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An executive of a private-sector power generation company has filed an extortion case against former prime minister Sheikh Hasina accusing her of taking Taka 3 crore from him for allowing operation of a barge-mounted power plant.
   Kazi Tajul Islam Faruque, chairman of Westmont Energy Bangladesh Limited, which runs the barge-mounted power plant at Baghabari in Sirajganj, filed the case on Monday with Tejgaon police station alleging that Hasina and her personal staff Manu Majumder were involved in the extortion of the money.
   The case was filed under certain non-bailable sections of the code of criminal procedure.
   The case was filed just two days after the Awami League president fired a broadside at the interim administration of Fakhruddin Ahmed terming it ‘undemocratic and unconstitutional’.
   Hasina, who is now in the United States on a private tour, had told BBC Bangla service in an interview broadcast on Saturday that the country could not be run under a state of emergency for long. The president, Iajuddin Ahmed, proclaimed a state of emergency in early January suspending all civil and political rights.
   In the case Faruque alleged that he was forced to pay Hasina Taka 3 crore in cash on the evening of December 12, 1998, for operation of his company’s Baghabari plant, after being summoned to the Ganabhaban, the then official residence of the PM. The plant came into operation in June, 1999.
   Police declined comments on the case saying they were investigating the allegations and would submit report accordingly.
   ‘We are investigating the charge and should not make any comment at the moment,’ said the officer-in-charge of Tejgaon police station, Jan-e-Alam, also the investigation officer of the case.
   Faruque went to the police station at around 4:30pm on Monday and the case was registered immediately.
   The police in the first information report said in response to the then government’s invitation for setting up power generation units, Faruque had launched a joint-venture with Malaysian company, Westmont Offshore Limited, and participated in the bidding.
   Four companies were selected by the Power Development Board and after negotiations with Westmont Energy on March 13, 1997, the company was allowed to set up the plant at Baghabari, it said.
   ‘On July 12, 1998, the then prime minister’s personal staff Manu Majumder made a phone call to me asking me to pay Taka 3 crore for the party (AL) fund, and warned that otherwise the approval for Baghabari plant would be cancelled ,’ the complainant said.
   ‘To save my investment, I sought an appointment with the prime minister and on August 8, 1998 and accordingly met Sheikh Hasina at Ganabhaban where she demanded the amount and threatened to cancel the approval for the plant and physical assault,’ Faruque alleged.
   ‘I took some time from her. But on December 9, 1998 the Power Development Board initiated the paper work to cancel the approval for Baghabari plant. As I was worried, I collected the money and phoned Manu Majumder.’
   ‘On the evening of December 12 Manu picked me up from my office with the amount in cash in a suitcase and together we went straight to the Ganabhaban and handed the money over to the former prime minister,’ he claimed.
   After few months, the then prime minister inaugurated the 90megawatts Baghabari plant, Faruque said.
   Meanwhile, the government at a meeting last week asked the officials concerned to investigate whether Westmont was going to install the remaining equipment for another 40MW plant.
   The instruction came at a meeting of the task force on power after it was found that the company had missed several deadlines for installation.
   The meeting, presided over by energy adviser Tapan Chowdhury also asked the officials to make queries with the Malaysian embassy and German embassy in Dhaka whether the company made import orders for the equipment, as the company chief mentioned in a letter to the ministry.
   Meanwhile, the Awami League general secretary, Abdul Jalil, on Monday night said that they were looking into why such a case was filed against Sheikh Hasina long after the incident extortion had allegedly taken place.
   ‘There is a long gap of time between the date of the alleged incident as mentioned in the case and the date of filing of the case,’ the AL leader told New Age adding that in the meantime another government had served out its full tenure.
   ‘Why was not a case filed during the five years rule of the BNP-Jamaat government? We are looking into why the case has been filed so many years after the alleged incident,’ Jalil said.

The Election Commission is hoping to start dialogues with civil society members and election experts concerned in the last week of this month over the proposed electoral reforms.
   The commission, however, is yet to decide on when they would sit with the political parties.
   ‘We hope that the Election Commission will be able to start dialogue with civil society groups and election experts concerned over the proposed electoral reforms probably in the third or fourth week of this month,’ election commissioner Muhammed Sohul Hussain told reporters at his office on Monday.
   Asked when the commission would be able to start dialogue with political parties, Sohul said that they had called on the interim government to lift the ban on indoor politics to clear the way for the commission to sit with the political parties.
   ‘We will start dialogues with the political parties as soon as the government withdraws the embargo on indoor politics,’ he said.
   In the planned dialogues, the EC will also explain why it needs a minimum 18-month timeline for voters’ roll preparation and invite suggestions and proposals for shortening the time.
   ‘If anyone comes up with concrete suggestions or takes up the challenge of doing the job in less than 18 months and if we are convinced that they will be able to produce the voters’ list meeting all the requirements, the commission will certainly consider the suggestions and ask them to do the job,’ Sohul said.
   The chief election commissioner, ATM Shamsul Huda, on Thursday spelled out the proposed reforms plan and expressed hope that the commission would come up with a gazette notification by July this year for a comprehensive electoral law reform after holding dialogues with civil society members, political parties, senior journalists and the people concerned.

The government further amended the Emergency Power Rules made under the Emergency Powers Ordinance 2007, relaxing a provision that denied an accused bail while facing trial under the Penal Code.
   However, all persons facing trial for offences specified in the Emergency Power Rules will not be entitled to seek bail at any stage from the FIR to the court verdict.
   This was the third amendment to the EPO within 17 days following controversies over the law among the jurists.
   On March 21, the caretaker government promulgated an amendment to the rules with a retrospective effect from February 13 under the Emergency Powers Ordinance 2007.
   The amended rules had suspended the right to bail of an accused facing trial under the Penal Code until a case is resolved in trial court, apart from the offences under the Emergency Rules.
   The charges that fall under the emergency rules include corruption, extortion, smuggling, hoarding, black-marketing, illegal arms, money laundering, explosive substance, illegal possession of foreign currency, narcotics, Special Powers Act and tax evasion.

A training aircraft of the Bangladesh Air Force crashed into a bamboo cluster at Pathalia of Abhaynagar in Jessore on Monday. The pilot of the PT-6 aircraft died on the spot.
   The pilot, Flight Cadet Faisal Mahmud, 20, took off from the Jessore Motiur Rahman airbase at 12:02pm and crashed at 12:40pm, said an ISPR release.
   Faisal, son of Shahjahan Hawlader of Amua at Kathalia in Jhalakatht, joined the air force in January 2005 and was about to complete his training as a pilot.
   Sources said the aircraft lost contact with the air base at about 12:36pm.
   The air chief, Air Vice-Marshal Shah Mohammad Ziaur Rahman, visited the spot. He told newsmen that primary observation indicated the plane had crashed because of a technical fault.
   Apart from internal investigation, a three-member inquiry team, led by the Jessore deputy commissioner, Abu Al- Hossain, was formed to investigate the accident.
   High officials of the Jessore cantonment and district and police administrations also visited the spot.
   Thousands of people flocked the village, about 10km off the Nawapara industrial town.
   The body of the pilot was taken to the residence of his parents, who now live at Shahjahanpur in Dhaka.
   The president, Iajuddin Ahmed, mourned the death of the trainee air force pilot.
   ‘Bangladesh Air Force has lost a young and talented officer in his death,’ he said in a condolence message.
   The president conveyed his sympathy to the members of the bereaved family and prayed for eternal peace of the departed soul.

Peter Fulton hit a solid 83 as New Zealand boosted their chances of qualifying for the World Cup semi-finals with an emphatic 129-run win over Ireland in a Super Eights match here on Monday.
   The opener’s sixth half-century and a rollicking 71-run stand for the eighth wicket between Brendon McCullum and James Franklin helped New Zealand reach a challenging 263-8.
   Left-arm spinner Daniel Vettori bagged four wickets as New Zealand dismissed debutants Ireland for 134 to post their sixth successive win in the tournament, including three in the first round.
   Defending champions Australia and New Zealand are the only unbeaten sides with eight points from four matches. They are followed by Sri Lanka (6/4), South Africa (4/4), England (2/4), the West Indies (2/4) and Bangladesh (2/4).
   Ireland never looked like threatening New Zealand’s total despite an entertaining 75-run stand for the fourth wicket between Kevin O’Brien (49) and brother Niall O’Brien (30). Kevin smashed three huge sixes in his 45-ball knock.
   Fast bowler Shane Bond rocked Ireland with two quick wickets in his lively opening spell, removing William Porterfield and Jeremy Bray to eventually finish with 2-18 off five overs.
   Vettori and off-spinner Jeetan Patel (2-32) kept non-stop pressure on Ireland, who lost their last seven wickets for 24 runs.
   Earlier, Fulton’s responsible knock and a late flurry of boundaries from wicket-keeper McCullum (47) and Franklin (34 not out) put paid to Ireland’s hopes of restricting New Zealand to a modest total.
   It was New Zealand’s depth in batting that thwarted Ireland who reduced the opposition to 189-7 in the 43rd over before losing their way in the closing stages, with 45 coming in the last three overs.
   McCullum’s 37-ball knock contained a six in the last over that smashed a window-pane in one of the boxes, while Franklin hit one six and three fours in his 22-ball innings.
   Seamer Dave Langford-Smith (2-41), and off-spinners Kyle McCallan (2-35) and Andrew White (2-45) had bowled with discipline to raise Ireland’s hopes of containing New Zealand despite Fulton’s half-century.
   The New Zealand opener regained form with a well-paced innings just when his team-mates had been struggling for runs against Ireland’s disciplined seam-spin comination.
   Fulton, a middle-order batsman opening the innings in the World Cup, had made only 62 in his last three matches before playing a valuable innings.
   New Zealand were not allowed to build a partnersip as skipper Stephen Fleming (10), Hamish Marshall (16), Scott Styris (10), Craig McMillan (22) and all-rounder Oram (20) all got starts, but none could play a long knock.
   New-ball bowler Boyd Rankin provived the breakthrough in the sixth over when he dismissed Fleming, who was caught cutting at point by Porterfield.

A Taliban-style Islamic court in the Pakistani capital has issued a fatwa against a female minister for posing in an ‘obscene manner’ with French paraglider pilots, a top cleric said Monday.
   The religious decree against the tourism minister, Nilofar Bakhtiar, was the first to be made by the so-called court at the hardline Red Mosque in Islamabad since mullahs announced its formation on Friday, in defiance of the government.
   ‘The muftis (judges) issued a decree against Nilofar Bakhtiar when their attention was drawn towards some pictures in which she appeared in an obscene and objectionable manner with paraglider pilots in Paris,’ the mosque’s deputy leader deputy Abdul Rashid Ghazi said.
   ‘They have called on the government to punish and sack her from the cabinet,’ he said.
   The pictures, published in a local Urdu-language newspaper, show Bakhtiar in brightly-coloured paragliding gear taking part in a tandem glide during a trip to France and then hugging an instructor upon landing.
   Red Mosque chief Abdul Aziz said in a fiery sermon on Friday that ‘tens of thousands’ of suicide bombers would launch attacks if security forces try to raid the site and shut down the new court.
   The government of key US ally president Pervez Musharraf has so far taken no action against the mosque, despite its open defiance of the authorities by setting up a parallel justice system.
   The deputy information minister, Tariq Azeem, condemned the fatwa, saying that ‘no individual has the right to propose a punishment for anyone.’
   ‘We are, however, determined to resolve the issue (of the Red Mosque in general) through negotiations. Use of force will be the last option,’ he said.
   Female students from a school attached to the mosque late last month kidnapped an alleged brothel owner and made her publicly repent. Their male counterparts briefly abducted two policemen at the same time.
   The mosque’s baton-wielding devotees have also set up so-called morality patrols telling local shops not to sell ‘un-Islamic’ music and movies.
   They have occupied a nearby children’s library since January in protest at plans to demolish several illegally built mosques in Islamabad.
   In the southern city of Karachi another pro-Musharraf party, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement which represents Muslims who migrated to Pakistan from India after partition, held a rally late Sunday against Islamic extremism.
   ‘No mullah has the right to teach us Islam through sticks or Kalashnikovs–we will not allow the Talibanisation of Pakistan,’ party chief Altaf Hussain told several thousand people via telephone from London.

More than half of the Indian children questioned in a landmark survey released Monday were physically or sexually abused, which should be a wake-up call for the nation, a minister said.
   The survey of 15,000 children and young adults across the country was the first attempt by the government to document the extent of child abuse in India, the minister for women and child development, Renuka Chowdhury, told reporters.
   ‘We always say our children are safe, we take good care of them–these bad things don’t happen here,’ Chowdhury said.
   ‘We never had any kind of introspection that this is not true.’
   Two out of three of the 12,446 respondents between the ages of five and 18 had been physically abused, which included slapping, kicking or beating with a stick, the study said, in most cases by parents or teachers.
   More than 50 per cent had been sexually abused in ways that ranged from severe, such as rape or fondling, to milder forms of molestation that included forcible kissing.
   The study also interviewed 2,324 young adults between the ages of 18 and 24, almost half of whom reported being physically or sexually abused as children.
   A fifth of the child respondents had experienced severe sexual abuse, the study said, and in almost 80 per cent of the cases the abuser was a person well known by the child Chowdhury said that a culture where children were taught to obey adults unconditionally and where there was a strong taboo on talking openly about sex contributed to the problem.
   ‘Quite often they end up being silent victims,’ she said.
   In 70 per cent of the cases of sexual abuse, the child told no one.
   The study was conducted in 13 states by Indian non-governmental group Prayas and backed by the UN’s child welfare agency UNICEF and Save the Children Fund.
   Children, chosen at random, were questioned on the street, at jobs, in schools, in institutions and in their own homes.
   The study was released three months after police discovered the bodies of 19 people, mainly children, in a drainage ditch in a New Delhi suburb who were suspected to have been abducted from a nearby village over several years.
   Indian police have charged a domestic worker, Surinder Koli, with the rape and murder of the victims.
   In March, India’s parliament called for new laws to protect children in the wake of the slaughter, which was termed a ‘national shame.’

The education ministry has planned to start the secondary school certificate and equivalent examinations by January 15 and complete it before February 15 every year aiming to reduce hazards of students and guardians, sources in the education ministry said.
   It also planned to formulate a five-year schedule for the SSC examinations to avoid mistakes in every year routines, the sources added.
   For two decades, the SSC and equivalent examinations would start in the first week of March and be completed by mid-April. The education boards formulate examination routines just one month before the beginning of examinations every year.
   An April 2 education ministry letter signed by a joint secretary (secondary) has asked the chairmen of ten education boards across the country to work out how to implement the plans.
   ‘Usually the SSC examinations begin in first week of March and end in April. Many examinees fail to attend the examinations as they contract influenza and chicken pox,’ the letter added.
   ‘We are planning how to complete the examinations by February 15 to reduce the perils of students and guardians,’ a joint secretary of the ministry said.
   Professor M Monirul Islam, the chairman of Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education, Dhaka, said it is possible to complete the SSC and equivalent examinations by February 15.
   ‘We would be able to formulate a five-year examination calendar before next year’s examinations,’ the chairman said, adding that the examinations will also be completed by February 15.
   ‘Around 5,000 examinees had failed to attend this year’s SSC and equivalent examinations due to sickness,’ the chairman mentioned. More or less 10 lakh examinees appear in the biggest public examinations every year.

Giasuddin Al Mamun, a close aide to BNP senior joint secretary general Tarique Rahman, said in a confessional statement on Monday he had extorted money from a builder using the ‘influence of Hawa Bhaban’.
   Separately, a Dhaka court allowed the police nine more days to interrogate the controversial businessman in two other extortion cases.
   Mamun’s confessional statement came in the extortion case filed with the Kafrul police station by Khan Mohammad Aftab Uddin, owner of Reza Construction, a construction firm.
   The Kafrul police grilled Mamun for four days to extract details for the case. Chief metropolitan magistrate ABM Abdul Fattah took his statement.
   Mamun said he and some others had used Hawa Bhaban links to extort a big sum from the company.
   Allegations have it that Mamun had used BNP chief Khaleda Zia’s personal office to make illegal money during the five-year rule by the four-party coalition government.
   In another statement to the court on April 5, Mamun confessed his involvement in extortion in another case, also filed by Aftab Uddin.
   Meanwhile, metropolitan magistrate Selina Akter allowed the Dhanmondi police to put Mamun on remand for five days in a case for extorting Tk 81 lakh while the Gulshan police got four days in another case for extorting Tk 53 lakh.
   Mamun’s counsel Barrister Fakhrul Islam appealed to the court to reject the remand pleas by the police. But the court did not accept his request.

A court at Los Angeles will sit in a day or two to decide whether to hear a petition filed by AKM Mohiuddin Ahmed, a convicted fugitive in Sheikh Mujubur Rahman murder case, for allowing him to continue to stay in the United States.
   The former army officer appealed to the 9th Circuit Court on March 30 for revoking an earlier order to deport him.
   ‘The judges of the court will sit for a panel discussion within a day or two upon the appeal. They will take a decision if a hearing of the case will be held or not,’ a release of the foreign ministry said on Monday.
   The release said a settlement of the matter would take time. If the petition of Mohiuddin Ahmed is taken up for hearing again and if the panel of judges turns down the appeal, then there will be no bar on restarting the process for his deportation.
    Bangladesh embassy in Washington DC and consulate in Los Angels are in touch with the agencies concerned in the US in this regard. Mohiuddin, 60, was arrested in southern California in the United States on March 13. He became a fugitive in the US after a judge in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco rejected a petition to review his case and ordered his deportation.
   Earlier, the government issued travel permit through the Bangladesh mission in Washington for bringing him back.

The Rapid Action Battalion on Monday seized a huge quantity of internet telephony equipment, allegedly owned by Tanvir Shakil Joy, son of former home minister Mohammad Nasim, from an apartment in at Basabo in Dhaka.
   The battalion said a team had raided the second floor flat at Purba Basabo on information at about 6:30pm.
   The battalion arrested Mokter Hossain, 40, and Belal Hossain, 32, at the flat and seized the equipment of internet telephony.
   The two reportedly admitted that Tanvir Shakil Joy, Nasim’s son, had kept the equipment in the flat after the crackdown on illegal VOIP business and they were just keeping the equipment.
   The equipment included 39 tellulars, 8 mobile handsets, a CDMA fixed wireless terminal, 110 adaptors, 12 routers and more than 500 international calling cards of different denominations.

The country is likely to experience heavy rainfalls and a depression-created cyclone in the Bay of Bengal at the end of April, said a weather forecast of the Met Office on Sunday.
   ‘The northern part of the country including Mymensingh, Srimangal, Jamalpur has already witnessed mild storms and rainfalls. However, the mid part of the country has not yet seen any storm or rainfall during this monsoon,’ the forecast noted.
   ‘About six monsoon storms with thunders may hit the northern and middle parts of the country, with the north-eastern and south-eastern regions experiencing sudden floods in April,’ it went on.
   According to the Met Office, the rainfall in the last month was 65 per cent less than the usual as three weak western depressions passed over the country and the eastern and western depressions did not meet properly.
   It also said about five cyclones might hit the country this monsoon.

Law and information adviser Mainul Hosein on Monday said that the Ekushey Television had obtained broadcasting permission by withholding vital information from the High Court.
   He also said that the private TV channel had established a tower in Chittagong at its own expense and was broadcasting through that tower though it was illegal to do so.
   ‘We will give the court the information that was suppressed,’ Mainul told reporters at a briefing at his office.
   Ruling out any ambiguity on the part of the law and information ministry regarding the matter, he said the ETV did not seek permission for fresh licence after the High Court in a ruling cancelled its licence in 2006.
   ‘They did not also approach either of the ministries to seek permission to start broadcasting,’ he told reporters. He, however, could not say whether the present broadcasting by ETV was legal.
   The Appellate Division of the High Court, in a judgement, ordered the government to allow BTV’s terrestrial facilities to be used by ETV, and recently the ETV obtained another order from the High Court asking the government to do so.
   But Mainul claimed that ETV had withheld information from the High Court to obtain the order.
   Trying to explain the whole issue, he said that there was no new agreement between the government and the ETV after cancellation of its licence.
   According to a law enacted in 2006, only Bangladesh Television, not any private television channel, can use its terrestrial facilities.
   When asked if any legal action would be taken against ETV for suppressing information and broadcasting without permission, he said the government would tell the High Court everything about the ETV issue.
   He said that the government might initiative an investigation if anyone complained against ETV.
   The interim government, on Thursday, suspended the permission given to ETV to use BTV’s towers and terrestrial frequency, apparently due to alleged irregularities and many controversies over the issue.

The country posted a positive balance of payment in the July 2006-January 2007 period, although balance of trade in the period registered a deficit of $1.87 billion, central bank statistics reveals.
   However, a robust foreign remittance of $3.32 billion in the first seven months of the current fiscal year cushioned the shocks from the external trade deficit and turned the current account balance in the black. The total positive BoP was $360 million in the period.
   The total import of goods in the period stood at $8.87 billion and total export at $6.99 billion, while in traded services the total payments and receipts were $675 million and $113 million respectively, meaning a service-income deficit of $562 million.
   The balance of trade in goods recorded a $1.49 billion deficit in the corresponding period of the last fiscal year, which in case of services was $423 million.
   In the July 06-Jan 07 period, domestic credit slowed down by 9.94 per cent, or Tk 17,661 crore, from the 10.62 per cent, or Tk 15,662 crore, increase in the same period of the last fiscal year.
   The rise in the domestic credit during the period was due mainly to an increased credit disbursement to the public sector. The public-sector credit saw a hike of Tk 5,195 crore, or 11 per cent, while the private-sector credit rose by Tk 12,466 crore, or 9.52 per cent. The net government borrowing during the period increased by Tk 4,667 crore, or 14.74 per cent, and the credit to other public sector bodies by Tk 528 crore, or 3.5 per cent.
   As of end-January, the total outstanding domestic credits to public and private sector were Tk 51,965 crore and Tk 143,439 crore respectively.
   The private sector drew a Tk 22,159 crore credit in January 2007, which was 18 per cent higher than that in January 2006.
   Total liquid assets of the scheduled banks went up to Tk 37,074 crore at end-December from Tk 35,147 crore at end of June 2006. However, excess liquidity held by the banks stood lower, at Tk 8,610 crore, in December than Tk 9,591 crore at end-June.
   Broad money recorded an increase of Tk 18,356 crore, or 10.13 per cent, during the July-January period against the increase of Tk 13,836 crore, or 9.13 per cent, during the same period of the last fiscal.
   Reserve money also posted a rise of Tk 6,597 crore, or 17.13 per cent, during the period compared to the Tk 5,501 crore, or 18.62 per cent, increase during the same period of FY2005-06.

The interim government has finalised amendments to the city corporation acts with a provision for making a mayoral panel with elected ward commissioners to run the affairs of the local government bodies uninterrupted in absence of a mayor.
   The local government, rural development and cooperatives ministry has initiated the move following the arrest of Chittagong city corporation mayor ABM Mohiuddin Chowdhury and Syhet mayor Badar Uddin Ahmed Kamran by the army-led joint forces on charges of corruption.
   ‘We cannot suspend a mayor or any ward commissioners even if any of them is arrested, nor can we appoint administrators in their absence according to the existing rules,’ LGRD and cooperatives adviser Anwarul Iqbal told reporters at the secretariat on Monday after an inter-ministerial meeting on the proposed amendments to the city corporation acts.
   He said a three-member mayoral panel would be made with ward commissioners to be elected by other commissioners so that the post of mayor does fall vacant in any case. According to the proposed amendment, one member on the panel will be elected from women commissioners.
   The adviser said that the meeting had decided in principle to amend the city corporation act with provision for honorarium for the commissioners. ‘The mayor enjoys the status of a minister, gets many facilities, but the commissioners do not get even monthly honorarium. The amendment will include a provision for honorarium for commissioners also,’ he said.
   Asked about the city corporation polls, Iqbal said, ‘We will create pressure on the Election Commission for holding elections to the local government bodies just after completion of the voters’ roll updating.’
   The mayors, according to the existing city corporation acts/ordinances, have been empowered to give the charge to any commissioner in case he/she remains absent from his office. But as per the proposed amendment, the acting mayor would be appointed from the panel, the members of which will be elected within a month after the elected representatives of the city corporations assume their offices.
   The draft amendments to the act/ordinance would be placed in the meeting of the council of advisers soon for approval, the LGRD adviser said.
   Chittagong mayor Mohiuddin and Sylhet mayor Kamran were arrested on March 8 and April 6 respectively in graft cases. Rajshahi city corporation mayor Mizanur Rahman Minu is also on the list of the corruption suspects while many commissioners of the six city corporations and 307 municipalities are already in jail making the local institutions virtually dysfunctional following the countrywide crackdown on criminals and corrupt people.
   ‘There is a possibility of misuse of power if we enact a law empowering the government to suspend the mayors and commissioners arrested on charges of corruption or crime. Moreover, it is also contradictory to the status of the mayor’, Iqbal said responding to a query.

Exiled former Pakistani prime minister Benzir Bhutto is not considering lending her support to embattled president Prevez Musharraf, the Emirati Khaleej Times newspaper reported on Monday.
   Benazir assured her rival, former premier Nawaz Sharif, at a recent meeting in the Gulf emirate that she was not holding any such talks with the Pakistan government, the newspaper said, quoting a top official from her party.
   The report comes after Pakistani officials said Musharraf has been in negotiations to win the support of Benazir, now in exile in Dubai and London, and her opposition Pakistan Peoples Party.
   As well as Benazir, military ruler Musharraf also exiled Sharif, her rival, successor
   and the only other major rallying figure for Pakistani opposition.
   Musharraf is currently facing multiple challenges to his eight-year hold on power. The most serious is a crisis over his removal of the country’s chief justice. The removal has sparked a series of protests backed by Benazir’s party along with other opposition groups.
   Pakistan’s railways minister Sheikh Rashid and ports and shipping minister Babar Ghuri both said on private television channels late Thursday that a deal with the PPP was in the making.
   ‘Serious negotiations are underway between the two sides but it is not necessary that these will succeed,’ Rashid said on Friday. He declined to elaborate when asked what the two sides were demanding from each other.
   But a senior PPP official told the Dubai-based newspaper that no pact was being considered.
   ‘There is no deal with the government,’ PPP vice chairman Makhdoom Fahim told the paper. ‘This is a government ploy to distract the attention of the burning issues in the country.’
   Musharraf is due to seek re-election as president by national and provincial assemblies before holding general elections, the second during his tenure, late this year or early in 2008.
   He is under Western pressure to ensure free and fair elections involving mainstream liberal parties, to counter radical groups who gained influential positions in the last polls in 2002 polls due to a political vacuum.

The interim government has decided to set up more open markets in and around the city so that the farmers can come there to sell their products and thereby help break the power of the ‘syndicate’ which allegedly controls the prices of essentials, especially those sold in the city’s kitchen markets.
   An inter-ministry meeting held on Monday with local government, rural development and cooperatives adviser Anwarul Iqbal in the chair, took the decision to arrest the price-hike of essential commodities.
   ‘The Dhaka City Corporation will immediately take measures to establish temporary open markets in Ashulia, Uttara and Amin Bazar, in addition to those already set by the Bangladesh Rifles, where growers will be allowed to sell their products,’ adviser Anwarul Iqbal told reporters after the meeting at the secretariat.
   He said the chief adviser had asked the ministry to increase the number of open markets and enable the growers to sell their products directly, without the help of any middle-men, so that the prices are reasonable and the profit goes to the producers.
   At present the BDR is running 25 open markets in the city where the essentials, including rice, oil, sugar and vegetables, are being sold at reasonable prices.
   ‘These markets have already had a positive impact on the city’s kitchen markets and caused a downward trend in essentials’ prices,’ claimed the adviser.
   He said the government would take similar initiatives in other cities in phases to keep the prices of the essentials at a tolerable level.
   A committee led by the joint secretary of the Local Government Division, Mizanur Rahman, has been formed to find out where, and how many, semi-permanent open markets can be set up in and around the city before the rainy season starts.
   The committee, which comprises officials of the housing and public works ministry, the communications ministry, the commerce ministry, the agriculture ministry, the BDR, the Rajuk, the Dhaka Metropolitan Police, the Rapid Action Battalion and the Bangladesh Railway, has been asked to submit its report within two weeks.

The top UN official for Nepal has said that it was not ‘technically and politically feasible’ to hold the June 20 polls for the Constituent Assembly that would frame a new constitution for the Himalayan nation, reports PTI on Monday.
   The chief of the United Nations Mission in Nepal, Ian Martin, told prime minister Girija Prasad Koirala’s advisor on foreign affairs Suresh Chalise that it is not ‘technically and politically feasible’ to hold the Constituent Assembly polls on June 20.
   ‘It will take little time to address the Terai and ethnic issues, and we don’t have much time (if the polls are to be held on June 20),’ Martin said citing the political turmoil in the Terai plains bordering India over greater political and economic rights for the community of the region.
   ‘Martin told me that it was not feasible to hold elections on the said date if the issues of Terai and ethnic minorities remain unresolved,’ Chalise was quoted as saying in the media today.
   Martin-headed UNMIN was mandated to assist Nepal in holding the free and fair constituent assembly elections.
   Martin is also learnt to have raised the difficulty in holding the polls on its schedule in his meeting last week with Maoist chief Prachanda, whose party is a major constituent in the interim government.
   Martin told Prachanda that the date of any election should be announced 90 days ahead of schedule and the date for the polls proposed by the eight political parties was not feasible. Martin advised Prachanda to resolve the issues raised by the ethnic communities including, Madhesis and Janajatis, so that a peaceful, free and fair elections could be held.

The Dhaka Central Jail authorities on Monday tore off the wall magazine, brought out by the authorities, with writings by many VIPs now languishing in jail for alleged corruption and other crimes, to mark Independence Day.
   Former minister engineer Mosharraf Hossain of the Awami League wrote in the paper that many are languishing in prison without proper investigation of cases.
   Former lawmaker of the Jamaat-e-Islami, Abdullah Mohammad Taher, in his comments said the allegation made against him for detention is totally concocted.
   Sending someone to jail before proving the charges and framing the charge-sheet is illegal and violative of human rights, wrote Taher in the wall-magazine that the authorities had encouraged the inmates to write on the occasion of Independence Day. But the jail officials tore off the wall-magazine due to the embarrassing comments after they were reported in the media.
   Taher, in his comments in the magazine called ‘Disharee — Bondi Moner Mukta Katha’ (Guide —- Free Words of Enchained Minds), also termed their detention as contrary to the spirit of independence.
   Former legislator Mohammad Nasiruddin Pintu said he has been in jail four times. ‘I was in jail for two years during Ershad’s regime, for 32 months during the Awami League regime, for one month during the BNP-Jamaat regime and for one and half month in the regime of the present government.
   ‘The previous imprisonments were for student politics and for waging a movement for democracy. But I still cannot understand the reason for the present imprisonment,’ wrote Pintu in the wall-magazine that was published at the initiative of the senior jail superintendent.
   The large wall-magazine also carried long poems, little sermons as well as write-ups by female inmates.
   The sentiments expressed and statements made were disputable, but it was indisputable that the write-ups were full of grammatical errors and egregious spelling mistakes. What the writers needed was a good copy-editor.

The Kafrul police officer-in-charge, Abdul Khaleq, has been suspended for his alleged negligence in duties.
   A police headquarters release, issued on Monday, said Khaleq was suspended on charge of severe negligence in duties, inexperience and misbehaviour.
   Khaleq, who joined the Kafrul police as officer-in-charge on February 2, was investigation officer of the extortion case filed against Giasuddin Al Mamun, a close friend of the BNP’s senior joint secretary general Tarique Rahman.
   Mamun is also managing director of Channel 1. Mamun gave his judicial confession to court on Monday.

Armed forces and the police in their separate drives arrested three persons, including a JMB suspect, from different parts of Baghmara in Rajshahi on Monday.
   The arrested were identified as JMB activist Abdur Rashid, 36, of village Hamirkutsa and Goalkandi UP members Abed Ali, 35, and Dulu Kha, 40. Dulu was said to be a leader of the outlawed Purbabanglar Communist Party (ML, Lalpataka).
   Abdur Rashid was wanted in two cases while Abed Ali in three, including one for murder.
   The Baghmara police arrested Abed and Rashid while Dulu Kha was arrested by the armed forces.
   Dulu was later handed over to the police.

The government has suspended the admission process of five private medical colleges for its failure to meet minimum requirements to run as full-fledged medical colleges.
   The colleges are Nightingale Medical College in Ashulia, Tairunnessa Medical College and International Medical College in Tongi, Maulana Bhasani Medical College in Uttara and Shahabuddin Medical College in Gulshan.
   A team comprising high officials from the health and family welfare ministry had visited the medical colleges and found them running without fulfilling minimum requirements to run as medical colleges.
   According to the medical education policy approved in 2004, no medical college can be established in a rented house. The medical colleges must have its own buildings on 2.5 acres of land in metropolitan areas while on 5 acres of land outside metropolitan areas.
   As per the policy, the institutions must have at least 50-bed hospitals for dental colleges and 250-bed hospitals for medical colleges. Besides, the teachers and employees of the colleges have to be qualified by the Bangladesh Medical and Dental Council (MBDC) and the medical colleges will have one teacher for every ten students.
   According to the rule, the colleges will have all medical and lab equipment and provide students with proper accommodation. During the visit, the team found that the five medical colleges failed to meet such requirements.

At least 100 people were injured and about one 1,000 houses damaged as a nor’wester lashed seven villages under Atpara upazila in the district Sunday night.
   The storm-hit villages were Bhortushi, Nangolia, Kandapara, Mirzapura, Bagbari, Kaliakhali and Shabajpur.
   The violent storm that lasted for half an hour also flattened hundreds of trees and caused havoc in cropland in the area.

Islami Chhatra Shibir men assaulted an activist of Bangladesh Chhatra League on the Chittagong University campus Monday morning.
   The victim was identified as Mohammad Naimul Islam Nishat, a 4th year physics student. He was admitted to Chittagong Medical College Hospital in a critical condition.
   Witnesses said a group of Shibir cadres attacked Nishat on Kata Pahar Road while he was going to attend his classes at around 9:15am with one of his female friends.
   They branded Nishat as a mobile phone lifter and took him to Room No 107 of Shafi cottage where they beat him up with iron rods and sticks.
   The proctor, Professor Didarul Alam, rescued the victim from the cottage an hour after the incident and sent him to the university medical centre for first aid.
   Meanwhile, BCL activists locked the main entrance of the university for about two hours, demanding immediate release of Nishat. They opened the gate after the proctor handed over the victim to them.
   The BCL leaders gave the authorities concerned a 24-hour ultimatum to arrest those responsible for the attack and demanded ouster of the outsiders from the dormitories of the university.
   Despite repeated attempts, the proctor was not available for comment on the incident.

A man has been killed in a village in Jhenaidah allegedly by his brother-in-law.
   Osman Joarder, 40, of village Golpara Mothapukur at Kaligonj was hit with a sharp weapon allegedly by his brother-in-law Saheb Ali when he went to pick some mangoes.

After withdrawing a previously announced layoff, the authorities of Anupom Sweater Factory at Dhakshin Panshail under Sadar upazila of the district laid the plant off again on Monday in the face of continued labour agitation.
   According to sources, labour unrest has been prevailing in the factory since long following sacking of some workers after they demanded a pay hike. On Saturday last, at least 25 garment workers were injured in a clash. The agitated workers also attacked some officials, damaged goods, and ransacked the factory.
   The authorities laid the factory off following the incident and announced to pay off the workers on April 11 and 12 but the workers stayed on in the factory until night defying the lay-off. Later, after a meeting with the army-led joint forces, the factory authorities withdrew the layoff. But, although the workers joined their work on Sunday, the supervisers did not. So, the factory owners reinforced the lay-off on Monday evening.