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Local zealots obstructed the burial of an elderly woman belonging to Ahmadiyya community at Shahbazpur village of Shyamgram union long delaying her funeral by about 28 hours.
   Local sources said Majlisun Nesa, 70, died at about 11:00am on Tuesday, and was buried at about 2:00pm the following day 28 hours after her death due to resistance by a group of villagers.
   She was buried in a khash land near her house in presence of the upazila nirbahi officer and the officer-in-charge of the Nabinagar police station.
   When members of the Ahmadiyya community went to Shahbazpur graveyard to dig a grave for her burial, a group of villagers obstructed them terming the deceased a Kafir (infidel), according to locals.
   The angry villagers numbering about one hundred also chanted provocative slogans against Ahmadiyya community, they said.
   On information by the Ahmadiyyas, a police team led by an inspector went to the spot giving rise to tension among the villagers.
   The situation took a serious turn as the villagers stationed men to guard the graveyard at night in presence of the police.
   Later, the upazila nirbahi officer, Abdus Sattar, along with a police team went to the spot on Wednesday and reached an understanding between both the sides.
   Following a decision, Majlisun Nesa was buried in the khas land near a marsh of her house in presence of the UNO and the OC.
   Shyama Mia and Jamal Mia, sons of the deceased, said all their predecessors were buried at the graveyard. But now they were facing obstruction to burying their mother there, they added.
   The Shahbazpur Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat president, Abu Naser, said they could do nothing about it, as they are treated as the minority community in the country.
   The Shahbazpur Graveyard Committee chairman, Abdur Razzak and BNP’s local union unit vice-president, Imam Hasan Baten, said the bodies of the predecessors of the Ahmadiyyas had been buried at the graveyard as they were Muslims.
   But now Ahmadiyyas have become 'Kafir' so they would not be buried at the Muslim graveyard, he said.
   Abdul Awal, missionary-in-charge of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat, condemned the incident.

The National Committee to Protect Oil-Gas Resources, Power and Port on Wednesday slated the government for what it said the move to hide the incompetence and irresponsibility of the Niko Resources for the Tengratila Gas Field blow-outs.
   The committee convener, Sheikh Muhammad Shaheedullah, and member secretary, Anu Muhammad, in a statement also expressed concern over the government effort in showing the damages, caused by the January and July 2005 blow-outs, much lower than the actual.
   ‘The energy and mineral resources ministry fixed a face-saving compensation for Niko and made unacceptable reports of assessing damages caused by the blow-outs,’ said the statement signed by Sharifuzzamn Sharif of the committee.
   The energy and mineral resources adviser, Mahmudur Rahman, has been trying to hide Niko’s misdeeds and save it by calculating the damages much lower than the actual, they said adding that former energy minister AKM Mosharraf Hossain had also done the same.
   They said the agreement, through which Niko was given the operational charge of the field, was not transparent, and the field was mischievously shown as an abandoned one.
   A vicious circle in the government is now trying to free the company from its responsibilities in damaging the national resources as well as the field, they said demanding immediate cancellation of all agreements with Niko and realising the actual amount of losses as compensation.

Bidisha, the divorced wife of former dictator Hussain Muhammad Ershad, and Shafiul Alam Pradhan, a dissident Jatiya Party central leader, are going out on a three-day political tour in the northern districts from today (Thusrday).
   Pradhan would announce formally a party after mobilising grass-roots level workers through campaign in two northern districts, Dinajpur and Panchagarh, on the first spell.
   The new party would come into being from a convention in Dhaka on February 28. The rebellious leaders at a press conference in Dhaka on January 7, 2006 announced the convention date.
   The rebellious leaders have planned the tour for mass contact to make the convention a success.
   ‘We have left JP on ideological ground,’ Pradhan told New Age Wednesday noon.
   There is no democracy inside the Ershad-led Jatiya Party that failed to fulfil the aspirations of the leaders and workers of the party and is now acting as b-team of the government, Pradhan alleged.
   ‘We are going to float a new party to fulfil people’s aspiration and the new party must belong to the opposition camps’, he said.
   The tour programmes, from January 19 to 21, include two rallies in Panchagarh and Dinajpur and a series of roadside gatherings from Dinajpur to Tetulia.
   The leaders would start from Dhaka by road and hold mass contacts on the way, Pradhan said.
   Safiul Alam Pradhan resigned from the JP as a presidium member along with 69 central leaders in December.
   The northern part of Bangladesh is considered to be the vote-bank of the Jatiya Party and the new faction of the party is eyeing the votes for the next general election.

The police on Tuesday arrested four persons, including a woman and a terminated police sub-inspector, from the Dhaka city’s Baitul Aman Housing Society for allegedly swindling a businessman out of more than Tk 60 lakh.
   The four were placed on a five-day police remand on Wednesday.
   The police said widowed woman Saima Ahmed Lita developed an affair with the businessman, SM Faisal Jalil Chowdhury, since he had been in the USA in August, 2005. At one stage, both Faisal and Lita agreed to get married.
   Availing the opportunity of such relationship, Lita took cash from Faisal in the name of get rid of their financial constraints and promised to pay back the money.
   Later, Lita introduced her associates, Shaheed – the terminated SI, Naveed and Belal, to Faisal. The three also took Tk 1 lakh in cash and his car, saying they would return within a week.
   But neither Lita nor her associates returned the money or the car.
   Following a case, the Adabar police detained the four from their rented flat on Road 10 of Baitul Aman Housing Society Tuesday evening.
   The four were being interrogated at the police station.

A huge fish, about five feet in length and 200 kilograms in weight, was caught from the Kushiara River in Sylhet late night Tuesday.
   The fish seller demanded Tk 1.5 lakh as the price of the fish but the bidding over the price rose up to Tk 40,000 till Wednesday evening, concerned people said.

The Dhaka city committee of the Workers Party called upon the party leaders and workers to make today’s Muktangan rally a success.
   The Awami League-led opposition alliance organised the rally in protest against the appointments of two commissioners to the Election Commission and called upon the government to cancel the appointments.

Members of the central committee of the Communist Party of Bangladesh have started distributing warm clothes among the cold-hit people in the northern districts of the country.
   Teams left for northern disctricts with the clothes on Wednesday, said a press release.