to collect information on disputed thanas and then to investigate the killing.
   Khorshed Alam, known as a close aide to Maya, was shot dead in front of his Tejkunipara residence on May 17.
   Soon after the killing, Maya unilaterally called a dawn-to-dusk hartal in the capital for May 19 and blamed Hanif for the killing.
   Maya’s remark that accused Hanif of being involved in the murder helped to fuel the infighting, a party source said. Maya later refused to make any comments on Hanif.
   As the discord crept further, Hanif met Sheikh Hasina and said he would not be in politics with Maya.
   He urged the party chief to take action against Maya for his comments that flouted organisational discipline. Hanif has since then been keeping himself aloof from party activities. ‘I have decided not to join any party activities unless Maya withdraws his statement,’ Hanif told a reporter.
   Maya said he had found nothing wrong in the party’s city activities. ‘I’m working as usual.’

The Power Development Board on Monday signed a provisional power purchase agreement with the Ashuganj Power Company, giving the company full autonomy two years after its formation.
   The three-year agreement stipulates that the company will be separated from the board, and earn and run independently.
   The PDB secretary, Mohammad Talebar Rahman, and the Ashuganj Power Company secretary, Abdur Rashid, signed the agreement at the PDB auditorium.
   The PDB chairman, Khawaza Golam Ahmed, and the Ashuganj Power Company managing director, Mohammad Shahidur Rahman were also present.
   The power board will buy power from the company at a rate ranging between Tk 1.24 and Tk 1.44, depending on the ‘plant factor’.
   The board will pay Tk 1.40 per unit if it purchases 55 per cent of the company’s production capacity and Tk 1.24 per unit if it purchases more than 70 per cent.
   The second largest power plant in the country with a generation capacity of 724 megawatts was made a subsidiary of the power board in 2003 under a power-sector reforms programme.
   Till the signing of the new agreement, the Ashuganj Power Company sold 594 crore units of power to the board between June 2003 and April 2005.
   Having acquired all movable and immovable property of the Combined Cycle Power Plant, the Power Plant Training Centre and the Regional Accounts Department, the Ashuganj
   Power Plant Complex started its commercial operations on June 1, 2003 under a provisional vendors’ agreement signed
   earlier.
   However, no power purchase agreement had been signed before Monday.
   The power board also purchases power from six private power-producing organisations.

The Department of Shipping will deploy today five more mobile teams at five major jetties in order to step up the ongoing drive against unregistered water vessels.
   The teams, each led by a magistrate, will be posted at Narayanganj, Aricha, Barisal, Bhairab and Mawa jetties simultaneously.
   The department began the drive on May 23 in the wake of three launch disasters with deployment of six mobile teams on the Sadarghat-Fatullah, Narayanganj-Kanchpur and Narayanganj-Munshiganj routes.
   ‘The new teams will help us tighten our grips on unregistered vessels now on the run to evade seizure and penalty,’ the director general of the department, Captain AKM Shafiqullah, told New Age.
   Sources in the department say thousands of vessels ply across the waterways never bothered to have registration and follow the navigation rules. Owners of these vessels showed no respect to the government’s repeated directives for registration, they added.
   Shafiqullah claimed that owners of many unregistered vessels had started contacting the department to evade penalty and seizure of their vessels. ‘They are now coming to us for registration as they find no other alternative.’
   The mobile teams have so far seized 50 vessels and realised about Tk 15 lakh in fine from unregistered vessels. Each of the owners was fined Tk 30,000, the highest penalty for non-registration.
   ‘The amount is far higher than the registration fees and that’s why the owners are now desperate to get their vessels registered,’ magistrate JR Shahrier told New Age.
   If the drive continues all the unregistered vessels will be registered within a month or two, he said.
   Shafiqqullah said they had been targeting mainly the unregistered vessels as those not only put lives of many risky at risk but also create trouble in smooth passage of larger vessels such as passenger launches. ‘It does not mean that we are sparing unfit vessels.’
   As in previous drives, influential people have started creating pressure on the department officials to stall the drive but Shafiqullah vowed to carry on until all vessels come under registration.
   Meanwhile, hundreds of unregistered vessels and unfit vessels stopped plying or dispersed in other parts of the country after the drive had kicked off.
   ‘But we will not allow any vessel to ply anywhere in the country by flouting rules and endangering lives of people,’ he said. ‘We are determined to continue the drive and the number of mobile teams will be increased.’

The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court on Monday stayed the operation of the May 25 verdict of the High Court that acquitted two absconding convicts, who had been sentenced to death by a lower court in the sensational Shihab murder case.
   The vacation judge of the Appellate Division, Justice Md Ruhul Amin, passed the order hearing a provisional petition filed by the government seeking leave to appeal against the High Court verdict.
   A High Court bench of Justice Sikder Maqbul Haque and Justice Nirmalendu Dhar also commuted the death penalty of two others to life imprisonment upon appeal against the verdict of the second additional metropolitan sessions judge of Dhaka.
   The sessions judge’s court on July 17, 2002 sentenced to death Faisal Sharif Raju, Imran Hossain Sabuj, Monir Hossain Liton and Abu Sayed for the abduction and murder of 13-year schoolboy Khandker Shihab Ahmed. Faisal and Imran were tried in absentia.
   But the High Court acquitted teenagers Faisal and Imran and lowered the death penalty of Monir and Abu Sayed, both
   in their early 20s, to life imprisonment.
   A Class VII student of Motijheel Model High School, Shihab was picked up from the school gate on February 7, 2002 for ransom. His body was cut into 12 pieces and hidden in different places.

India should start a drive against Bangladeshi terrorists in their territory, said the foreign minister, M Morshed Khan, on Monday.
   ‘If the two countries chase them, the terrorists of Bangladesh would not be able to take shelter in India and similarly the Indian ones in Bangladesh. Their ways to escape would be closed. We hope that similar operations would be made against Bangladeshi criminals who have taken shelter in India,’ Khan told journalists at his office.
   Six crime suspects, including five Indian insurgents, as claimed by the police were killed at Kamalganj upazila in Moulvibazar during a fierce gunfight with the Rapid Action Battalion and Bangladesh Rifles personnel, who launched a sudden drive early Friday.
   Morshed said the latest operation in Kamalganj would definitely strengthen the relationships between India and Bangladesh.
   ‘Whoever the insurgents are, we will eliminate them, irrespective of religion or caste,’ he said.

Eight persons, who were held Friday by Rapid Action Battalion and the Bangladesh Rifles from the Moulvibazar frontier, were on Monday sent to Dhaka for interrogation by the Joint Interrogation Cell.
   They were earlier interrogated by the Moulvibazar police, but did not give any information about their involvement with arms trading or criminal activities, the superintendent of police, Mokles-ur-Rahman, said.
   The police also failed to find out the identities of the six persons, who were killed in gunfight with the joint team on Friday and buried as unclaimed bodies on Sunday.
   No one has come yet to claim the bodies, the police said.
   RAB, meanwhile, conducted fresh raids in different areas of the district Sunday night. But it turned futile.

Two suicide bombers blew themselves up Monday in a crowd of police officers south of Baghdad, killing up to 30 people and wounding dozens, while US forces mistakenly detained a Sunni political leader on the second day of an Iraqi-led security sweep in the capital.
   The head of Iraq’s largest Sunni Arab political party and short-time president of the now-dissolved US-backed Iraqi Governing Council, Mohsen Abdul-Hamid, was taken from his home in western Baghdad at about 6:00am by military forces, party officials said.
   The US military later confirmed it had mistakenly arrested Abdul-Hamid, questioned him and released him shortly after.
   ‘Following the interview, it was determined that he was detained by mistake and should be released,’ the military said in a statement.
   The arrest came a day after Iraqi forces launched ‘Operation Lightning,’ an anti-guerrilla offensive in Baghdad that Abdul-Hamid’s party opposes, believing security forces will trample on innocent people’s rights.
   The two bombers struck shortly after 9:00am in Hillah, 60 miles south of the capital, wading into a crowd of about 500 policemen who were demonstrating outside the mayor’s office to protest a government decision to disband their special forces unit.
   The bombers staggered the detonations to maximise casualties, said colonel Adnan Abdul Rahman, who was contacted by telephone in Baghdad. Policeman Jiwad Kadhim Hamid said the explosions took place about 100 yards away from each other and about a minute apart.
   The Polish military, which controls the area, said at least 30 Iraqis were killed, while doctors in Hillah said the dead numbered from 20 to 25 people. It is often difficult to get an accurate count immediately after a suicide attack because many of the victims are often dismembered. Officials said about 100 others were wounded.
   The blasts blew out windows of the mayor’s office, a courthouse and school. Iraqi police and soldiers cordoned off the area. Shoes and pieces of clothes worn by the victims were flung across the road.
   In an apparent claim of responsibility, al-Qaeda in Iraq said in an Internet statement that one of its members carried out an attack ‘against a group of special Iraqi forces, allied with the Jews and the crusaders, as they were protesting outside a police station.’
   Hillah was the site of the deadliest single attack since the fall of Saddam Hussein, a February 28 suicide car bombing against police recruits that killed 125 people.

Former Pakistan cricket great Fazal Mahmood, known as the ‘Hero of the Oval’, died at home after suffering a heart attack, his family said Monday. He was 78.
   Mahmood was famed for taking 12 wickets at the Oval in London in Pakistan’s first year in Test cricket in the 1954, as well as in the country’s two inaugural wins at Lucknow, India.
   ‘Mahmood suffered a heart attack which he couldn’t survive. He was otherwise healthy and used to go to his office even after a prostate operation,’ his son Shahazad Mahmood told AFP.
   Mahmood, also a police officer, played 34 Tests, taking 139 wickets and also led Pakistan in 10 Test matches between 1952 and 1962.
   Before the partition of India and Pakistan Mahmood played in the Ranji Trophy for Northern India and although selected for India’s tour to Australia in 1946 he chose to migrate to Pakistan and sought a career in the newly formed country.
   He was remembered for his devastating leg cutters as a medium pacer, often unplayable on the matting pitches used on the subcontinent before grass turf pitches were introduced.
   He took 12 for 99 at the Oval on Pakistan’s 1954 tour, highlighted by the British media which reported: ‘England Fazal-ed.’
   Mahmood also played a lead role in Pakistan’s first-ever win over Australia, taking 13 for 114 at Karachi in 1955.

Five people including a worshipper, a policeman and three militants died when attackers with explosives strapped to their bodies stormed a Shia mosque in the Pakistani city of Karachi Monday.
   Two policemen and 21 civilians were also injured in the carnage during evening prayers at the Madinat-ul-Ilm mosque in Gulshan, a busy neighbourhood in Pakistan’s violence-prone largest city, officials said.
   ‘It is a despicable act and we condemn it, Pakistan’s information minister, Sheikh Rashid, said.
   The police said the militants had tried to burst into the mosque, which was under heavy guard following a suicide bombing last week on a shrine in Islamabad which killed 19 people, most of them minority Shias.

Alcatel, a French company, on Saturday completed the work for the submarine cable landing station in Cox’s Bazar.
   Alcatel Bangladesh office sources said they had completed the work in due time. As a sub-contractor of the US-based TYCO, Alcatel also finished the installation of optical fibre cables and grounding works from the beach manhole to the station.
   On March 30, 2004 Alcatel and its co-contractor Fujitsu of Japan got the contract to deploy the new generation of the Sea-Me-We-4 submarine cable network on a turnkey basis.
   The project will deliver a new terabit cable, which is more than 32 times higher than the initial capacity of the previous Sea-Me-We 3, and support a huge data growth, leased line and broadband services.