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The nation celebrates the 37th Victory Day today commemorating its triumph in the nine-month war of independence against the Pakistani occupation forces and their local collaborators in 1971.
   Preparations have been completed to pay rich tributes to the valiant sons of the soil who had made supreme sacrifice for the independence of the country.
   Today is a public holiday.
   On this day in 1971, the commander of the Pakistani occupation forces, general AAK Niazi, along with 93,000 troops, surrendered to the Indo-Bangladesh joint forces, led by general Jagjit Singh Arora, chief of the eastern command of the Indian army, at the Ramna race course, now Suhrawardy Udyan, in
   Dhaka following their defeat in the war.
   The political parties will hold brief programmes to mark the day as a state of emergency is in force across the country and scores of political leaders, including the two former prime ministers – Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina, are in jail. Awami League and BNP will mark the day with a call for trial of the war criminals and the release of their respective party chiefs.
   The Victory Day celebrations will also be different this year as thousands of cyclone-affected people in the coastal districts are passing their days in utter miseries. Besides, a large number of people have already left the city to celebrate Eid-ul-Azha at their country homes on December 21.
   People from all walks of life, leaders and activists of political parties, different social, cultural and professional groups and institutions will throng the National Martyrs’ Memorial in Savar to pay homage to the heroes who embraced martyrdom to liberate the country.
   The president, Iajuddin Ahmed, and chief adviser to the caretaker government, Fakhruddin Ahmad, the acting Awami League president, Zillur Rahman, and the BNP secretary general, Khandaker Delwar Hossain, in separate messages greeted the countrymen on the occasion and paid rich tributes to the martyrs of the war of independence.
   The president in his message urged all to work shoulder to shoulder to solve national problems, and contribute towards building a happy and prosperous Bangladesh.
   The chief adviser called upon the people irrespective of political opinions and religious faiths to join hands to build a ‘true welfare state’ accelerating the establishment of rule of law and socio-economic development.
   President Iajuddin will be the first to place a wreath at the memorial amid a ceremonial guard of honour and chief adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed is to follow him.
   A 31-gun salute will herald the Victory Day celebrations recalling the emergence of Bangladesh as an independent nation on the world map on December 16, 1971.
   Army, Navy and Air Force bands will play instrumental music at Crescent Lake, Farmgate and Mirpur National Stadium in the city from 2 pm to 4 pm while naval ships will remain anchored at Sadarghat ferry terminal and other river ports for visitors.
   Different political, social, cultural, professional and academic bodies have chalked up programmes, including discussions and cultural functions, to celebrate the Victory Day.
   Leaders of the Awami League, Bangladesh Nationalist Party, Communist Party of Bangladesh, Bangladesher Samajtantrik Dal, Workers Party, Samajtantrik Chhatra Front, Samajtantrik Shramik Front, Democratic Left Alliance, Samajtantrik Mahila Forum, both factions of Jatiya Party, Bikalpa Dhara Bangladesh, Liberal Democratic Party, Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal, Ganaforum, Ganatantri Party, Dhaka University, Bangla Academy and Charon Sangskritik Kendra will place flowers at the Memorial in the morning.

Lack of initiatives, in public or private hands, remains the main reason the sites identified as killing fields or mass graves where people were killed or dumped in the independence war in 1971 have so far gone unmarked or without any monuments, Liberation War Museum trustees alleged.
   There are 467 such fields or graves across the country as listed by the museum from citations in books and writings on the independence war.
   Eighty-six of them are in the Dhaka division, of which 22 are in the metropolitan area.
   The liberation war affairs ministry, however, has a smaller number of such places, 193, listed across the country.
   Such places have been listed based on the citations in books and writings, said Arifa Siddika Shanta, assistant research officer at the museum.
   Museum trustee Akku chowdury said it was not possible for the government to construct museums such as Jallad Khana of Mirpur at all the sites identified as killing fields or mass graves, but the government could take initiatives to put up small plaques at the places with brief notes on the sites, history and the names of the martyrs.
   Installation of monuments and plaques at such places, with brief notes, is necessary as it helps the next generation to know of the history of the independence war, he said. People will otherwise remain ignorant of the sites.
   People do not know of many such sites as there has been no monument or plaque, he said.
   The liberation war affairs ministry can take initiatives to put up even plaques with the name of the martyrs and the history. Such a plan could be materialized through various organizations of freedom fighters such as the Muktijoddha Command Council, he said.
   There is a mass grave just beside the Samsunnahar Hall at Dhaka University which remains unmarked for lack of initiative, he said.
   A plaque with a note on the history could be installed at the entrance of the Physical Training Institute at Mohammadpur so that anyone entering the institute could know of the history of the site and the torture by the Pakistani occupation forces and their collaborators, he said.
   Mofidul Hoque, another trustee of the museum, stressed the need for involving the community in marking and installing monuments to preserve the history.
   ‘If we cannot involve the community in the protection of the sites, any monuments even we set up at such places would not last long,’ he said.
   Local initiatives especially based at educational institutions and other such organisations could play a role in this regard and the government needs to offer its help, he said.
   The liberation war affairs ministry was assigned to conserve the 193 killing fields, by constructing monuments. About Tk 8.27 lakh has been allocated for each killing field, said an official of the ministry.
   But only 33 monuments have so far been completed, said Humayun Kabir Khan, joint secretary of the ministry.
   ‘We will complete installing monuments and erecting boundary walls at the remaining killing fields or mass graves in two years in phases,’ he said.
   Humayun Kabir said the ministry decided to put in place a system for proper maintenance after each monument was constructed. The places would, otherwise, become dens of criminals, drug addicts and sex workers.
   ‘We will collage our list with the list prepared by the museum after scrutiny,’ he said when he was asked about the difference between the number of such places in the lists of the ministry and the museum.
   The 33 killing fields and mass graves where monuments have been set up by the ministry are Rajshahi University killing field, Chunagar killing field in Khulna, Chittagong Pahartali klling field, killing field near the Sylhet Cadet College, Habiganj killing field, Barisal killing field, killing field near the Duldiya Bridge at Danapatuli in Kishoreganj, Chawkdulu Narayanpur killing field at Nababganj in Dinajpur, killing field near eidgah on the bank of the River Chawai in Panchagarh, Haraganga Degree College killing field in Munshiganj, Bishaykhali Bazar Shahid Golam Mostafa Uccha Bidyalay killing field in Jhenaidah, mass grave in front of the BDR camp at Rahanpur in Chapainawabganj, killing field beside the Rasulpur Fakirhat railway station in Comilla, killing field at Botalgari of Saidpur in Nilphamari, killing field at Shamsher Nagar at Kamalganj in Moulvibazar, killing field on the bank of Bara Pukur at Barchhakathi of Nesarabad in Pirojpur, killing field at Chachra Raypara at Kotwali in Jessore, Thatmari killing field at Rajarhat in Kurigram, killing field near the Rajbari railway Station in Rajbari, killing field at Kodla of Nagarkanda in Faridpur, killing field at Sirajuddaula Club at Bandar in Narayanganj, killing field at Gandir Eidgah in Narsingdi, killing field at Sapahar Paharpukur (Jabaibil) in Naogaon, killing field at Phulbagan in Natore, killing field at the Bogra railway station, killing field at Majpara of Atgharia in Pabna, killing field on the Sherpur-Jhinaigati Road in Sherpur, killing field on thana road near the Mymensingh District Council dakbungalow in Mymensingh, killing field at Bagerhat dakbungalow, killing field at Kamal Kachhna Shmashan at Kotwali in Rangpur, killing field at Giridharipur at Palashbari in Gaibandha, killing field at Sukhanpukur in Thakurgaon and killing field at Pagladewan in Jaipurhat.

Abdus Salam, a mechanic of the Roads and Highways Department, is come from the dead as the collaborators of the Pakistani forces picked him up for speaking Bangla, split his abdomen and, taking him to be dead, dumped him with many other bodies into an abandoned well on April 19, 1971, but he survived miraculously.
   He was picked up when he was on his way to his office at Mirpur to draw salary. Suddenly a band of Urdu-speaking collaborators of the Pakistani troops abducted him for his ‘unpardonable’ crime of speaking Bangla, slit his belly and dropped the apparently dead into the well.
   ‘Following the military crackdown on students, East Pakistan Rifles, the police and civilians on March 25, I fled Dhaka and went to my village home at Muktarampur in Nabinagar of Brahmanbaria. But my relatives advised me to return to the city to save my job and draw my salary, and I did so,’ Salam said, narrating the events preceding the most horrific day of his life.
   ‘On my arrival at Gulistan from Nabinagar, I first tried to assess the situation and asked people about the Bihari-dominated Mirpur area. An Urdu-speaking man told me the situation there was quite normal. Assured by his statement, I started for Mirpur. But the truth is he had deliberately misled me,’ said the man who now lives at 52, Golartek at Mirpur.
   ‘I boarded a bus headed for Mirpur…. The passengers were having small talk, in Bangla and Urdu. But, after the bus had crossed Kalyanpur, I felt I was trapped as none of the passengers on board except for me was a Bengali. I decided to get down at Mirpur Section 1,’ Salam said.
   But when the bus arrived at Section 1, an Urdu-speaker started interrogating him, with two more promptly joining him. They asked if he knew anyone there.
   ‘I told them I knew and had very cordial relations with a local government representative of the area named Anwar and we addressed each other as uncle. But when they took me to Anwar, he denied knowing me. Immediately afterwards, I felt that I was stabbed in my abdomen.
   ‘I could not understand what was happening, but could feel that my belly was split into two and my intestines had come out. I fell on the ground.
   ‘I had lost all sensations, even of pain, but I could sense that they were dragging me by the leg. Taking me to an abandoned well at Golartek, where the Martyred Intellectuals’ Graveyard is located now, they dumped me into it. And it was already almost filled with corpses.
   ‘After a few minutes, I heard someone whispering the name of Allah, lying on the pile of corpses. He said he was an auto-rickshaw driver and that the Biharis had taken away his three-wheeler, stabbed him in the abdomen and broke the hands.
   ‘The man asked me why I was not trying to escape as my hands were intact. I mustered some courage, covered the slash in my belly by wrapping my shirt around my abdomen and then started trying to climb out of the well.
   ‘And I don’t know after how long I finally succeeded to come out of the mass grave of a well, but it still seems a miracle to me. It was midnight and as soon as I emerged from the black hole, I passed away. In the split second before I had lost consciousness, I heard the auto-rickshaw driver still calling Allah in a whisper,’ Samad told New Age, narrating his predicament and struggle for life in that nightmare of a night.
   He regained his senses in the wee hours of the night and at first failed to realise where he was. But the horrors he had suffered since the previous day all rushed to his mind within a few moments and he realised he must flee the place. He found it easy to leave the spot as there was nobody to guard it and the entire area was deserted. He reached Zahurabad, but found no one there.
   ‘I then went to the bank of the River Turag and saw some boats in the mid-river. I shouted at them for help, but no one dared to come forward,’ he said.
   Salam then took shelter in a nearby hut and lay down on the ground as he was extremely tired and weak because of continuous bleeding.
   At dawn, he again went to the riverbank and shouted for help from the boatmen. One of them, Miraj Ali, who luckily knew him, came forward and took him to the other bank at Kaundia. There he found some more people familiar to him, including Saidul, and they took him to Dhaka Medical College Hospital, where a doctor observed he would have died if he had been taken to the hospital 20 more minutes later.
   The man who brought himself out of a death well said, ‘I had been in hospital for 39 days and it took me one more month to get completely cured.
   ‘On my return to my village home, I decided to join the independence war, but the local commander of freedom fighters refused to enlist me, in view of my physical condition. He suggested I should rather help the freedom fighters by providing food and arranging shelters when they went out on any operation. And I did carry out the tasks to the best of my ability, which compensates for the satisfaction I could not have from fighting the Pakistanis face-to-face,’ Salam said.

The entire country was without electricity for about four hours on Saturday just a month after similar breakdowns on November 16, as the national grid tripped resulting in subsequent tripping of all the power plants.
   Although national grid, which tripped at 11:43 am, was partially restored at about 4:00 pm, much of the country, including most parts of the capital, remained without electricity till filing of this report at 8:00 pm.
   All the key-point installations including the Bangabhaban, chief adviser’s office, cantonment and airport went without electricity during the period.
   The Power Development Board was generating only around 1250MW of electricity at around 8:00 pm against the usual generation of around 3500MW. Officials said that the power generation would become relatively normal by early hours of Sunday.
   The power agencies started to restore power supply to the key-point installations including the Bangabhaban.
   By 6:00 pm, the generation increased to 1200MW and some parts of the country including few parts of the city got electricity supply.
   This was the third breakdown of total power system in a month’s time after the entire country went without electricity for over 24 hours on November 16 as national grid tripped twice in a day after the super cyclone Sidr hit the country.
   Power and energy adviser Tapan Chowdhury acknowledged the lack of coordination among the power agencies. Such disruptions could be averted if the power agencies followed their maintenance and overhauling schedules properly for transmission and distribution systems, he said.
   The Power Division has asked a fact-finding committee formed after the November 16 breakdown to probe into the latest incident.
   Former PDB chairman ANM Rizwan chairs the committee.
   The country’s power sector saw a complete failure of national grid in 1998 last, while partial failures in 2003 left some parts of the country without electricity for hours together.
   Although the real cause for Saturday’s breakdown was yet to be ascertained, power officials suspected that the tripping might have been resulted from a problem developed at one of four high-voltage transmission lines adjacent to the Ashuganj power plant.
   ‘We do not know the exact cause of the tripping of the national grid. Probably there was a problem at a grid sub-station of the Ashuganj power plant,’ power secretary M Fouzul Kabir Khan told New Age.
   Sources in the Power Development Board and Power Grid Company of Bangladesh said that one of the 230kV transmission lines linked to the Ashuganj power station tripped following a huge spark. No reason was confirmed, but power officials pointed finger at a bird, found injured near the spot.
   Immediately the Ashuganj power plant tripped because of low voltage resulting from the national grid failure.
   All the rest 25 power plants tripped subsequently, causing a nationwide outage.
   The overall generation was around 2550MW before the tripping.
   Mymensigh, Kaptai, Baghabari, Khulna, Fenchuganj, Sylhet, Haripur and Barisal power plants were brought back into operation by 4:00pm when the total electricity generation reached around 600MW.
   Sources in PDB said that the 230kV transmission line of the Ashuganj power station was very old and was in bad shape. Similar tripping took place at the transmission line few years back that had also resulted failure of national grid.
   Lack of coordination between the Power Grid Company of Bangladesh and newly-formed Ashuganj Power Station Company was also blamed for the miserable condition of the major transmission line. PGCB officials blamed Ashuganj management for caring little about maintenance of the transmission line.
   Tapan admitted that the government’s initiatives for the maintenance works of transmission and distribution lines were not enough.
   ‘I am assuring you that we will look into the issue seriously,’ he said.
   Asked about the rerun of national grid failure in a month, power secretary Fouzul told New Age, ‘We do not know whether there is any relation between the two. We have asked the fact-finding committee to investigate.’
   When asked whether they were prepared to prevent recurrence of such breakdowns, the power secretary claimed that they had preparations. ‘But our electricity systems are very old. Most of the power plants are 30 years old and transmission and distribution systems are 20-30 years old. We have prepared a project proposal for modernising our transmission and distribution systems,’ he said.

Normal life was disrupted on Saturday from about 11:45am as the national power grid became inoperative for about seven to eight hours. In some areas power supply was resumed at about 7:30pm, but residents of other areas were without power till the writing of this report.
   People of most of the metropolitan areas had to suffer water privation as most of the pumps are powered by electricity.
   A little relief was felt in some areas from about 5pm after the PDB managed to generate 750 megawatts of power against the normal demand of 3,600 MW across the country.
   Many generators used for emergency purposes in different offices, institutions and homes ran out of fuel due to the lengthy power outage.
   The owners and drivers of CNG auto-rickshaws had to undergo a lot of suffering on Saturday because they could not get gas due to the almost daylong power failure throughout the country. All the gas pumps are powered by electricity, and few filling stations have stand-by generators.
   The CNG-driven cab-drivers had to wait for hour after hour in long queues at the CNG filling stations across the country, and people could not avail themselves of their services and had to remain stranded. ‘I had to wait for gas at a filling station at Nilkhet since 1pm but had to return at 3pm without getting any gas,’ said Dulal, driver of a private car, who also failed to get any gas from two other filling stations in the city.
   ‘I have been waiting at the Midway filling station, opposite the FDC in Tejgaon, for two hours till 4pm, but I still don’t know when I will be able to get gas,’ said Amjad, who drives a CNG-run three-wheeler.
   Mohammad Zubayer Hossain, another auto-rickshaw driver of Gandariya, said he had to spend more then four hours in the queues till 4pm at different CNG filling stations as there are only a few filling stations in the city which have generators.
   ‘I earned only Tk 200 since morning, which means a loss of Tk 100 for me as I have to give Tk 300 as rent to my mahajan,’ said Ilias another auto-rickshaw driver of Badda. Nurul Huda, a resident of Mirpur, said he had to use the stairs to reach his flat on the 10th floor as the generator which powers the lift ran out fuel in the morning.
   A high official of the Dhaka WASA said that water supply had to be either suspended or decreased since Saturday noon because the national electricity grid had collapsed. The WASA’s and its treatment plants’ pumps failed to supply water as per the capacity due to the power outage, said another official, adding that almost half of their pumps remained inoperative due to the grid’s collapse.
   ‘We have 264 generators for 471 pumps in Dhaka of which, of which around 240 generators were working,’ said the official. He told this correspondent that the WASA’s generators are stand-by generators which have to ‘take rest’ for about one hour after every two hours of operation.

Suraiya Begum, who was severely injured, came to Dhaka Medical College Hospital from Narayanganj on Saturday at about 11:00am, but she did not receive any treatment till 3:00pm due to power outage. Load-shedding, which is a regular phenomenon, hampers the hospital’s services for several hours daily.
   Like Suraiya, most of emergency patients and those who were to be operated on in public hospitals on Saturday suffered tremendously, mostly due to the failure of the national power grid. The patients also had to wait for several hours for undergoing pathological tests at the diagnostic centres in the city.
   Pharmacies in different parts of the city failed to maintain the refrigeration of some specific drugs due to the power outage, said sources.
   Director of the Dhaka Medical College Hospital, Dr Md Abdus Shahid Khan, told New Age, ‘We tried our best to continue the hospital’s emergency services, and some operations had to be done with the help of alternative sources of light like candles and hurricanes.’
   The nurses and on-duty doctors visited the general wards with candles and torch-lights to see the patients or give them intravenous saline and injections, said the director.
   State-owned hospitals, rather than the private hospitals and clinics, suffer most as most of the latter have power generators to provide power as per their demand when the electricity has been cut off, said doctors.
   The Infectious Diseases Hospital at Mohakhali suffered greatly due to power outage not only because of suspension of medical services but also due to water shortage since the water pumps are powered by electricity.
   Doctors at Shaheed Suhrawardy Hospital and Mitford Hospital said that the operation theatres had to be closed down for four hours due to suspension of electric supply.
   Patients at the Mental Health Hospital at Sher-E-Bangla Nagar also did not get some treatment and services that depend on electricity, said Dr Firoz Haider.
   However, Dr Md Rupom of the Central Hospital said, ‘We have generators which can provide power to all of our air-conditioners, operation theatres, pathological labs, lifts, lights and fans for eight to ten hours.’
   Sohrab Hossain, emergency medical officer of Holy Family Hospital, said on Saturday, ‘The hospital’s generator can provide us power for 24 hours, so we don’t have any problems during power outage or load-shedding.’
   Patients at BIRDEM Hospital also suffered due to power outage, said sources at the hospital. X-ray machines and some other equipment of the pathological laboratory remained inoperative for several hours.

One person was killed and 20 others were injured when an under-construction CNG filling station at Kanchpur in Narayangang collapsed Saturday afternoon.
   The dead, Suraj Miah, 35, was a leader of Juba Dal, the youth front of Bangladesh Nationalist Party, and a construction contractor.
   Of the injured, construction workers Kabir, 35, Shahadat, 37, Quddus, 30, Solaiman, 40, and Liton, 30, were admitted to Dhaka Medical College Hospital in critical conditions.
   The police said the roof of the Tk 5 crore under-construction filling station, owned by three brothers of Old Town in Dhaka, had suddenly collapsed when more than 40 workers were working at the site. Locals alleged the police and rescue workers of the Fire Service reached the spot about two hours after the accident.
   Fire Service assistant director ABM Nurul Hoq said the roof of the station collapsed due to faulty construction.

The interim government wants to ensure the conviction of the Awami League president, Sheikh Hasina, within three months and the revival of three quashed graft cases against the BNP chairperson, Khaleda Zia, to ensure her conviction.
   The government has already filed separate petitions seeking permission to appeal against High Court verdicts that quashed the three corruption cases against Khaleda.
   The cases were filed against Khaleda during Hasina’s 1996–2001 rule on corruption charges allegedly committed during Khaleda’s 1991–1996 rule.
   After hearing separate petitions filed by Khaleda, the High Court quashed the house renovation scam case on October 23, 2001, subinspector appointment scam case in 2002 and Airbus purchase scam case on September 10, 2003.
   The government filed the petitions in November. The government has already requested the attorney general’s office to take appropriate steps to get the cases heard in January, immediately after the Eid and winter vacation of the Supreme Court, said sources in the attorney general’s office.
   As the cases were quashed during Khaleda’s 2001-2006 rule, the government of the time did not prefer appeals against the High Court verdicts, the interim government said in the petitions, explaining the delay in filing the appeal petitions.
   The government hopes that the trial of the other detained former prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, would be completed within three months of so in the Tk 2.99 crore extortion case now pending with the Dhaka metropolitan sessions judge’s court.
   The Appellate Division on December 13 stayed the execution of the High Court order that had halted the trial in the extortion case in the makeshift courtroom on the Jatiya Sangsad complex.
   Dhaka metropolitan sessions judge M Azizul Haque, however, on December 12 postponed the proceedings for three months as the High Court on December 9 halted the trial after hearing a writ petition filed by Hasina.
   The sessions court, however, is likely to re-fix a fresh date to hear arguments on framing of charges in the case, said sources close to the prosecutors of the case.
   Although the Appellate Division said the parties to the case might take appropriate steps for an expeditious hearing in the writ petition filed by Hasina, the government has already instructed the prosecutors to take appropriate steps to get the trial completed even before the hearing in the writ petition, said sources in the Anti-Corruption Commission.
   As the case has been placed under the Emergency Powers Rules, the trial has to be completed within 45 days from the date the trial begins.
   A formal trial begins after the framing of charges, said a special prosecutor, who is in the prosecution team of the case.
   If the trial is not completed within the stipulated 45-day timeframe, the court, however, will get 30 more days to complete the trial, according to the Emergency Powers Rules.
   The rules also allow the court to extend the deadline to complete the trial by 15 more days.
   In each case of extension to the deadline, the court will need to inform the Supreme Court of the extension, explaining the causes for failure to complete the trial.
   Explaining the legal provisions, a prosecutor said the court would not get more than 90 days to complete the trial.

The president, Pervez Musharraf, lifted emergency rule in Pakistan and restored the constitution on Saturday, in a move Western nations hope will stabilise the nuclear-armed state as Islamic militant violence spirals.
   But critics say curbs on the media and a purged judiciary will remain in place and Musharraf can still manipulate a January 8 general election victory for his parliamentary allies and secure a power base despite his unpopularity.
   ‘We consider the lifting of the state of emergency an important step forward,’ opposition leader and former prime minister Benazir Bhutto told reporters in the southwestern city of Quetta soon after the end of the emergency was announced.
   ‘But more needs to be done for the restoration of democracy.’
   Citing militant violence and a meddling judiciary, Musharraf imposed the emergency on November 3, suspended the constitution and purged the Supreme Court to fend off challenges to his re-election, which new hand-picked judges later rubber-stamped.
   But he faced international condemnation for his actions, with Western countries worried he would only further polarise Pakistan and leave a vacuum that Islamic militants fighting an insurgency near the border with Afghanistan could fill.
   Meanwhile Musharraf pledged elections next month will be free and fair, in an address to the nation hours after he lifted the state of emergency.
   ‘I give this commitment to the people of Pakistan and to the world outside that the elections are going to be absolutely fair and transparent,’ he said in the address, broadcast live by Pakistan radio and television.
   Musharraf also flatly rejected allegations from political opponents and others that the election for parliament was being rigged, reports AFP. Musharraf took fresh oaths of office from the Supreme Court judges appointed after he imposed the emergency.
   Musharraf also issued a decree protecting him from legal challenges over his actions during the emergency, something previous military rulers in Pakistan have done.
   Some lawyers and judges, including Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, who were deposed by Musharraf are still under house arrest. The Pakistani media criticised this week a ban on live broadcasts as an attempt to control election coverage.
   The end of the emergency may not change that.
   ‘This emergency was staged to perpetuate one-man rule,’ said Akbar Ali, an employee at a car leasing company in the main northwestern city of Peshawar. ‘There is no guarantee he won’t stage this emergency again if he sees his rule in danger.’
   Election monitors and many politicians fear Musharraf, despite calls for a fair vote, can rig the polls through a network of district chiefs, bogus votes and by excluding opposition supporters from ballot stations.
   Critics point out that Musharraf, who came to power in a 1999 coup but stepped down as army chief last month, still lives in his army house.
   The election is essentially a three-way battle between parties loyal to Musharraf and the parties of two main opposition leaders, former prime ministers Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto.
   The British prime minister, Gordon Brown, hailed the lifting of Pakistan’s state of emergency as a ‘significant step’ Saturday.
   After a telephone call with Musharraf, Brown also called for a ‘level playing field’ in next month’s parliamentary elections.

At least five people were killed and five wounded when a suicide bomber blew himself up outside an army facility in northwest Pakistan on Saturday, the military and the police said.
   The bomber, who was on a bicycle, detonated his explosives at a checkpost outside an army centre in the garrison city of Nowshera, 130 kilometres west of the capital Islamabad, a military spokesman said.
   ‘Five people have lost their lives, three civilians and two army men,’ spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad said.
   The police confirmed the death toll and said five people were wounded in the attack. ‘Some of the injured are in a critical condition,’ local police officer Abid Khan said.
   He said the checkpost was on a busy thoroughfare.
   The attack came just hours before the president, Pervez Musharraf, was due to lift a controversial state of emergency he imposed in November, citing a wave of attacks that have primarily targeted Pakistan’s armed forces.
   Hundreds have lost their
   lives in those attacks – about
   450 just since July, after an army raid on a radical, pro-Taliban mosque left about 100 people dead.
   Twin suicide bombers killed five soldiers and wounded 22 people in the southwestern city of Quetta on Thursday.

A development bank can be set up with money remitted by Bangladeshi expatriates to reduce the country’s dependence on global lenders like World Bank for funding long-term projects.
   A central bank official mooted the idea in a research paper titled ‘Alternative Resource of the World Bank for External Financing in Bangladesh: A Foreign Remittance Approach’, presented at the concluding day of the four-day conference of Bangladesh Economic Association on Saturday.
   Outlining the bank’s capital formation, Mohammad Bayezid Sarkar, a foreign exchange and treasury official of Bangladesh Bank, said it would form its capital with deposits from non-resident Bangladeshis and make long-term investments needed for the country’s sustainable development.
   He believed that by floating such a bank, the country could
   get rid of prescriptions and pressures of lending agencies and bilateral development partners, whose total annual contributions would be around $1.5 billion.
   Only in the past week, the Latin American leaders inaugurated the Bank of the South, hoping that such a financial organisation would help wean the region off institutions such as the International Monetary Fund.
   The bank, which will start operations in 2008 with an initial capital of $7 billion, is designed to support regional development and integration projects, according to media reports.
   Also in 2004, the then Thai prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, initiated and
   advocated the idea of an Asian Bond to enable Asian countries to use their surplus wealth to finance development and prosperity.
   The proposed bank of expatriates may introduce some expatriate-friendly banking products offering suitable investment of remittances, ensure safe, cheap and
   speedy remittance delivery
   services, and also help other banks bring foreign exchange earned by Bangladeshis to the country.
   ‘International Bank for Expatriate Bangladeshis or International Bank for Non-Resident Bangladeshis is a new banking idea to create a development partner within the home country,’ Bayezid observed, adding that such a bank could fund huge projects like Padma Bridge or deep seaport.
   Senior economist Moinul Islam, a former president of the economic association, and Taher Uddin and Abdul Hai — both from economics discipline — spoke in support of the
   bank, a proposal which has been pending with the central bank.
   ‘We will review the proposal,’ Bangladesh Bank governor Salehuddin Ahmed, who chaired the session, later told reporters. He also mentioned that the central bank was taking measures to ensure transfer of remittances to the relatives of expatiate workers within 72 hours anywhere within the country.
   The governor pointed out that the people who were not bankable should also be included into the banking system beyond the limit of the micro-credit.
   Banks, too, should come up with diversity of innovative products. He underlined the need for increasing equity financing through share market in undertaking new ventures reducing the dependence on debt financing from banking sources.
   In his proposal, Bayezid insisted that the proposed expatriates’ bank should have a subsidiary of micro-finance institution approved by the Micro-Credit Regulatory Authority to finance small and medium entrepreneurs.
   Some overseas subsidiaries should also be run in countries which have concentration of Bangladeshis, like the United Kingdom, Italy, the USA, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, South Korea, Malaysia and Singapore, he added.
   ‘It will have a long-term, multiple and positive bearing on the economy. So, it can also be considered as “one-stop multi-solution proposal” for remittances, foreign direct investment and ultimately sustainable development of Bangladesh,’ the author noted.
   In the 2006-07 fiscal, non-resident Bangladeshis sent home about $6 billion, several times higher than the combined flow of foreign direct investment and disbursed foreign aid, the Asian Development Bank said in a recent publication.
   The remittances are also termed ‘a less volatile source of foreign currency’ compared with export earnings and foreign aid.
   Despite its contribution to alleviating poverty and offsetting the government’s balance of payments deficit, it is
   said that remittances are also responsible for increasing inflation in the rural areas to some extent because of misuse of money.
   However, remittances account for 9 per cent of the gross domestic product and marked 25 per cent rise over the past five years, according to official statistics.
   Nasiruddin Ahmed, an ADB consultant, explained that the accumulation of foreign exchange reserve, fattened by robust growth in exports and sharp increase in workers remittances, had led to depreciation of taka, adding upward pressure to inflation.
   In another research paper, Jamaluddin Ahmed, a chartered accountant, proposed creation of national and regional remittance banks to link migration to development so that investment areas could be properly identified.

Almost 200 countries agreed in Bali to launch negotiations towards an agreement in 2009 to address climate change on the basis of a watered-down declaration. But they failed to translate the findings or recommendations of the scientific community into a corresponding global political response.
   The decision — coming about 16 hours after the deadline had expired on December 14 midnight — is an essential part of the Bali Roadmap, but has no destination in the sense that it does not mention any numeric range to guide the level of ambition during the two-year negotiations striving for greenhouse gas emission cuts. Nor does this roadmap require two of the largest emitters of the world, India and China, to take on reduction commitments.
   The roadmap, as it is called, was only finalised after all-night talks among the high-level delegates of a select group of countries behind closed doors. Even in the early afternoon, when the talks were still stalled over three words, Ban Ki-Moon, the UN secretary general, made a brief but impassioned intervention. He said he was disappointed with the manner the talks were being held and pleaded the parties to continue their negotiations until they all agreed.
   The fate of the roadmap swung back and forth like a pendulum as one issue after another came to fore and were resolved only after intense negotiations. At one point, the top official of the UN climate regime, Yvo de Boer, broke down into tears and left the conference hall in the face of sharp criticism from China.
   The mood after the US agreement, however, quickly swung from sombre to elation, rather like the fate of the roadmap itself, and there were rounds of applause and congratulations.
   The UN climate change conference, also host to the 13th conference of parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, decided to launch formal negotiations on a watered down text that is bound to disappoint environmentalists as well as hard-line delegates even from the European Union.
   Ban Ki-Moon, however, strongly welcomed the outcome since the three fundamental benchmarks — launch of negotiations, deadline of 2009 for those negotiations and deciding upon an agenda of those negotiations — had been achieved.
   Yvo de Boer, visibly elated after a stressful two weeks, emphasised on the need to ‘move quickly’ since there was a huge task ahead of the parties to be completed in a very short time.
   The current climate change conference was expected to deliver a strong message to humanity that the leaders are indeed concerned about the future of the planet. Throughout the conference it was repeated by numerous quarters, including the highest officials of the climate change regime, delegations of large countries, international non-governmental organisations, environmentalists and activists, that findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was solidly based on science and there could not be any doubting the panel’s recommendations for reducing emissions of greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide, to prevent a global temperature rise of two degrees Celsius over that of pre-industrial level. Apparently such a scenario would bring about substantial and permanent change in global weather pattern, giving rise to extreme weather events, including river flooding, tropical cyclones and droughts.
   At least several hundred million people in Africa and Asia are said to be vulnerable to climate change while millions are expected to become climate refugees, including many in Bangladesh, which is considered one of the most vulnerable countries.
   Instead of explicitly referring to the IPCC fourth assessment findings mentioning dates and required levels of emission reduction in the third paragraph, and a range of emission reduction by the developed countries — the much debated 25 to 40 per cent — the text calls for ‘deep cuts in global emissions’ of greenhouse gases ‘as indicated’ by the IPCC fourth assessment.
   But the strong US opposition to the mention of any numeric targets even in the preamble, which merely sets a moral binding, saw the range deleted. The manner of referencing the IPCC findings was always going to be a tricky agenda as UN climate chief indicated even on Friday evening.
   The IPCC recommendations include several ranges of emission cuts of which the most ambitious was incorporated into the text. Future negotiations are almost certain to decide on a lower range, if not the lowest, that the panel had indicated.
   Reportedly the talks hinged on three adverbs — measurable, reportable and verifiable — that the developing countries did not accept when applied in the context of their mitigation actions.
   Instead of ‘Measurable, reportable and verifiable nationally appropriate mitigation actions by developing country Parties in the context of sustainable development, supported by technology and enabled by financing and capacity-building’, the current text states ‘Nationally appropriate mitigation actions by developing country Parties in the context of sustainable development, supported and enabled by technology, financing and capacity-building, in a measurable, reportable and verifiable manner’.
   The previous texts also mentioned the word commitment in the context of mitigation, while the current text appears to shift the onus on to the developed countries.
   Among the other major decisions are adaptation funds that have been ‘operationalised’ in theory and are estimated to grow to a measly $300 million available for all developing countries that suffer from several weather events. However, there was no agreement on the key issue of practical adaptation measures, such as how to integrate adaptation into national policies.
   This issue is expected to be negotiated at later meetings of relevant subsidiary bodies.
   The other supposed success story, technology transfer was decided to take place through scaling up investment and concrete demonstration projects to attract more business.
   There have been some progress in avoided deforestation, an agenda strongly advocated by Indonesia among others, and countries might even get credit in such schemes.

The Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha on Saturday morning recovered another decomposed body from the Rangs Bhaban that had partly collapsed at night in December 8, raising the death toll to six.
   Rajuk sources said the workers of the four private construction companies and Rajuk’s workers with the help of fire-fighters began the body-recovering operation in the presence of the BUET’s experts at around 9:00am.
   The workers managed to recover the corpse of Farid Sheikh, 25, son of Akhtar Sheikh of Ujandiya under Modhukhali upazila in Faridpur, from the seventh floor at around 9:30am. The victim’s cousin, Ziblur Rahman, identified the body at the Dhaka Medical College Hospital’s morgue.
   On Thursday the workers recovered the four decomposed bodies of Ruhul Amin, 45, of Ujandiya, his brother-in-law Delwar Hossain, 40, son of Sajjal Sheikh of the same area, his cousin Zahid Molla, 25, son of Rajab Ali Sheikh, and Aminul Islam, 20 son of Majlar Rahman of Phulchari under Katlamari in Gaibandha. The crushed and mangled corpses of the unfortunate workers were found hanging on different floors after the building’s collapse.
   The body of only Amirul, among the deceased, was brought to his village home on Friday. The relatives of the others decedents were waiting for their bodies till Saturday noon.
   Later, they started for their village homes along with four bodies, released from hospital’s morgue, at around 3:30pm.
   Ziblur Rahman told New Age, ‘We waited continuously for more than six days after the collapse, but we are yet to get the promised compensation. We cannot go on waiting for compensation because we will have to bury the bodies without delay since they have rotted and are stinking.’
   He claimed that the bodies of seven of his other relatives, including Kawsar Hossain of Ujandia, Abdul Mannan, Abdur Rahim, Ziru Mollah, Feroj Mia, Daud and Farid Mia are still trapped under the debris.
   The director of the Fire Service and Civil Defence (Dhaka Zone), Selim Newaz Bhuiyan, told newsmen, ‘Primarily we are cleaning up the debris in a bid to recover the bodies.’
   The three construction companies — Amin Mohammad Foundation, Mir Akhtar Foundation, and Eastern Housing — with the help of Rupayan Construction continued to place more steel bars to prop up the floors till Saturday night.
   The top floors of the 22-storey building caved in on Saturday night, leaving four people dead and 14 others trapped inside, all of whom are feared to be dead by now.
   The building was being demolished after the Supreme Court on August 3 ruled the construction of other floors beyond the sixth illegal, and ordered them to be demolished.
   The government engaged a private firm, Six Star Corporation, to knock down the unauthorised floors.

The expelled secretary general of BNP, Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan, on Saturday launched a subtle dig at the quarters which were trying to undermine politicians and reminded them that none could replace politicians to govern the state.
   He also demanded trial of the war criminals saying it was the responsibility of the state to bring them to book.
   ‘Some people seem to entertain the idea nowadays that there is no need for politicians to run the state affairs. But they forget that there is no alternative to politicians to govern the state,’ he told a discussion organised by the government-backed faction of BNP on the eve of the Victory Day.
   He said the trust of people in politicians had to be restored suggesting that this could be done even by making a public apology.
   ‘The sooner the politicians could purify themselves, the better it would be for democracy’.
   Bhuiyan, who was also a top leader of the immediate-past BNP-Jamaat alliance government, said, ‘People are demanding trial of the war criminals and I think they should be put in the dock…. After the passage of so many years it might not be possible for individuals to gather evidence and government should initiate the trial.’
   He regretted that the war criminals could not be tried the in the past years due to various reasons.
   ‘Even no action had been taken against the persons against whom there are specific charges of being involved in the killing of intellectuals.’
   It is possible to bring the killers of the intellectuals to book, he observed.
   He also asked the Election Commission to hold the general election, if possible, earlier than the schedule completing the task of voter listing.
   Bhuiyan, also a former minister, said the twin floods and the cyclone Sidr had taken a heavy toll on agriculture and the food stocks had to be replenished by enhanced production. He suggested that rice production could be increased during the Irri season and demanded uninterrupted power supply for irrigation in January. He also called for ensuring smooth supply of fertiliser and pesticides to the farmers.
   Kazi Siraj, a former editor of the daily Dinkal, who also took part in the discussion, discovered a ‘ploy’ in the
   current demand for trial of the war criminals ‘to destabilise the country’.
   ‘The Awami League raises the issue whenever it faces an adverse situation,’ he said citing the movement on the same demand in 1981.
   The acting BNP secretary general, M Hafiz Uddin Ahmad, chaired the discussion.

The army chief, General Moeen U Ahmed, on Saturday urged the government to rebury all the seven Bir Shreshthas in a single compound so that people could pay homage to all the valiant freedom fighters at a time.
   ‘I have already made a request to the chief adviser in this regard and he accordingly agreed,’ the army chief said while receiving donations from various organisations and individuals for the cyclone survivors at the Dhaka Cantonment.
   Moeen suggested the National Memorial at Savar as a probable site for reburial of Bir Shrestrhas, who made supreme sacrifice for the independence of the country.
   He said the army have succeeded in ensuring food and water for every cyclone-victim in the affected areas immediately after the disaster hit the country’s southern part and now time has came to rehabilitate the victims.
   The army chief said different organisations and individuals have so far donated Tk 18.36 crore to the army’s relief. Of the total amount, over Tk 51 lakh have been distributed among the affected people, he added.
   ‘We have bought boats and fishing nets with the donation money on emergency basis for distribution among the affected fishermen so that they could again go back to the sea for fishing, he said, adding ‘besides, we have spent a portion of the donation for agriculture rehabilitation.’
   The army have already sent 18,000 blankets to the affected areas, of which 15,000 were distributed.
   ‘Warm cloths are very much needed in the affected areas as winter has begun early there,’ he said.
   Describing food deficiency as a major challenge, the army chief said the country is facing a shortfall of 20 lakh tonnes of food grains because of the two recent devastating floods and the cyclone Sidr.
   ‘To make up for the shortfall, farmers need to work hard in coming days and all concerned including the army have to keep vigil so that seeds and fertilisers could reach the farmers in time,’ he added.

The police on Saturday stopped a discussion of Khaleda Zia Mukti Parishad at the National Press Club, claiming that the organisers had no permission to hold the meeting.
   The police asked the organisers to stop the programme an hour inside the discussion began.
   The Khaleda Zia Mukti Parishad convener, former BNP lawmaker retired major Akhtaruzzaman, claimed they had obtained permission earlier to hold the meeting.
   They demanded immediate release of the two detained former prime ministers — BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia and Awami League president Sheikh Hasina.
   Akhtaruzzaman told his fellow discussants the interim government had no right to frame the next budget, scheduled for June 2008. If the government increases taxes in the budget, the people will prevent this by shedding their blood.
   He criticised the government for delaying the national elections and giving the advantage to some leaders who are allegedly engaged in corruption.
   Gayeswar Chandra Roy, said, ‘We need reforms, but they will not be possible if the two leaders are kept in prison…. We need national unity today to cross all obstacles.’

The Rapid Action Battalion arrested a suspected member of Harkat-ul-Jihad Bangladesh along with arms and ammunition at Porabari Narayanpur village here Friday night.
   The arrested is Manirul Islam Madina, 45, a close associate of top militant leader Mufti Hannan, one of the main accused of the grenade attack on Sheikh Hasina’s meeting on August 21, 2005.
   A battalion team conducted a raid on a house at night and arrested Manirul.

The chief adviser, Fakhruddin Ahmed, leaves for Makkah via Jeddah this morning to perform Hajj.
   Fakhruddin will be accompanied by his wife Neena Ahmed.
   The army chief, General Moeen U Ahmed and his spouse Nazneen Moyeen will also be in the entourage of the chief adviser. After performing Hajj, the chief adviser is expected to attend a meeting of the Bangladesh community in Jeddah.
   He is scheduled to return home on December 24, according to an official source.

A fire that broke out at a slum at Begunbari in Dhaka burnt more than 500 shanties Saturday afternoon, leaving about 2,000 people homeless.
   Fire Service and Civil Defence deputy director (operations) Mizanur Rahman sustained injuries after he had fallen off a bamboo bridge. He lost his wireless set.
   The fire that burnt for an hour and a half broke out from a burner in a shanty at Dakkhin Begunbari at Tejgaon.
   Local people and witnesses said panicked slum dwellers trapped inside the enclosure, struggled to get out, but the small exit was not enough to allow hordes of people out at a time.
   The fire spread to the whole slum within minutes. Seven fire engines reached the place and put out the flames at about 6:45pm.
   Valuables including furniture, television and radio sets, cash, shops and a rickshaw garage were burnt.
   The slum dwellers failed to save their belongings.
   Additional director of the Fire Service (Dhaka division) Selim Newaz Bhuiyan in the evening told New Age, ‘Fire fighters managed to put out the flames in an hour and there was no casualty.’
   ‘The bamboo and wood houses were highly flammable.
   We were lucky that there is a water body close to the place,’
   he said.
   Women went searching through the rubble after the fire. Many said they could not trace their children even two hours after the fire.
   Fire service officials said they were yet to establish the extent of damage.

Bangladesh needs and deserves more assistance than pledges from the international community after being struck by Sidr, the decade’s deadliest cyclone, said the visiting World Bank’s vice-president for South Asia. He called upon all concerned to help the country to overcome the challenges of climate change.
   Praful C Patel, at a media conference on Saturday, also announced that the WB would make $325 million available for post-cyclone rehabilitation plus the $205 million for post-flood rehabilitation that was already pledged, in addition to funding other ongoing programmes. The funds will be disbursed in phases after approval by the WB’s board.
   ‘The more [that] is needed, the more is deserved in the way of international community support,’ he said when asked whether the external assistance, pledged in the wake of the November 15 cyclone that devastated southern Bangladesh, was adequate.
   Apart from the commitments made by the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, the country received pledges of foreign aid amounting to $220 million till last week. The government has sought $1.8 billion from the international community for rebuilding the post-Sidr economy.
   ‘Seeing at first-hand the devastation caused by cyclone Sidr is shocking,’ said the WB executive after his visit to Kalapara in Patuakhali district on Saturday. ‘The challenge of reviving life is formidable.’
   Patel described Bangladesh’s future as ‘trapped between the melting Himalayas in the north and the encroaching Bay of Bengal to the south’ and said Bangladesh is the most deserving country to get international support for coping with climate change. He also emphasised the need for equitable water sharing of international rivers by Bangladesh and India in the light of the relevant treaties.
   However Patel, indicating a significant increase in the WB’s assistance in the near future, laid emphasis on improving the capacity of the government, especially the civil service, to ensure proper implementation of the development projects.
   CS Karim, the agriculture adviser who was present at the briefing, said that the advisers to the interim government ‘give policy decisions and the people in the downstream [civil servants]’ implement them.
   Asked why the complete assessment of the losses caused by the cyclone could not be made as yet, he replied that it was a difficult task to translate various losses into monetary terms.
   According to the WB executive, the twin floods perhaps caused loss of $1 billion and cyclone probably over $2 billion, dealing a huge blow to the Bangladesh economy in a year which was marked by price spiralling of fuel and food in the international market.
   Dwelling on the issue of restoration of democracy vis-à-vis quality of relief operations, the WB’s vice-president made it clear that they would ‘not wait for political development’ in responding to the emergency situation.
   ‘Also we have good relations with the caretaker government…Development is something that cannot be put on hold,’ he said, adding that the present regime had a timeframe of two years unlike other caretaker governments.
   When he was asked if the state of emergency was an impediment to relief operations and rehabilitation work, Praful Patel expressed his conviction that the current emergency in Bangladesh was ‘part and parcel of the formulation of the caretaker government’.

The first meeting of the high-profile Bangladesh Better Business Forum was held on Saturday with speakers suggesting ways to improve business environment, eliminate corruption and contain inflation.
   The meeting, chaired by the chief adviser, Fakhruddin Ahmed, also stressed the need for development of human resources and better infrastructures.
   Mirza Azizul Islam, finance adviser and executive chairman of BBBF, and army chief General Moeen U Ahmed, who is on the 38-member BBBF board, attended the meeting.
   ‘Macro policy issues, related to improvement of business environment, dominated the meeting,’ a business leader, who attended the meeting, told New Age.
   According to meeting sources, the chief adviser, also BBBF chairman, said the forum was an ideal body for providing guidance for a consensus on any issue of business or investment.
   The objective of the forum is to attain sustainable economic growth maintaining business- and investment-friendly atmosphere and cordial relations between the government and private sectors.
   The chief adviser said the Regulatory Reforms Commission and Better Business Forum could work in a parallel manner to attain the goals.
   Syed Manzur Elahi, administrator of the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce, said the BBBF would pursue effective interactions between businesses and the government. ‘It is hoped that BBBF will remove misunderstandings and bridge the communication gap between the businesses and the government with positive approaches.’
   Elahi informed New Age that the forum would execute its jobs after formation of six sector-wise committees the meeting decided to deal with selected issues.
   The committees will deal with areas including finance, better infrastructure, government policies, fiscal and monetary policies, business entry and operation and skill development.
   A representative from private sector and a high-profile government representative will co-chair each committee. The FBCCI will nominate six co-chairmen by December 31 after discussions with the business bodies.
   About the rising inflation, businessmen attending the meeting observed that inflation needed to be fought by creating job opportunities and increasing purchasing power of the people.
   The speakers agreed that investments must be fostered to create employments and observed that contractionary monetary policy should be welcomed to check inflation.
   They also discussed the ways to increase power generation and agricultural production and called for developing industrial zones and lowering bank rates.
   According to meeting sources, General Moeen stressed the need for elimination of corruption from every sector in the country. He referred to the success of Singapore in eliminating corruption in a short period of time and fostering economic development. Some members cited Malaysian and Vietnamese models in this regard.
   Some business leaders advised systematic elimination of corruption rather than sweeping drives. They observed that drastic steps for eliminating corruption overnight had panicked businesses.
   The army chief, according to sources, focused on crash programmes for development of human resources to feed industries and earn much more by exporting skilled manpower.

Security has been heightened in Dhaka and elsewhere across the country for smooth holding of the Victory Day being observed today.
   Check points have been set up at all the entry and exit points of the city for foolproof security.
   Rapid Action Battalion personnel have been stationed in close proximity, in security assistant to the police, besides protecting all key-point installations in and around Dhaka.
   Various agencies have been directed to conduct block raids on different guesthouses, slums and crime points. Strong vigil on highways and border areas will be in place, the police said.
   Closed-circuit television cameras have already been installed at the National Martyrs’ Memorial at Savar to keep watch on the place before, during and after the Victory Day programmes. A radius of one kilometre from the memorial monument is under strict vigil.
   Law enforcement agencies and intelligence wings across the country have been alerted to stave off any untoward incidents, the inspector general of police, Noor Mohammad, said on Saturday.
   Coming out of the 25th annual general meeting of the Bangladesh Retired Police Officers’ Welfare Association in the Rajarbagh Police Telecom auditorium, Noor Mohammad told the reporters, ‘Law enforcers will keep strong vigil during the Victory Day programmes across the country.’
   Former inspector general of police ARMG Kibria, also a former adviser to the caretaker government, chaired the meeting.
   Noor Mohammad, who was chief guest at the programme, said, ‘We should work to make our services more people-oriented to regain the image of the police.’
   Asked about any possibility of subversive attack by Islamist militants on the eve of Victory Day, Noor Mohammad said, ‘There is no possibility of any untoward incident as the whole of the country was brought under strict security.’
   The Sundarganj police officer-in-charge in Gaibandha, Abu Jafar, and the Chuadanga police officer-in-charge, Rabiul Islam, were given SM Ahsan Memorial Award in the programme for their outstanding performance.
   Former inspectors general of police Enamul Haque and MA Khalegue also spoke on the occasion.
   The Dhaka Metropolitan Police commissioner, Naim Ahmed, Rapid Action Battalion director general and other high police officials attended.

The police on Saturday filed the charge sheet accusing the Khulna mayor, Sheikh Tayebur Rahman, and its public relations officer Sardar Abu Taher of extorting Tk 2.9 lakh from a city corporation official.
   The suspended procurement officer of the corporation’s municipal services project, MM Hafizur Rahman, lodged the case on November 2.
   Khulna police subinspector Keshab Chakrabarty, also investigation officer of the case, filed the charge sheet with the court.
   Hafizur alleged before taking over as procurement officer, he applied for the post of assistant superintendent at water supply department of the corporation and Taher demanded Tk 3 lakh on behalf of the mayor for the job.
   Hafizur said on October 3, 2004 he handed Tk 2.5 lakh in cash over to Taher in the presence of the mayor in his office at the directive of the mayor. When he went to the corporation to face the appointment board on October 12, 2004, Taher stopped him from doing so saying that another had already been selected by the mayor for the post in exchange for more money.
   Taher then promised him a job. When he was appointed procurement officer on February 26, 2006, the mayor demanded Tk 50,000 more from him saying that his job would be regularised, the case records said.
   Hafizur managed Tk 40,000 by selling a portion of his landed property and borrowing from his relatives and handed the amount over to Taher in the presence of the mayor.
   His job was not regularised and as he wanted the amount back, Taher harassed and threatened him saying that he would not get the amount back and, if required, he would be killed, Hafizur said.

The government has decided to form a committee to review the recommendations of 6th Wage Board for the newspaper industry.
   ‘The review committee will be formed comprising newspaper owners, journalists and other staff members,’ said a handout on Saturday following protests against some provisions of the pay package.
   The government announced the Sixth Wage Board Award on December 6, fixing salaries, allowances and other benefits for the journalists, press workers and employees.
   But the Sangbadik-Sramik-Karmachari Oikya Parishad rejected the Wage Board Award and observed a four-hour work abstention on Wednesday, demanding its immediate revision.
   Addressing a gathering in front of the National Press Club, parishad leaders urged the government to accept the demands by December 16, or else they threatened to go for work abstention, form human
   chain on the street from December 17.

Labourers and workers of the state-owned Alim Jute Mills in the Atra industrial belt in Khulna went on a token hunger strike at the mill gate between 9:00am and 4:00pm on Saturday demanding payment of their dues and withdrawal of layoff at the mill.
   About 300 labourers and workers of the mill joined the hunger strike. A large number of policemen were deployed to keep law and order.
   The labourers said they had been passing days in misery as they had no food at home and no means to earn their living. They said they were about to stop sending their children to schools.
   The labourers put out a call to make successful the road blockage programme at the mill gate on the Khulna-Jessore Highway for an hour from 100:00am scheduled for Monday to push for the demands.
   Mill officials said the layoff at the mill was announced on September 22 for a month on the grounds of financial crunch and shortage of raw jute.
   The layoff was later extended for a fortnight on October 22, for a month on November 6 and for one more month on December 6.
   The officials said the mill workers and labourers were yet to be paid wages for 33 weeks, salary for eight months and festival allowance and other dues.

At least 20 senior assistant secretaries of the administration cadre have been attached to the district magistrate’s office as executive magistrates to strengthen the ongoing drives against crimes in the capital city during Eid-ul-Azha.
   The executive magistrates will be conducting mobile courts against food adulteration and drives to keep law and order till December 28 under the Mobile Court Ordinance and the Code of Criminal Procedure and, according to a gazette notification issued by the establishment ministry.
   The administration officials are expected to begin operation in the city on Monday.

The offices of newspapers and news agencies will remain closed today on the occasion of Victory Day.
   Members of Newspapers Owners Association of Bangladesh desirous of bringing out their publications may do so under special arrangement, said a NOAB press release.

An army member was found dead at Baliarpur in Savar Saturday morning.
   The victim is Maksudul Haidar, 27, sepoy of 11 Infantry Division of the 28 East Bengal Regiment. He was the resident of Fakirbazar in Burichang upazila of Comilla.
   The police said locals first saw the body in front of Madhumati Model Tower.