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Several hundred ethnic minority community people on Saturday took to the streets in the capital to protest against the April 3 attack by the settlers at three villages in Mahalchari of Khagrachhari.
   The Bangladesh Adivasi Forum, a platform of 45 ethnic minority groups, Bangladesh Adivasi Adhikar Andolan and Adivasi Nagarik Samaj organised a citizens’ rally at the Central Shaheed Minar to denounce the injury of at least 30 people and violation of two girls at Chaiprue Karbaripara, Noapara and Joysenpara villages.
   Terming the attack continuation of a planned action to grab the lands of the ethnic minorities, the speakers urged for a greater unity among the indigenous people to protect their lands and for full implementation of the Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord.
   The problems the ethnic minorities are facing cannot be solved unless the government recognises their rights constitutionally, they said.
   Many of the participants carried placards with slogans against the attack and
   ‘No more violation of indigenous women,’ ‘our land, our life’ shouted the participants at the rally in which many attended with placards with slogans denouncing the attack, and demanding their rights on land and full implementation of the CHT accord.
   Holding BNP lawmaker from Khagrachhari, Wadud Bhuiyan, responsible for the April 3 violence, they demanded his immediate withdrawal from the post of the Chittagong Hill Tracts Development Board chairman.
   He (Wadud) instigates the communal forces against the hill people to realise petty political interests, they said.
   Chairing the rally, Laxmi Prasad Chakma, vice-president of Parbatya Chattagram Jana Sanghati Samiti, urged a greater unity among both the indigenous and the democratic and progressive forces to stand against the repression on the indigenous people and realise their fundamental rights.
   Sadeka Halim, a Dhaka University teacher who is researches on the indigenous communities, said all the violence against the indigenous people were aimed at grabbing their lands and, as continuation of history, women were violated as a strategy to frighten them.
   Another DU teacher, Rafiqullah Khan, said arranging rallies to protest against such violence had become a tradition, which should not be continued. ‘It is the time to resist the recurrence of such incident.’
   Haider Akbar Khan Rono, Mesbah Kamal, Rafiqullah Khan, Muhammad Samad, Hayat Mamud, Bipradash Barua and Ruhin Hossain Prince, among others, addressed the rally.

Different political, cultural and student organisations on Saturday denounced the latest killing of four people at Kansat under Shibganj upazila in Chapainawabganj.
   More than 50 people were also injured on Thursday when Palli Bidyut Sangram Council brought out a procession, demanding uninterrupted power supply.
   The steering committee of the 11-Party Alliance blamed the government for the killing of innocent people at the place for the third time. The government lost all rights to remain in power, the committee said calling upon the countrymen to build resistance against its misrule.
   The alliance will also stage demonstrations across the country against the government’s misrule, corruption, killing, and oppression.
   Awami League presidium member Motia Chowdhury at a Swechchhasebak League rally said the government was inviting for a dialogue and simultaneously killing innocent people who demanded uninterrupted power supply.
   The invitation for the dialogue was aimed to divert people’s attention from the repeated killings across the country, she said.
   The Communist Party of Bangladesh said the government had totally failed to supply power to the farmers. When they lodged protest against such irregularities, they were answered with bullets.
   The party will stage demonstrations at all the upazilas on April 10 and at the district headquarters on April 12. A central delegation of the party had already gone to Kansat to show solidarity with the agitating farmers.
   Anwar Hossain Manju, chairman of a faction of Jatiya Party, and its secretary general, Sheikh Shahidul Islam, demanded immediate arrest of the persons responsible for the killing.
   Mohammad Shafiq and Abdul Malek Ratan-led faction of Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal urged the government to meet the people’s demands and give punishment for the perpetrators of the killings.
   Panch Bam Dal, an alliance of five left parties, said the government tried to foil people’s agitation as per prescription of the imperialist forces.
   The Jatiya Mukti Council said the government was killing a large number of people to thwart their movement.
   The council president, Badruddin Umar, said the government has already killed 16 people in Kansat in a bid to foil the agitation.
   Jatiya Samajtantrik Sramik Jote urged all to be united against such killings and urged the government to ensure uninterrupted power supply for the farmers.
   The Progressive Students’ Alliance, a combine of left student bodies, demonstrated at Dhaka University against the latest killings in Kansat. The Bangladesh Chhatra Union brought out a procession at the university denouncing the killings.
   Besides, Sammilita Sangskritik Jote held a rally at the Dhaka University Teachers-Students Centre protesting against the killing of farmers in Kansat.

Uneasy calm was on Saturday prevailing in the three Mahalchari villages where ethnic minority community people clashed with settlers on April 3 leaving at least 30 people injured.
   The ethnic minorities, who left Chaprue Karbaripara, Noapara and Joysenpara villages after the clash, did not return to their houses despite security forces, armed police battalion and police patrol.
   More than 300 families of the three villages took shelter to the Maischari Primary School fearing further attack by the settlers, Chaprue Karbari said.
   Meanwhile, a medical team of Khagrachhari Sadar Hospital has conducted medical tests of the two Marma girls, who were allegedly violated during the trouble, and found that the girls were not raped.
   ‘The girls were not raped. They were tortured physically,’ the resident medical officer of the hospital, Dr Muzammel Haque Joardar, also the team leader, said.
   Parbattya Bhikhkhu Sangha, a platform of the Buddhist monks, will bring out a silent procession in the town to protest at the attack on two monks. They will also submit a memorandum to the prime minister through the deputy commissioner.
   The Parbatya Chattagram Jana Sanghati Samity and Khagrachhari Nagarik Committee in a joint statement on Saturday condemned army’s refusal to allow newsmen, who have come from Dhaka, to visit Maischari.

Infringement of government’s responsibilities has to be detected with ensuring legal action to make the government accountable for dealing with ‘monga’ situation in the north, speakers said at a roundtable discussion on Saturday.
   The Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust organised the discussion on ‘Food Security of Bangladesh: Legal Obligation’ at the CIRDAP auditorium.
   The discussion began with the appeal by the BLAST executive director to the discussants to explore ways to ensure food security in the poverty-stricken areas.
   Soma Islam, deputy director of public interest litigation cell of BLAST, in her presentation stressed the necessity of enacting ‘famine code’ to deal with the famine-like situation in the north.
   Qazi Shahabuddin Ahmed, director of Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, said, ‘Right to food is not only a constitutional rights, but it is also a precondition to development to which Bangladesh is a signatory state.’
   ‘Unfortunately, there was no reflection of government’s will to ensure food rights in its activities.’
   A teacher of the Dhaka University MM Akash said, ‘We have to remove inequality in the ditribution of land, education, health facility, and political powers to deal with the monga situation permanently.’
   Advocate Sara Hossain, Abu Ala Mahmudul Hasan, Ahmed Swapan Mahmud, and Hossain Al Massum also took part in the discussion.

A clash between students of the Dhaka College and the Ideal College in the Dhaka city left at least 10 injured on Saturday.
   Vehicular movement on the Mirpur Road also rema- ined stalled for more than an hour.\ The police said a mobile telephone set of an Ideal College student was snatched a couple of days ago and the Ideal students blamed the Dhaka College students for it.
   Enraged by the accusation, a group of Dhaka College students assembled in front of the Labaid Cardiac Hospital and swooped on the students of Ideal College immedia- tely after they had come out after their classes at about 12:45pm. Both the groups chased each other for more than an hour.
   The injured were given treatment at different private clinics. Informed, the police went to the spot and brought the situation under control.

The Innovators, a research group, in its study report says 5.6 per cent of the country’s population are physically disabled and 97 per cent of them have no access to any assistance.
   Some 5.6 per cent population are suffering from disabilities of different types and of them, 32.2 per cent are blind, 27.8 per cent are physically challenged, 18.7 per cent deaf, 6.7 per cent lack minimum intelligence, 3.9 per cent are dumb and 10.7 per cent are suffering from different kinds of disability simultaneously, said the study report released on Saturday.
   The study carried out in 24 specific places, including selected cities, townships and villages in all the six divisions of the country, also came out with a finding that 96.7 per cent retarded population did not receive assistance of any type for their rehabilitation or treatment from the government or any other organisation.
   The research findings show the number of retarded people is higher in villages but the number of people with physical disability and lack of intelligence are higher in urban areas.
   A 1998 joint survey of ActionAid Bangladesh and
   Social Assistance and Rehabilitation for the Physically Vulnerable said 8.8 per cent of Bangladesh population were suffering from different types of disability.
   The government carried out three studies on people with disabilities in 1982, 1986 and 1998 identifying 0.64 per cent, 0.5 per cent and 1.6 per cent as retarded respectively.

The Chittagong Hill Tracts is becoming volatile as the UPDF’s ultimatum to the Parbatya Chattagram Jana Sanghati
   Samity to surrender arms nears an end.
   The United People’s Democratic Front, the anti-CHT peace accord organisation, last December asked the PCJSS to surrender their arms to them before the New Year celebrations – ‘Boisabi’ (Boisuk, Sanggrai and Bijhu) Festival which falls on April 14.
   The UPDF said those who will surrender their arms within their given time will be awarded general amnesty.
   In these circumstances, a question has arisen that is the UPDF a parallel government in the CHT otherwise how did they ask to surrender arms or offer general amnesty to the PCJSS?
   It also has become the burning question that if the PCJSS surrender their arms to the UPDF, what will they do with the illegal arms? Or what initiative the UPDF will take if the PCJSS do not surrender arms?
   However, experts fear violent clash between pro and anti-peace treaty organisations after the expiry of the ultimatum.
   Nearly 200 leaders and activities of both the groups were killed and many others injured following the historic peace treaty signed on December 2, 1997.
   When asked, the CHT Regional Council chairman and PCJSS president, Jotirindra Bodhipriya popularly known as Santu Larma, told the news agency that the PCJSS was a democratic party and they had signed the peace treaty after having surrendered their arms.
   ‘But, we are not taking their threat lightly. We think the UPDF may attack us after the Boisabi festival’, he added.

The Awami League has chalked out an elaborate programme to observe the historic Mujibnagar Day on April 17.
   The programme includes hoisting of flags at Bangabandhu Bhaban in the city and at all AL offices across the country at 6:00am on the day and placing wreathes on the portrait of Sheikh Mujibar Rahman at Bangabandhu Bhaban in Dhaka.
   Marking the day, a discussion meeting will also be held at 3:00pm at the Diploma Engineers’ Institution in the city with party chief Sheikh Hasina in the chair.
   Besides, a separate programme has been taken to observe the day at Mujibnagar in Meherpur.
   The programme includes placing of wreathes at Mujibnagar memorial monument at 9:00am, guard of honour at 9:45am, and a public meeting and cultural function at 10:00am.
   Meanwhile, the acting AL general secretary, Obaidul Kader, has urged the countrymen, all pro-liberation forces including party leaders and activists to observe the day, said a press release on Saturday.

A fisherman, who sustained injuries during a gunfight between two groups of pirates at Sundarban on March 29, died at Bagerhat Sadar Hospital early Saturday.
   The victim was identified as Altaf Hossain, 37, of Sapleja village under Mathbaria upazila in Pirojpur.

The Bangladesh Rifles on Saturday foiled an attempt of the Border Security Force of India to push in 16 Indian Muslims through the Meherpur border.
   Border sources said BSF personnel of Lal Bazar outpost tried to push 16 Indians, including women and children, into Bangladesh at about 12 noon.
   But the BDR members of Ichhakhali outpost along with the villagers foiled the BSF attempt.
   The Indian nationals were staying in no-man’s land of Jhan-Jhan Ichhakhali border till 8-30pm, the BDR said.
   The BDR remained on guard along the border following the BSF push-in attempt.