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Several hundred students of the Rajshahi University School and College confined on Monday all the teachers and other members on the staff for six hours to the teachers’ lounge, demanding withdrawal of teachers’ strike and holding classes and examinations.
   The students also protested at the misbehaviour of the university proctor, Enamul Haque, and demanded his punishment.
   All the teachers of the school and college began a work abstention on July 22 demanding an increase in their pay and perks.
   Sources said when some students of the school went on Sunday to meet the university vice-chancellor, Professor Altaf Hossain, in his office demanding an end to the impasse at the institution, the proctor reportedly behaved rudely with the students and drove them out of the vice-chancellor’s office.
   In protest at the misbehaviour, the students on Monday locked up the main gate of the school at 9:00am and chanted slogans against the proctor.
   At around 2:00pm, the university’s students adviser Jahid Hasan Milky, tried to rescue the confined teachers, but he failed. Later he assured the students that he would recommend to the vice-chancellor for punishment for the proctor. The students freed the teachers at 3.00pm.
   The students said the work abstention had hampered their academic activities.
   The schoolteachers told newsmen they would continue their abstention until their demands were met.

Assailants shot two young men at separate places in Khulna early Monday.
   One was Sumon Shikdar, 22, of Custom Ghat. The identity of another, aged about 21, could not be established till afternoon.
   The police said the local people saw the body of Sumon, reportedly an activist of the Janajuddha faction of the Purba Banglar Communist Party, with bullet wounds at Darogar Gher to the west of the Rupsa Bridge.
   The police in another incident found the unidentified man, with bullet wounds, dead at around 6:30am on the Khulna Bypass at Daulatpur in Khulna city.

The president of the main opposition Awami League, Sheikh Hasina, on Monday criticised her chief political rival, the ruling BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia for her move to form alliance with the HM Ershad-led Jatiya Party.
   She feigned surprise at the initiative, saying, ‘Even in public meetings, Khaleda had openly accused Ershad of killing her husband. And now she is going to make him an ally!’
   ‘The “uncompromising leader” seems now to have no scruples about compromising with her husband’s killer,’ she quipped.
   The BNP-led ruling alliance has become desperate to get new allies, sensing an election debacle, Hasina claimed while exchanging views with a group of AL leaders from Chuadanga, Meherpur and Narail districts at her Dhanmondi party office in the city.
   The meeting was organised as a part of the AL chief’s ongoing views-exchange programme with her grassroots-level colleagues.
   During the talks, the delegations of AL chapters in the three western districts requested her to nominate dedicated leaders active in their areas as election candidates, not occasional visitors as before, to maximise the party’s ballot success.
   The Narail AL leaders also sought effective moves to resolve factional feuds and to form a fresh and inclusive district committee to step up party activities ahead of the general elections.
   The delegations comprising the presidents and general secretaries of the district, thana, upazila, and first-grade pourasabha AL units apprised the party chief of the latest political situations in their areas.
   The Meherpur AL leaders claimed the party’s failure in the 2001 parliamentary elections in the district was mainly due to nominating candidates who lived in Dhaka, without taking their local image into account.
   ‘We requested her not to select people as election candidates who only occasionally show up in their constituencies, ignoring the dedicated local leaders,’ Meherpur district AL president Jainal Abedin told New Age.
   The Chuadanga delegates echoed the Meherpur AL leaders. ‘We will win all the seats if the party nominates proper people as candidates,’ district AL president Solaiman Haque told New Age.
   The Narail AL leaders, in their turn, described the intra-party groupings and carryings-on in the district, and said the current district committee left a number of dedicated leaders out, affecting the AL activists’ morale and party activities. They demanded immediate formation of an all-inclusive district committee.
   ‘Sheikh Hasina instantly assigned some central leaders to take steps to form a full-fledged committee soon and they sat with us after the meeting to discuss the matter,’ Narail district AL GS Syed Mohammad Ali told New Age.

The Bangladesh Rifles hauled a large cache of firearms and ammunition during a raid on a jungle hideout of the Myanmar separatists’ group at Amshiree under Naikhyangchari in Bandarban Sunday night, said sources in the BDR.
   The recovered arms include two Chinese-made AK-47 rifles with 100 rounds of its ammunitions and two magazines, 1000 rounds ammunitions of heavy machine gun, two high-powered walkie-talkie, 20 sets of combat dresses and other combat materials, sources said. None was rounded up in the drive, sources said, adding that frequent movement of the activists of Rohingya Solidarity Organisation, a separatist group of the neighbouring Myanmar was reported.
   The den of the alien miscreants was pulled down, said sources. Patrolling has been beefed up along the frontier to net the alien miscreants, the sources added.

Bandits killed one person and injured another in an attempted robbery at Jamajuri Guchchha Gram and looted Tk 2 lakh in cash and valuables from three other houses at Hashimpur of Chandanaish in Chittagong on early Monday.
   The police and the local people said a gang of about 15 robbers attacked the house of one Bashir Ahmed at around 2:00am and hacked his son, Mohammed Shahjahan, 24, when he tried to put up resistance.
   As Shahjahan cried out for help, the robbers shot him. He died on the spot. The robbers also injured his father with a sharp weapon, the police said.