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The interim government has decided to silently crush all the overt and covert militant Islamist fundamentalist groups existing in the country and still posing a threat to law and order, said senior home ministry and police officials.
   However their patrons, admitted officials, are yet to be identified.
   ‘The networks of most of the militants have been dismantled as a result of drastic action...But we will keep the remaining ones on the run,’ home affairs secretary Abdul Karim told New Age on Saturday.
   ‘If we find any of their patrons we will bring them to book immediately,’ he added.
   Earlier the home ministry formed a committee to identify the persons who had patronised militants and channelled funds to them, but have met with no apparent success so far.
   ‘The committee headed by the joint secretary (political) is trying to find out the patrons,’ Mohammad Mohsin, the additional secretary to the home ministry, told New Age on Saturday. He could not say whether any headway has been made in this regard.
   The inspector-general of police, Noor Mohammad, has claimed that they have identified the patrons and are now gathering evidence and witnesses against them.
   ‘Once they were influential enough to be beyond the reach of the law. Now it is time to take action against them,’ said the police boss, who hopes to give the nation good news in this regard soon.
   The immediate-past government did not take any visible steps to identify and arrest the patrons, not even the persons who openly supported the extremist activities and were identified by the media at different times.
   The media reports revealed the names of a number of cabinet members of the BNP-Jamaat government, their leaders, and the police officers who both covertly and overtly helped militant leaders like Siddiqul Islam alias Bangla Bhai.
   The arrested militants, including the six executed leaders of the banned Jamaatul Mujahedeen Bangladesh, also told investigators the names of their patrons and sources of funds, which have not been made public.
   The failure to trace the sources of funds and the patrons has given the militants enough confidence to revive their organisations and resume their activities, said investigators.
   Law adviser Moinul Hosein told journalists at the Zia International Airport on Saturday that the political patrons of the militants who are in the country would also face the same trials as the executed militants did.
   ‘We will examine the information extracted from the militants about their patrons…Investigation is being carried out on the basis of the information obtained from them,’ he said, but cautioned that the militants might have given false information to protect their actual godfathers.
   Sources in the police and intelligence agencies said that intensified operations against the remaining militants would be continued so that they cannot regroup and launch further attacks.
   ‘The remaining militants will face the same fate as the six top militant leaders who were taken to the gallows,’ said a senior home ministry official.
   A military intelligence officer who is working on militancy told New Age that they had formulated a comprehensive strategy to run down and nab each and every Islamist militant in Bangladesh.
   ‘We will not allow any evil power like the JMB to rise and attack innocent people again,’ claimed the officer, who hopes to get positive results in the anti-militant operation in the near future.
   According to intelligence agencies, more than two dozen Islamist groups pursuing the same mission as the Jamaatul Mujahideen — to establish Islamist rule in the country — exist in Bangladesh.
   Although the groups operate separately they maintain links with each other. They have expanded their network in every sphere of society, they said.

A case has been filed against 28 people, including former telecommunications minister Aminul Haque, also a BNP leader and the Rajshahi BNP general secretary, Shish Muhammad, on charge of patronising Islamist militants.
   After the filing of the case, the first against any patrons of militants, the Baghmara police arrested five Jamaatul Mujahideen activists who are accused in the case in raids on villages on Saturday. The police they continued hunting the remaining accused.
   The five arrested are Akram, Afzal, Amzad, Mizanur and Nazrul, all residents of Baghmara.
   Fazlur Rahman, a farmer of Hasanpur at Baghmara filed the case. Fazlur Rahman, 45, was picked up from his house and tortured in Bangla Bhai’s torture camp at Aloknagar in April 2004.
   After the incident, Fazlur went to the police station to file a case, but the police declined to record it.
   Fazlur said on April 20, 2004, the Jamaatul Mujahideen activists picked him up and taken to the house of Ramzan Kaya, a torture cell of Bangla Bhai’s at Aloknagar. He was hung upside down from a tree and was tortured, he said.
   The accused also includes Bara Bihanali union council chairman, Rafiqul Islam, also a BNP leader, and the Bashupara union council chairman, Besarat Ullah, the Baghmara police officer-in-charge, Mirza Golam Sarwar, said.

Investigators are still wondering about the six bomb blasts for which none of the arrested Islamist militants took responsibility. Those attacks took place in Paltan Maidan, Narayanganj, Bagerhat, Gopalganj, Khulna and Sylhet at different times.
   None of the militants, including the six executed leaders of the Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh, provided any information about the blasts at an Ahmadiyya mosque in Khulna on October 8, 1999, at a rally of the Communist Party of Bangladesh at Paltan Maidan on January 20, 2001, and a church at Baniarchar in Gopalganj on June 3, 2001.
   The same is the case with the explosions at the Awami League office in Narayanganj on June 15, 2001, at an AL public meeting at Mollarhat in Bagerhat on September 23, 2001, and an attack on a cinema hall in Sylhet in 2004.
   The banned outfits, Jamaatul Mujahideen and Harkat-ul Jihad al-Islami, were behind rest of the bomb and grenade attacks that took place across the country, according to investigators.
   Shaikh Abdur Rahman, supreme commander of the JMB, his second-in-command Siddiqul Islam alias Bangla Bhai and five other members of its highest policymaking body, Majlis-E-Shura, were all
   learnt to have admitted that JMB carried out the countrywide series of blasts on August 17, 2005.
   They have reportedly confessed their involvement in many other blasts, including the suicide attacks in Chandpur, Chittagong, Gazipur, Jhalakathi, Lakshmipur, Netrakona, Sylhet and elsewhere in the country after August, 2005.
   Also, they are said to have admitted to being linked with the bomb attacks on four cinema halls in Mymensingh on December 6, 2002 which killed 22 persons, and on the shrine of Failla Pagla in Tangail on January 17, 2003 which killed seven and injured 200, besides the multiple blasts at a cinema hall and a circus in Satkhira on September 28, 2000 which injured more than 100 people.
   Mufti Abdul Hannan, the operation commander of the banned Harkat-ul-Jihad Al-Islami, gave confessional statements before a magistrate on November 19, 2006 after he was interrogated for 170 days in police remand.
   Hannan was arrested on October 1, 2005 from Badda and admitted having planted a 76 kg bomb at Kotalipara in Gopalganj in an attempt to kill the then Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on July 20, 2000;
   attacking Sylhet City Corporation mayor on December 2, 2005; bombing a rally led by Awami League leader Suranjit Sengupta in Sunamganj on July 21, 2001; and also attacking AL leader Zebunnesa in Sylhet.
   He also admitted that he himself led the bomb attack on the Udichi cultural programme in Jessore on March 6, 1999; masterminding the attack on British High Commissioner Anwar Chowdhury on May 21, 2004 and also the attack on the Pahela Baishakh function at Ramna Batamul on April 14, 2001.
   Mufti Hannan also ‘confessed’ recently that he was behind the gruesome grenade attack on an Awami League rally on August 21, 2004 that killed 22 people, including senior AL leader Ivy Rahman, and injured over 100.
   A senior official of the Criminal Investigation Department, assigned to investigate most of the major blasts and grenade attacks, told New Age, ‘We have traced the killers of former finance minister and AL leader Shah AMS Kibria.’
   ‘Now we have to find out who carried out the six bomb attacks for which neither the JMB nor the Harkat-ul-Jihad leaders have claimed responsibility,’ he added.

Petrobangla has decided to sue energy company Chevron Corporation for filing an arbitration suit with the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes after a disagreement over the wheeling charge of gas of the Jalalabad field and for making the Bangladesh government defendant.
   Chevron has lodged the arbitration suit with the international centre, an institution of the World Bank group, in April 2006, demanding back the payment 4 per cent of the gas sales of Jalalabad it has provided for Petrobangla as wheeling charge over the years.
   Petrobangla will lodge a case with a Dhaka court by this week against the Chevron move of filing the arbitration suit and making the Bangladesh government defendant along with Petrobangla, highly placed sources in the Bangladesh Oil, Gas and Mineral Corporation and the energy and mineral resources division said.
   ‘Petrobangla will also file a petition with the centre challenging its jurisdiction to take up the issue, as Bermuda, where Chevron Corporation Bangladesh, the subsidiary of the Chevron Corporation has been registered, is not a signatory to the centre,’ said a source.
   Sources explained although the corporate office of Chevron was located in the United States, the Chevron Bangladesh was registered in Bermuda and that organisations of member countries could only seek intervention of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes.
   ‘We have decided to move the court as the company has made the government of Bangladesh a defendant of the arbitration although the gas purchase and sales agreement was signed between Petrobangla and Chevron. The government is one of the parties to the production sharing contract, but not to the gas purchase and sales agreement,’ said another source.
   Petrobangla has been deducting 4 per cent from the price it paid to the company for the Jalalabad gas for eight years as wheeling charge while Chevron or its predecessor Unocal has been objecting to the payment of the charge.
   Chevron (Unocal) had threatened several times that it would go for arbitration over the issue before it finally lodged the arbitration.
   After the energy and mineral resources division had received the arbitration proposal, it sought opinion of the attorney general’s office.
   ‘Former attorney general AG Mohammad Ali and Petrobangla lawyers, however, suggested that the division should not go for international arbitration and it should rather file a case against the Chevron move,’ said a source.
   Petrobangla argues that the agreement suggested that Chevron should pay 4 per cent of the gas sales as ‘wheeling charge’ for transmission of gas to the national grid up to the point from where gas is being marketed.
   This payment goes to the Gas Transmission Company Limited, a subsidiary of Petrobangla.
   Chevron, however, argues it is responsible for delivering the gas up to the national grid and once the gas enters the national grid the company does not have any responsibility and, therefore, it will not pay for the gas transmission.
   Petrobangla officials argue that Chevron has been paying the wheeling charge for eight years and it pays similar charges for transmitting or carrying condensate (liquid gas) from the gas fields. ‘So there should not be any question that Chevron should pay the wheeling charge as it pays the charges for condensate,’ said an official.
   In its arbitration suit, the company demanded around $14 million initially for the 4 per cent share of gas it had provided for Petrobangla over seven years till 2006.
   If Chevron, which took over Unocal in 2006, wins the arbitration, Bangladesh will lose millions of dollars, as the company would continue to get an additional 4 per cent of gas sales from Jalalabad and probably from two other fields — Moulvibazar and Bibiyana.
   When gas purchase and sales agreement for Moulvibazar and Bibiyana fields were signed few years ago, it was agreed that the wheeling charge issue of these fields would be settled in line with the settlement of the Jalalabad dispute.
   If it wins the arbitration, in monetary terms, Chevron will get millions of dollars, as the Bibiyana field that has a reserve of around 2.4 trillion cubic feet and the combined reserve of Moulvibazar and Jalalabad would be around 800 billion cubic feet.

The foreign secretaries of the South Asian nations on Saturday looked into the proposal to include trade in services under the SAFTA agreement and approved unanimously the proposals for establishing a South Asian University and a regional food bank.
   ‘We discussed taking the South Asian Free Trade Agreement to the next level by including trade in services into the agreement. Currently the agreement only includes trade in goods.  We are holding discussions on improving on it,’ the Indian foreign secretary, Shivshankar Menon, who chaired the first day of the two-day SAARC standing committee meeting at Vigyan Bhawan.
   The meeting, attended by foreign secretaries of all the members, also approved in general Iran’s application to be observer of the South Asian groupings. The number of the observers to the regional grouping would be raised to six once the top leaders of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation give their final nod at the 14th summit to be held during April 3–4 in New Delhi. The United States, European Union, China, Japan, and South Korea are the current observers of SAARC.
   Asked for comments on the implementation of SAFTA, the Indian secretary said all the countries but one had implemented it. ‘We discussed how we could move forward.’
   At present, the SAFTA agreement only covers the promotion of trade in goods among its seven contracting states — Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and the Maldives.
   Giving a general view on the meeting of foreign secretaries, Menon said all the member states emphasised that SAARC should be a more effective forum and it should move forward from its ‘declaration phase to the implementation phase.’
   He said the meeting discussed and recommended a number of proposals for the consideration at the council of ministers’ meeting, scheduled for Monday.
   The meeting approved the SAARC calendar of events, earlier finalised by the programming committee, which included the holding of a cultural festival in November 2007, exhibition and sales of textile and handicrafts in New Delhi, linking of two hospitals of each country under the telemedicine project, hosting of meeting of inter-governmental task force on trafficking in women and children, and a conference on micro-credit for women some time.
   The proposal for the establishment of the South Asian University has been approved with its main campus to be set up in New Delhi.
   But Bangladesh proposed that there should be satellites in every member states to strengthen the main campus.
   ‘Almost everyone who attended the meeting was positive on the proposal,’ Bangladesh’s acting foreign secretary, Touhid Hossain, told reporters at the Bangladesh high commission in New Delhi.
   There was no disagreement on the setting up of the SAARC food bank, which would help the member states to fulfil the emergency food crisis in case of disaster or any other reasons, the Bangladesh official said.
   The Indian foreign secretary said discussions were on to form a SAARC development fund, proposal for which was mooted in the 12th summit in Islamabad.
   The regional multi-modal transport system, reduction of telephone tariff, and combating terrorism were also discussed. The matter would be finalised on the second day today, and would be put for the approval of the council of ministers.
   The SAARC car rally that was flagged off in Cox’s Bazar on March 15 is expected to reach Delhi today.

The status of the Asian Development Bank’s inclusion in the SAARC process as an observer is uncertain in view of New Delhi’s reservations about the participation of an international financial institution into the regional grouping.
   The Manila-based multilateral lending agency had shown its interests in becoming a SAARC observer in a letter sent by its director general for South Asia on March 9 to the SAARC secretary general, said an official in the SAARC Secretariat in Kathmandu.
   ‘They [ADB officials] are enquiring about options for their future status with regard to relations with the SAARC — be it as an observer or a strategic partner,’ an official of the foreign office in Dhaka told New Age.
   The ADB sought advice of the SAARC Secretariat on whether it could institutionalise, going beyond the current memorandum of understanding, the growing engagements of the financial institution with the regional forum, now in a process of becoming an effective free trade area.
   The matter is scheduled to be discussed at the two-day meeting of the SAARC standing committee, beginning in New Delhi on March 31, the sources said.
   Indian representatives at the March 15–16 SAARC Development Forum meeting in Islamabad said they were not in favour of inclusion of any international financial institutions in the SAARC process.
   ‘Indian position is a clear pointer that New Delhi may oppose the ADB’s inclusion in the SAARC process in an institutionalised manner,’ said a Bangladesh government official who attended the inter-governmental meeting.
   Any proposal for the inclusion of international financial institutions into SAARC may receive support from countries such as Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, a foreign ministry official said.
   There is no bar on any formal involvement of international financial institutions in SAARC in line with the guidelines on observer which was adopted during SAARC council of ministers’ meeting in Dhaka in August 2006.
   When his attention was called to the issue, former SAARC secretary general QAMA Rahim said, ‘If there is no procedural difficulties, the ADB’s request would be considered on a priority basis.’
   Responding to a query regarding India’s stand on the issue, Rahim said, ‘New Delhi favours the inclusion of other parties outside the region. The opposition to the ADB’s inclusion definitely means retracting on its earlier stand.’
   He told New Age that SAARC would be ‘immensely’ benefited form the formal inclusion of the Manila-based organisation in the grouping.

Glenn McGrath became the most successful bowler in World Cup history as reigning champions Australia held Bangladesh to 104 for six at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium here Saturday.
   In a match reduced by a wet outfield to 22 overs per side, McGrath took three wickets for 16 runs in five overs to move two clear of Pakistan great Wasim Akram’s previous record Pakistan great Wasim Akram’s previous record of 55 World Cup wickets.
   Chasing 105 for victory, after restricting Bangladesh to 104 for six, Australia finished on 106 without loss, victory achieved with more than eight overs to spare as they made it five wins out five in this World Cup.
   Adam Gilchrist was 59 not out and Matthew Hayden, who finished the match with a six off Sakib al Hasan, 47 not out.
   McGrath, 37, put himself in the record books when Aftab Ahmed failed to clear the tall Nathan Bracken at mid-off and was caught for 11.
   The New South Wales seamer, who has appeared in the last three World Cup finals and will retire from cricket after this tournament, broke Akram’s record in five fewer matches than the left-arm legend (33 compared to 38).
   His achievement Saturday was all the more creditable because the delay meant he only had a maximum of five overs. Yet in four he’d taken three for nine.
   Defeat for Bangladesh in their Super Eight opener was made worse by the sight of pace bowler Tapash Baisya leaving the field after pulling up in his delivery stride.
   Gilchrist completed his 50th one-day international fifty in 41 balls with seven fours when he off-drove left-arm spinner Mohammad Rafique for six.
   Earlier, Bangladesh were indebted to an innings of 25 not out from Mashrafee bin Murtaza and 25 from Hasan.
   After the start was delayed by five hours it was no surprise when Australia captain Ricky Ponting won the toss and fielded in a bid to exploit any moisture still in the pitch.
   Teenage opener Tamim Iqbal fell when he miscued left-arm quick Bracken to Brad Hogg at mid-on for three.
   Four for one became eight for two when McGrath, the most successful fast bowler in Test match history, drew level with Akram when expertly yorking Shahriar Nafees for one.
   Ahmed hoisted the wayward Shaun Tait for four over mid-wicket while left-hander Sakib cut the fast bowler for six over third man after the bowler dropped short and wide.
   These were two rare controlled shots from a Bangladesh top order that appeared panicked by the prospect of having so few overs to play with.
   McGrath then showed Tait how it should be done when Ahmed holed out off a full length ball and Bangladesh were 25 for three in the sixth over.
   Mohammad Ashraful made 100 during Bangladesh’s shock five-wicket win against Australia in Cardiff two years ago. But this time around he fell for six when a huge skied drive off McGrath was well caught by the back-pedalling Ponting at mid-on.
   One concern for Australia was the sight of all-rounder Shane Watson leaving the field four balls into his second over with a left calf strain.
   Watson missed the whole of Australia’s 5-0 Ashes thrashing of England with a hamstring problem.
   Australia, bidding to become the first team to win three successive World Cup titles, won their Super Eight opener against West Indies by 103 runs here Wednesday.

Habibul Bashar and his boys could very well feel hard done by the Super Eights draw; two matches in three days – first the mighty Australians and their recent tormentors New Zealand.
   As the rain refused to stay away from Antigua for most of the day on Sunday, at one point, it seemed Bangladesh might have to play back-to-back matches. Anyway, rain let up eventually in the afternoon and the umpires decided that there was enough time for a 22-over-a-side match.
   Whatever the outcome of their match against the reigning champions, the Tigers will not have time to brood over it, as they have to get ready for their match against New Zealand on Monday. And they can be sure of one thing: the Black Caps would be out there to settle a score. A warm-up match it may have been; a defeat it was nevertheless.
   Bangladesh should not worry too much about it, though. More importantly, they should not let the expectations of the millions of fans back home or the boisterous few in the stands weigh heavy on their shoulders. They have done much more than what they were expected to do in this World Cup.
   They should take one match at a time and not brood too much over what could be or what might have been. Except for Ireland, the rest of the lot in the Super Eights are all superior to Bangladesh in terms of records and experience. In other words, they are rank outsiders.
   What is also crucial for them to remember is the fact that none of the big teams will take them lightly any more after their stunning but well-deserved victory against the fancied Indians in the preliminary round.
   Each team must have had reviewed the March 17 match over and over again. Bashar and his boys are no longer unknown enemies for them. They now have a clear enough idea about the strength and weakness of each Bangladeshi player.
   Such caution by their rivals could actually play into the hands of the Tigers, as long as they play their natural game and let their opposition do the thinking.
   Tamim Iqbal, Shahriar Nafees, Mushfiqur Rahim, Aftab Ahmed, Mohammad Ashraful et al – should be given a free rein and do what they do best – go after the bowlers.
   On the other hand, Mashrafee bin Murtaza should bowl his heart out, as he always does, to get early breakthrough, and allow the left-arm spinners to tighten the noose.
   Overall, the Tigers do not have to do anything special against New Zealand. If they play the way they have done so far, it would be special enough.

The police on Saturday took Giasuddin Al Mamun, friend and close business partner of BNP’s senior secretary general, Tarique Rahman, to another five-day remand for further questioning.
   Metropolitan magistrate Rafiqul Islam granted the remand after the police had sought more time to grill Mamun in an extortion case filed with the Gulshan police. He was produced in the court at the end of his five-day remand.
   The court will hear two more extortion cases filed against Mamun with the Gulshan and Kafrul police stations after the latest remand.
   Earlier, he was taken into a five-day remand on March 26 in an arms case after the joint forces arrested him from his DOHS home the same day.

Eid-e-Miladunnabi, commemorating the birth and death anniversary of Prophet Muha-mmad (PBUH), will be observed today in the country as elsewhere in the Muslim nations with due religious fervour.
   The president, Iajuddin Ahmed, and the chief adviser, Fakhruddin Ahmed, have issued separate messages wishing the countrymen as well as the Muslim states overall wellbeing.
   The president said the works and life of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) are an eternal ideal for mankind to emulate. He noted that overall welfare and freedom of mankind could be ensured by following the lifestyle and ideals of the great Prophet.
   The chief adviser in his message said Allah the Almighty sent Hazrat Muhammad (PUBH) as His benediction for mankind and the Prophet, till his death, had struggled against all kinds of injustice, oppression, falsehood, superstition and evils.
   ‘The Prophet proclaimed the verses of the Almighty, showed people the path of truth and justice and propounded an ideal code of life for mankind,’ the CA said.
   Fakhruddin expressed his belief that in the present conflict-stricken world, the noble ideals and teachings of the Prophet could bring wellbeing and peace for people irrespective of caste and creed. The day is a public holiday.
   The government has chalked out elaborate programmes to observe the day. The programmes include hoisting the national flag atop government and non-government buildings, publishing supplements in newspapers, displaying banners inscribed with kalema taiyeba at important buildings, establishments and roads, arranging prayer session at the secretariat and Bangabhaban mosques.
   Besides, the Ministry of Women and Children Affairs will arrange cultural programmes, while Islamic Foundation will arrange meetings, seminars and competitions under its fortnight-long programme.

All the 13 serving bureaucrats, who attended a private party at an Uttara house in November last year, have been made officers on special duty.
   Establishment ministry officials on Saturday said the step was taken on the basis of an official probe report, which earlier confirmed that the three joint secretaries, four deputy secretaries and six senior assistant secretaries were present at the party hosted on November 24 night, 2006 by former Board of Investment executive chief Mahmudur Rahman.
   A former secretary and a police top boss also attended the party, which sparked widespread speculations, fuelling the political turbulence at the end of 2006 and prompting the then caretaker government to form a committee to probe into the matter.
   Establishment secretary Abdus Salam Khan told bdnews24.com Saturday night that the government move to make the 13 officials OSD was based on the report of a three-member inquiry committee, headed by the then agriculture secretary M Abdul Aziz.
   The three joint secretaries, whose jobs now rest with the establishment ministry, are AKM Jahangir, director general of the Directorate of Relief and Rehabilitation, Abdul Bari, executive director of the National Nutrition Project and Abdus Sabur, who was earlier given a transfer order to the Chittagong Hill Tracts affairs ministry.
   The four deputy secretaries are Dhaka City Corporation secretary Majibar Rahman, DCC general manager Zakir Hossain Kamal, Dr Zakirul Islam of local government department and Abdul Matin, chief executive of Jhalkathi District Council.
   Senior assistant secretaries are Sohel Mahmud Iqbal, Sajjad Hossain Bhuiyan, Kazi Imdadul Haque, Saraf Uddin Ahmed Chowdhury, Abdur Rahman Tarafdar and AJM Salauddin Nagri.
   As part of the fresh reshuffle initiated by the interim government in the bureaucratic hierarchy, the government on Saturday made environment and forests secretary SM Jahrul Islam an officer on special duty.
   Earlier on Thursday, two secretaries and an additional secretary were made officers on special duty. The secretaries — Shahid Alam of the civil aviation ministry and SM Zafarullah of the public works ministry — were made OSDs after the Anti-Corruption Commission had sued them along with former housing minister Mirza Abbas for abuse of power in selling 18 government houses located in the capital.
   On Saturday, Sheikh Altaf Ali, acting member of the Planning Commission, was made acting secretary to the civil aviation and tourism ministry, while Bangladesh Chemical Industries Corporation chairman ASM Rashidul Hye was appointed acting secretary to the housing and public works ministry.
   Mokhlesur Rahman, chairman of Bangladesh Sugar and Food Industries Corporation, will take over as BCIC chairman.
   Jamil Osman, an OSD, has been transferred to the health ministry as additional secretary.
   All the changes have been made through three separate orders issued by establishment ministry Saturday.

The deportation of Mohiuddin Ahmed, convicted in connection with the killing of the founding president, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was suspended until April 16 as a US court has stayed the process.
   Quoting a US Ninth Circuit Court official, the BBC Bangla Service radio Saturday morning said the latest decision came after Mohiuddin’s family had appealed to the court.
   The court deals with immigration-related disputes to review his immigration case. The deportation of the former army official halted in the past week as a US Republican congressman stood beside him. Mohiuddin, arrested on March 13 by the Los Angeles immigration police after his appeal for a permanent stay in the United States was rejected by the circuit court in San Francisco.
   Mohiuddin was tried in his absence and was sentenced to death for his involvement in the assassination of Sheikh Mujib in August 1975. Mohiuddin entered the United States in 1996 on a visitor’s visa and was illegally staying there.
   He applied for staying in the United States permanently, but an immigration judge in 2002 ordered him to be deported.
   An appeal court in February also rejected his move to have the case reviewed and ordered him to return to Bangladesh to face criminal charges.

Iran on Saturday again warned Britain against politicising the seizure of its 15 navy personnel, saying that could complicate efforts to resolve the escalating crisis.
   The warning from the foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, came as a senior Iranian diplomat said legal proceedings had begun against the sailors and marines for illegally entering Iranian waters but denied reports of a trial.
   ‘British leaders should avoid media storms and politicisation to prevent a further complication of the affair,’ Iranian media quoted Mottaki as telling his Australian counterpart, Alexander Downer, in a telephone conversation.
   The government of the British prime minister, Tony Blair, has received strong backing from both the United States and the European Union, with Tehran on Saturday slamming the EU’s ‘irrational’ support.
   ‘Iran rejects the EU’s partial and meddling position in the 15 sailors’ detention affair–and urges European countries to refrain from impulsive and irresponsible comments,’ a foreign ministry statement said.
   It warned EU leaders to avoid ‘uncalled-for interference in a completely bilateral affair between Iran and Britain.’
   EU foreign ministers at a meeting in Germany on Friday deplored the seizure of the Britons as a breach of international law and threatened to take ‘appropriate measures’ if they were not released soon.
   The EU move came after Britain on Thursday secured a UN Security Council statement on the Iranian action, but which was less strident than London had hoped for.
   Tehran has so far refused to bow to mounting pressure to release the naval personnel, who are being held in a secret location and occasionally put on television allegedly confessing to and apologising for their transgressions.
   Britain insists they were on a routine anti-smuggling patrol in Iraqi waters under a UN mandate but Iran says they were in its territorial waters.
   Several conservative Iranian MPs and clerics are demanding the detainees be put on trial.
   But Iran’s ambassador to Moscow denied media reports originally from Russian television quoting him as suggesting the 15 might face trial.
   ‘The network has made a mistake in translating the comments about detained British personnel and has reported the possibility of their trial,’ Gholam Reza Ansari told the Iranian state news agency IRNA.
   In comments on the channel’s Internet site, Ansari was quoted as saying ‘no kind of apology has been received from the British side and as a result the case has taken on a juridical form.’
   Earlier, IRNA itself had published what it said were excerpts from the interview in which Ansari was quoted as saying the British sailors ‘could go on trial for this illegal act’.
   But Ansari on Saturday said only that ‘the issue of British forces detention has entered legal proceedings.’
   Amid the public war of words, quiet diplomacy continued, with the British foreign secretary, Margaret Beckett, saying her ministry had received and responded to a diplomatic note from Tehran, without elaborating.
   ‘We would like to be told where our personnel are, we would like to be given access to them, but we want it resolved,’ Beckett said on the sidelines of the meeting with her EU counterparts in Germany.

Despite having signed several anti-terrorism treaties in the region, India wants to sign a new agreement, styled ‘SAARC Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters’, in the 14th summit of the South Asian group of nations.
   New Delhi circulated the draft text of the agreement through the SAARC secretariat in Kathmandu in the first half of March this year, and it might be broached in the standing committee’s meeting, said officials at the ministries of home and foreign affairs.
   Former SAARC secretary-general QAMA Rahim, however, opined that such a new agreement is not required, rather full implementation of existing agreements is sufficient to tackle terrorism in the region.
   ‘We have signed two counter-terrorism deals to fight the menace in the region which are yet to be fully implemented,’ said Rahim.
   When his attention was drawn to the Indian proposal, he said, ‘I do not know the details of New Delhi’s latest proposal. If there are any shortcomings in the existing agreements we can address them.’
   ‘Full implementation of earlier treaties can help the region a lot to fight terrorism,’ Rahim added.
   Officials said that New Delhi argued that SAARC countries need new agreements in consideration of the ‘changing reality’ in the region when its officials circulated the draft texts of the new agreement.
   Referring to the third meeting of BIMSTEC’s joint working group on counter-terrorism and transnational crimes in Myanmar in January this year, a home ministry official said that India also proposed such a separate convention at the meeting.
   ‘At the meeting India proposed a comprehensive convention instead of three separate conventions. But Bangladesh argued for three separate conventions and its stance was supported by some of the members,’ he added.
   A foreign ministry official told this correspondent India’s new proposal is similar to that of Bay of Bengal Initiatives for Multi-Sectorial Technical Economic Cooperation.
   ‘It is worth recalling that, for some years, India has been pursuing the matter with Bangladesh bilaterally,’ he added.
   SAARC countries signed two counter-terrorism deals, styled the ‘SAARC Regional Convention on Suppression of Terrorism’ and ‘Additional Protocol to the SAARC Regional Convention on Suppression of Terrorism’ in 1987 and 2004 respectively for the prevention of and elimination of terrorism from the subcontinental region.

Security has been heightened across the country as a preventive measure to check against Islamist militant attack in response to the execution of the six Jamaatul Mujahideen kingpins on Thursday night.
   The home ministry officials, however, said they did not have any specific information on any possible attack, but the law-enforcing agencies had been put on alert.
   Although the network of the banned organisation has been totally crushed by the drastic action taken against the militants, a few of them who still exist may try to regroup, they said.
   ‘We do not foresee any problem. However, we have taken all the precautionary measures so that the militants cannot regroup and launch any attack anywhere in the country,’ the home affairs secretary, Abdul Karim, told New Age on Saturday.
   According to sources, the law-enforcing agencies have been put on high alert to check against any vengeful attacks by the Islamo-fascist groups who are believed to have developed an underground network in the country with thousands of dedicated and trained militants.
   Intelligence agencies have warned the home ministry that militants hiding in different parts of the country might attack government establishments.
   Jamaatul Mujahideen chief Shaikh Abdur Rahman, his second-in-command Siddiqul Islam alias Bangla Bhai, militant commander Ataur Rahman Sunny, regional commander Abdul Awal, suicide squad member Iftekhar Hasan Al-Mamun and majlish-e-shura member Khaled Saifullah were executed for the November 14, 2005 bomb attack in Jhalakathi which killed two judges.
   On August 17, 2005 the organisation launched a series of bombings in 63 districts, especially on court premises, announcing they did not believe in manmade laws and the existing judicial system. They are believed to have patrons at home and abroad who covertly backed the rise of militancy.
   The inspector general of police, Noor Mohammad, said his department had prepared a list of militants. They are now working at the local level on the basis of that list to gather evidence and witnesses against the militants and their patrons, he told reporters on Saturday.

The 22 activists of Hizb ut-Tahrir were sent to jail on a 30-day detention after the police produced them in the chief metropolitan magistrate’s court on Saturday.
   The youths were arrested from a Mohammadpur house Friday night. The police said they were in a meeting during the arrest and they might have links with militancy.
   The police registered a case against them for violating the emergency rules for holding indoor meeting. Officer-in-charge of Mohammadpur police, Shibli Noman said they had confiscated posters, leaflets, compact disks and a computer from the house.
   The arrested people were brought to detective branch office on Minto Road before they were taken to the court.
   Hizb ut-Tahrir claimed that its members were discussing preparation for a religious programme scheduled for Saturday on the occasion of Eid-e-Miladunnabi.
   The youths, who included university students, were members of Liberated Youths, Hizb ut-Tahrir’s student wing, the party claimed.
   The student activists were not holding any indoor political meeting, they were watching a video on Islam and preparing for a religious programme, which was not a violation of the emergency rule, it argued.
   Party chief Mohiuddin Ahmed said they had suspended all their political activities after promulgation of the emergency rules.

Dhaka has requested New Delhi for duty-free access of Bangladeshi goods to Indian market and removal of trade-related barriers to minimise the huge trade gap between the two neighbours.
   ‘We asked India to provide duty-free access for Bangladeshi goods to Indian market to reduce the cumulative trade deficit of seven to eight billion dollars,’ the foreign affairs adviser, Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury, told the media after a meeting with his counterpart, Pranb Mukharjee, on Saturday.
   Bangladesh and India has more than two billion dollars of annual trade deficit.
   Iftekhar said he had raised a number of bilateral issues, stuck up for years, to be addressed on an urgent basis. The matters included trade, water and land boundary demarcation among others, said Iftekhar giving priority to trade issues.
   He said the meeting was very productive. ‘I have requested my counterpart to take measures to remove the non-tariff and para-tariff barriers,’ Iftekhar, now in New Delhi to attend the 14th summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation beginning on April 3, said.
   He said the Indian external affairs minister responded positively to Bangladesh’s case and he would take measures to address the matters in a structured way.
   On Indo-Bangladesh water issue, Iftekhar said his Indian counterpart assured Bangladesh of not diverting water from the upper riparian Tipaimukh. ‘More discussions would be there to resolve the water issue,’ the adviser said, adding India expressed its eagerness to have more discussion on the issue.
   The adviser also raised the demarcation of more than 6.5 kilometres of land stretch, which were not demarcated as India had not ratified the 1974 land boundary agreement between the countries, and other border disputes such as exchange of enclaves and land on adverse possession.
   Asked about the Indian approach towards the land boundary agreement, Iftekhar said the Indian minister agreed that the agreement would be ratified.
   He requested the Indian minister to make an arrangement for 24-hour entry and exit of the enclave dwellers at Dahagram Angarpota from the existing 12-hour from 6:00am to 6:00pm) entry.
   Asked about India-Bangladesh relations, Iftekahr said the government wants to take the friendly relations between the two nations to a new height so that ‘we do not need to look back.’
   From now on, Iftekhar said senior officials would meet frequently to resolve the outstanding issued between India and Bangladesh. He said the issues would now be discussed in a structured way.
   The regular meeting between the foreign secretaries of the countries had not taken place for few years. ‘The secretary-level meeting would shortly be resumed,’ Ifthkahr said, without giving any specific time.
   He also discussed the SAARC agenda at the meeting with the Indian external affairs minister.

South Asian leaders meet next week at a summit aiming to boost trade in a region that accounts for a fifth of the world’s population, but real progress is unlikely with domestic turmoil dominating national agendas.
   The seven members of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation are Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, India, Bhutan, the Maldives and Bangladesh.
   Afghanistan joins as the eighth member at the 14th SAARC summit in New Delhi on April 3-4 that will be attended by leaders including the Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh, and the Pakistani premier, Shaukat Aziz.
   The Pakistan president, Pervez Musharraf, facing his own domestic troubles including a political standoff over the sacking of the country’s top judge, will be absent.
   ‘SAARC is unlikely to go anywhere soon in a hurry,’ C Uday Bhaskar, a New Delhi-based foreign policy analyst.
   ‘Nearly all SAARC countries are facing some sort of internal turbulence and animation and, therefore, the determination to progress on collective issues is not a high priority,’ he added.
   He pointed to Islamist violence in Pakistan and Afghanistan, ethnic clashes and political tension in Nepal where Maoists and the government have signed a tenuous peace accord, and the raging conflict in Sri Lanka between Tamil rebels and Colombo.
   Bangladesh had recently witnessed the installation of an army-backed interim government after months of turmoil, he said, while parts of India are affected by separatist revolts, including in Indian Kashmir, and a Maoist insurgency.
   Some top officials say SAARC needs to move beyond being a forum for regular summits and pious statements.
   ‘It’s our feeling the time has come for SAARC to move now to a stage of implementation, rather than just studying the issues,’ the Indian foreign secretary, Shivshankar Menon, said this week.
   Progress since SAARC’s creation in 1985 – formed with the aim of accelerating economic growth and trade in one of the world’s poorest regions–has also been stymied by the edgy ties between Pakistan and India, the group’s largest members.
   Domestic politics such as Pakistan refusing to give India Most Favoured Nation trading status has kept intra-regional trade at about five percent of South Asian nation’s total trade.
   Although relations between the nuclear-armed rivals have improved in the past few years due to a cautious peace process, the two sides have made little headway over Kashmir.
   Hindu-majority India says Islamic Pakistan needs to do more to curb Islamist militants operating from Pakistani territory, who stage attacks in Indian Kashmir.
   Islamabad wants New Delhi to act with urgency over Kashmir, where a Muslim separatist revolt against Indian rule has killed thousands, and is pushing for demilitarisation of the region, which has caused two of the three India-Pakistan wars.
   ‘India and Pakistan have held SAARC hostage,’ said Nurul Kabir, editor of the New Age newspaper of Bangladesh.
   No major agreements are expected–accords could include a SAARC university and freer movement of journalists.
   Some analysts say dealing with terrorism needs to come first.
   ‘Nowhere in the world do you have a region where there are so many terrorists or militants packed like sardines,’ New Delhi-based security analyst Ashok Mehta said.

Nepal’s parliament delayed Saturday ratifying a landmark pact to bring Maoist rebels into government and cement an end to a decade of bloody civil war.
   The parliament had been due to give its formal approval to the deal reached Friday under which the main political parties agreed to give the Maoists five portfolios in a new cabinet.
   But political wrangling including disagreement over cabinet hierarchy forced postponement of the parliamentary sitting until Sunday.
   Nepal’s seven main political parties and the former rebels met in the prime minister’s residence on Saturday to sort out the differences.
   The row did not endanger the decision to admit the Maoists into the new interim government, said Prakash Sharan Mahat, a lawmaker from the Nepali Congress (Democratic) party.
   ‘We will meet tomorrow at 8:00am (0215 GMT) and sort out these differences and we will go to parliament around 11:00am (0415 GMT) on Sunday to formalise the cabinet,’ Mahat said.
   The parties were at odds over who should hold the most senior positions in the cabinet. One of its tasks will be steering the Himalayan nation to new elections this year.
   ‘The meeting has been postponed until tomorrow morning because the Nepali Congress and the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) could not reach agreement regarding the ministerial hierarchy in the interim government,’ said Dev Gurung, a Maoist leader.
   ‘We don’t have any major differences over the structure of the interim government,’ Gurung added.

Armed robbers looted cash and valuables from the house of army personnel at Mirpur in the Dhaka city Saturday evening.
   The police, quoting family members, said at least seven gunmen, impersonating policemen, entered the house of Chand Mia Bepari at about 6:00pm.
   They took Chand Mia’s wife Nazma Akter hostage at gunpoint and looted Tk 55,000, gold ornaments and other valuables. Chand Mia is in Kuwait in the UN peacekeeping mission.

Nepal’s parliament delayed Saturday ratifying a landmark pact to bring Maoist rebels into government and cement an end to a decade of bloody civil war.
   The parliament had been due to give its formal approval to the deal reached Friday under which the main political parties agreed to give the Maoists five portfolios in a new cabinet.
   But political wrangling including disagreement over cabinet hierarchy forced postponement of the parliamentary sitting until Sunday.
   Nepal’s seven main political parties and the former rebels met in the prime minister’s residence on Saturday to sort out the differences.
   The row did not endanger the decision to admit the Maoists into the new interim government, said Prakash Sharan Mahat, a lawmaker from the Nepali Congress (Democratic) party.
   ‘We will meet tomorrow at 8:00am (0215 GMT) and sort out these differences and we will go to parliament around 11:00am (0415 GMT) on Sunday to formalise the cabinet,’ Mahat said.
   The parties were at odds over who should hold the most senior positions in the cabinet. One of its tasks will be steering the Himalayan nation to new elections this year.

The politburo of Workers Party of Bangladesh called on the interim government to take actions against the patrons of the ultra Islamist outfits.
   The politburo in a statement on Saturday also urged the government to take actions against those political leaders and government officials who had patronised the ultra Islamist outfits.
   The statements of the militants before their execution should be made public, the politburo said. Hailing the executions of the death sentences of the top JMB leaders, the politburo demanded investigation of different attacks by the extremists in Bagmara, Natore, Naogaon, Gazipur and Netrakona. Some ministers of the immediate-past BNP-Jamaat alliance government should be put on trial for the patronage to the extremists, the politburo said.

Three transport leaders, including district road transport workers’ union president M Afsar Ali Khan, were arrested in Sherpur early Saturday.
   Two other leaders are former president of the union M Shahidul Islam Shahid and vice-president Khandakar Fazlur Rahman.
   The sadar police said the transport leaders were arrested under the Emergency Power Rules after they were called
   to the police station at midnight.
   The police said they were accused of extortion, obstructing the movement of BRTC buses, damaging a police pickup van and creating anarchy in transport sector.