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Assailants on Saturday shot dead a deputy assistant director and a constable of the Rapid Action Battalion at a brickfield at Salehpur Uttar Kaundi, some two kilometres off the Dhaka–Aricha Highway at Aminbazar.
   The high officials of the battalion and the police did not say why the two went to the area unarmed in civil dress for the sake of investigation.
   About 150 people were detained in connection with the incident.
   The police said the body the battalion’s deputy assistant director Humayun Kabir and that of the RAB 11 intelligence wing’s constable Phul Mia were found in the brickfield owned by Tara Mia in the evening.
   Their hands and legs were tied up and two bullets pierced through their mouth to back of the head which showed that they were shot from point-blank range.
   ‘We communicated with them for the last time at about 3:00pm,’ said a battalion official, adding they might have been killed within an hour of the last communication.
   A huge contingent of the joint forces, led by the army, reached the place immediately after the incident and cordoned off the whole area. They later found the mobile used by Phul Mia. The mobile of Humayun Kabir went missing.
   They detained about 150, mostly brick kiln workers,
   who were interrogated by the forces.
   The battalion’s director general, Hasan Mahmud Khandaker, at the place of occurrence did not say whether the victims were on duty at a crime scene or kidnapped by the killers.
   He requested the newsmen not to ask him any questions regarding the killers for the sake of investigation.
   The inspector general of police, Noor Mohammad, said the battalion, Criminal Investigation Department, and the Savar and Shah Ali police stations were investigating the incident.
   The battalion’s director general refused to make any comments when he was contacted again at over mobile.
   ‘The fact remains that they were there and had been killed,’ he told New Age. ‘We are hopeful that the case could be cracked soon and the culprits would be brought to justice.’
   On August 5, 2002, criminals shot dead a Savar police subinspector, Motiur Rahman, at Aminbazar, known as a den of criminals and drug peddlers.
   The joint forces with dog squads launched a manhunt in the area and interrogated the detained till 10:00pm.

Another 300 politicians, businesspeople and retired bureaucrats have come under the strong surveillance of National Board of Revenue for their ill-gotten and untaxed money, top revenue officials have told New Age.
   The tax files of NBR’s fresh batch of preys, mostly former lawmakers, ministers and frontline leaders of major political parties, have already been gathered by the central intelligence cell of the revenue board, sources confirmed.
   The cell has been armed with 15 additional officials to do the job, an official said.
   NBR will seek bank statements of its new targets to detect the amount of untaxed money deposited with banks, which they did not declare in tax returns.
   Banks may be asked to freeze the accounts of those 300 suspects in a month to check withdrawal of cash, an NBR official hinted.
   The latest list, which included only three retired bureaucrats, may be reflected in the Anti-Corruption Commission’s planned next list of corruption suspects, the official said, adding that NBR has a crucial role to play in the anti-corruption drive by identifying major tax evaders and detecting how they amassed huge wealth.
    Meanwhile, the politicians, particularly those who were linked to the immediate-past government, started withdrawing money from banks in a very cunning manner, banking sources said.
   ‘The politicians are resorting to various tactics to withdraw money from their accounts and some are doing it in phases to escape any possible monitoring by government agencies,’ an executive of a private commercial bank said.
   ‘Any suspicious transaction would obviously put account holder in an unpleasant situation,’ he warned.

Streamlining higher education and improvement of its quality remain a far cry as the government has not implemented any of the major recommendations the University Grants Commission have made since 1992, according to UGS sources.
   Since 1992, the apex regulatory body of the country’s public and private universities has submitted in vain more than a dozen major recommendations including one for formulation of a national higher education policy to the government.
   Since its inception in 1973, the UGC has been publishing annual reports putting forth recommendations for streamlining the higher education system and its improvements.
   The UGC report for 1992 published in 1994, when the president, Iajuddin Ahmed, was its chairman, recommended that the government should make separate allocations for higher education and research under the commission’s supervision.
   After the introduction of private universities, the commission in 1998 urged the government to monitor and control the quality of education and the degrees provided by them.
   In that report, it also recommended that the government should make student politics independent of the political parties, making oblique references to links between student politics and recruitment and promotion of teachers and other staff at educational institutions on political considerations.
   The report also urged for immediate reforms to the existing education structure, upgrading syllabus and introduction of textbooks with it, and modernisation of the examination system.
   A former chairman of the commission said, ‘A good number of bureaucrats of the education and finance ministries are reluctant to pay heed to the recommendations of the UGC, which is one of the major reasons for the regrettable situation.’
   Another recommendation which the commission made in 1986, was that the universities must strictly follow the rules and regulations in running financial and administrative affairs, and also put an end to promoting teachers by relaxing educational qualification requirements.
   Apart from the increase in the number of public universities to 29, there are 54 private universities now in operation but the commission is still running with the same manpower strength and infrastructure it had when there were but a handful of public universities.
   About the private universities, the commission has been consistently pointing out that they are frustrating the very fundamental purpose of tertiary education. It repeatedly urged the government to strictly regulate these universities but no such measures have been taken to date.
   In 1994, the commission recommended that the number of madrassahs and institutions offering courses on Sangskrit and Pali should not be increased any more, arguing that such education had no significant utility.
   It also proposed that an autonomous accreditation council should be formed to rate the private university degrees and to upgrade the higher education after assessing the job market.
   In its annual report for 1995 the commission observed that ‘the quality of higher education has been declining as more than 72 per cent of the total allocation is being spent to pay the teachers and other staff at public universities, which hampers their research and academic activities.’
   The latest UGC annual report says, ‘Of the total recurring expenditure, the public universities at present spend about 86 per cent for salaries, pensions, transportation, electricity and other utilities, while only 14 per cent is spent for educational purposes.’
   The commission also recommended introducing English as the medium of instruction at universities, which has remained shelved to date. It also drafted a uniform accounts manual for the universities, which is yet to be approved by the education ministry.
   The commission in its annual report for 2004 recommended use of information and communications technology to improve the standard of higher education, saying, ‘Round-the-clock access to the information superhighway is needed for the universities and higher education.’
   The unwillingness of the autonomous public universities is responsible for non-implementation of most of the recommendations, the UGC chairman, M Asaduzzaman, told New Age on Friday.
   About the private universities, he said, ‘There are some profit-mongering owners with political clouts, who have been pressuring the government not to implement the major recommendations regarding these universities.’
   In its latest annual report published in January this year, the UGC asked the government to take steps to curb the immoral profiteering by some of the private universities.
   The commission in the report also recommended that the government should take the necessary measures to put an end to the misuse of autonomy by most of the public universities, which are opening new departments, recruiting redundant and unfit teachers and employees, and also promoting and providing them with extra-financial facilities.

Awami League president Sheikh Hasina on Saturday expressed her disappointment at the slow progress in preparing an updated voter roll and urged the government to begin the process to hold next general elections by June.
   ‘Seven weeks (of the caretaker government) have already passed. The process for updating voter roll should begin,’ she said at a news briefing at her Dhanmondi office before her party’s central working committee sat for an emergency meeting.
   Appreciating the government for recasting Election Commission and Anti-corruption Commission, she urged the government to complete the reconstitution of other key organisations soon, so that the next general elections can be held by June.
   ‘We have sent a delegation to Election Commission and expressed our demand for holding the elections by June,’ said the Awami League president, adding that the government should take steps to introduce transparent and large ballot box for the elections.
   Softening the party’s previous demand for complete voters’ roll with photographs, she suggested that voters’ list with photographs could be introduced in the six divisional headquarters on experimental basis.
   The voters’ enrolment process should start from the union and ward levels, she said.
   ‘If Bangladesh Machine Tools Factory is given the task of manufacturing ballot boxes with two sides transparent, it will be completed by the stipulated time,’ she hoped, suggesting that the boxes need to be bigger to reduce the chances of being snatched.
    She hoped that reconstituted Election Commission would take steps against 345 upazila election officers, whose appointments, she alleged, were politically motivated.
   Hasina also emphasised the need for recasting Public Service Commission.
   She demanded international investigation into all political killings including murders of party leaders SAMS Kibria and Ashsanullah Master, August 21 grenade attack on Awami League rally, countrywide bomb blasts on August 17 and Chittagong cache of smuggled arms.
   ‘We had demanded international investigation into the incidents, but the BNP-Jamaat government did not pay heed to our demands,’ she said and believed the interim government has the opportunity now to initiate fresh probes into the gruesome murders.
   She claimed that her party was always open to reforms. ‘Reform is an ongoing process in Awami League. The party always reforms itself as per demand of the time.’
   She said her party would hold national council after withdrawal of the state of emergency and bring necessary reforms in the party.
   The party’s central leaders at the working committee meeting stressed that Awami League should press the interim government to hold the general elections after completion of reform drives to make the country’s politics free from corruption, insiders said.
   Reviewing the country’s current political situation, most of them believed that the party is now better-placed than before for contesting the polls.
   The party’s controversial deal with Khelafat Majlish came under severe criticism from a number of junior leaders, who believed the deal, signed on December 23, 2006, violated the spirit of the party.
   The meeting decided to hold elaborate programmes marking March 7, and March 17 and 18 and a five-day programme from March 23 to observe the Independence Day on March 26.
   The working committee meeting was adjourned till 11:00am today.

Intelligence agencies have begun investigation of alleged corruptions at various government and semi-government organisations and autonomous bodies under different ministries.
   ‘We have already started investigations of corruption at different directorates, departments and corporations,’ an official in an intelligence agency told New Age on Saturday.
   They were looking into the allegations of irregularities and misappropriation by top officials of various organisations that include the Public Service Commission, Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha, Directorate General of Health Services, Directorate General of Family Planning, Directorate of Food, Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education, Bangladesh Biman Corporation, Bangladesh Road Transport Authority, Directorate of Relief and Rehabilitation, Department of Immigration and Passport, Bangladesh Oil Gas and Mineral Corporation (Petrobangla), Bangladesh Sugar and Food Industries Corporation and the Directorate of Land Records and Survey.
   A high government official said the intelligence agencies were asking for files to examine alleged corruption at different levels in various offices in Dhaka.
   In the drive against crimes and corruption, the interim government has so far captured about 30 high-profile politicians and former secretary listed by the Anti-Corruption Commission of having suspected links with corruption.
   The law enforcers were collecting information on personal assets and bank accounts of the officials of the government and semi-government organsiations allegedly plagued by corruption and irregularities, the official said.
   The intelligence agencies have initially begun drives at various organisations including public universities, according to the sources in the agencies.
   The intelligence agency officials were examining the documents already obtained by them and were digging into bank accounts of the officials to find out clues to corruption, the sources said.
   The government has also formed 20 task forces to identify corrupt government officials and employees to purge the administration of corruption and irregularities.
   The interim administration led by Fakhruddin Ahmed has declared that one of the main thrusts of the government was to rid the country of corruption.
   The government, to this end, has already initiated reforms to the Election Commission and the Anti-Corruption Commission with steps to free politics of unabated corrupt practices.

Opposition Democrats are drafting a Senate bill that would prevent the Bush administration from launching a military strike against Iran without congressional approval, reports Dawn on Friday.
   Observers say that move reflects the fear that the president, George W Bush, may be preparing a military action to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities and military installations.
   Freshman senator Jim Webb, who defeated a veteran Republican and possible 2008 presidential candidate George Allen in November’s elections, is leading the effort to draft the new legislation.
   Senator Webb is a former Republican Navy secretary and decorated Vietnam veteran who opposes the Iraq war.
   He intends to introduce his measure next week as an amendment to the $93.4 billion war spending bill.
   Senate majority leader Harry Reid said on Thursday that he would support the proposed legislation to put breaks on president Bush’s powers to go to war.
   ‘I have not read this (amendment), but I’m confident, in real generality ... that I can support’ the move, senator Reid told reporters.
   Webb’s amendment would prohibit president Bush from spending any money on a ‘unilateral military action in Iran without the express consent of the Congress’. He said there would be some exceptions, but did not detail them.
   Later this month, the Senate could take up debate on a $100 billion bill to pay for continued combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.
   But even before the war spending bill comes up, the Senate could hold a debate in mid-March on Iraq war policy which could be used for pushing the legislation on Iran.
   Democrats say that they aren’t satisfied with assurances from the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, the defence secretary, Robert Gates, and the joint chiefs of staff chairman, general Peter Pace, that there are no plans to attack Iran.
   President Bush has deployed two aircraft-carrier battle groups off Iran’s coast. He also frequently denounces Iran’s alleged supply of weapons to militias in Iraq, and he has issued orders to US troops there to hunt those Iranians who are causing trouble.
   Besides, there are persistent reports in the US media quoting senior administration sources that an attack on Iran is under consideration, both to inhibit Iran’s nuclear programme and to try to undermine its leaders.
   The Bush administration, however, describes these reports as speculative, pointing out that the State Department announced this week that the US will attend a regional conference on Iraq that will include representatives from Iran and Syria. Some observers see this as the reversal of the administration’s previous policy of not talking to either regime.
   Many Democrats, however, remain sceptical about the Bush administration’s commitment to solving its problems with Iran diplomatically.

The joint forces arrested on Saturday four relatives of former environment minister Tariqul Islam, an army storekeeper and another and seized 100 corrugated iron sheets of the relief fund from their offices and establishments in Jessore.
   The forces detained another suspected activist of the banned Islamist outfit Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh in Naogaon.
   In the drive against crimes and corruption, the forces arrested 1,450 people across the country in 24 hours till 6:00am on Saturday.
   In Dhaka, the forces seized two costly vehicles, Toyota and Prado, from the house of the detained city ward commissioner Chowdhury Alam at Khilgaon.
   In Jessore, the forces seized 102 pieces of iron sheets from the non-governmental organisation Astha, a library owned by Abdul Hasib, father-in-law of Tariqul Islam, and a house at Ghope in the town during a raid.
   Two Astha directors — Nazma Begum, along with her husband AK Sharfuddoula, and Parveen Rahman, along with her husband Abul Bashar — and an official, Sultan Mahmud, were arrested in connection with the incident.
   A case was filed against the five arrested and Tariqul Islam’s wife, Nargis Begum, who is also a director of the organisation.
   Monir Hossain, the army storekeeper, was also arrested as the forces seized iron sheets of the relief fund from his house at Ghope.
   The six were handed over to the Kotwali police and they were later sent to jail by a court in the afternoon.
   In Naogaon, the forces arrested suspected JMB activist Khairul Islam alias Montu Daktar at Baragachha of Raninagar. Sources in the forces said he was wanted in a number of cases, including murder and abduction.
   He was earlier arrested on June 8, 2004, but set free the same night for reasons unknown.
   In Moulvibazar, the district unit BNP finance secretary, Kamal Uddin, was detained by the forces after interrogation by the officials of Anti-Corruption Commission. He was handed over to the police in the evening.
   The police said Kamal Uddin earned a huge amount of money from business with government departments under the patronisation of the detained former BNP lawmaker Naser Rahman.
   He was involved in business mainly with the Water Development Board and the Roads and Highway Department, the police said.
   In Meherpur, the forces detained crime suspect Sheikh Sayeed, also a close aide to former BNP lawmaker Masud Arun, at the district BNP office. Sayeed had gone in hiding as the crackdown began.
   In Shariatpur, the forces seized two bombs, a hockey stick, two whips, two toy guns and cannabis from the house of one Jalil Dhali at Gosairhat early morning. Two family members, Monir Dhali and Jahangir Hossain Sardar, were arrested.
   In Lalmonirhat, the forces seized 150 more pieces of iron sheets from the house of BNP leader Amjad Hossain Pintu at Aditmari and from the house of Jatiyatabadi Muktijoddha Dal commander Mohsin Ali Tulu at Kaliganj. None of them were present during the raid.
   The forces also detained the Lalmonirhat municipal chairman, Mosharraf Hossain Rana, also president of the municipal unit BNP, and two ward members, Moktar Ali and Bhuttu, from the house of Rana at Saptana at noon. Rana reportedly misappropriated municipality funds.
   In Netrakona, the forces seized 73 iron sheets of the relief fund from the house of BNP leader Abul Mansur at Kendua and the business centre of another BNP leader, Nurul Islam, at Purbadhala Friday night.
   In Comilla, the anti-corruption officials, in association with the forces, confiscated valuables from the house of former BNP lawmaker Manjurul Ahsan Munshi at Debidwar.
   The valuables include 150 pieces of saris, 23 pieces of lungis, a fridge, two colour television sets, a sofa set and several air-conditioners.
   They also asked Manjurul’s uncle Abdur Rab Munsi and the imam of the local mosque, Emdadul Haq, to look after the two-storey house.
   Munshi, one of the 50 listed by the Anti-Corruption Commission suspected of having links with crimes, is now in jail.

The Bangladesh Rifles has handed over a list of the country’s 170 criminals on the run to the Indian Border Security Forces with a request to capture and hand them over to the Bangladeshi authorities.
   The BDR director general, Shakil Ahmed, gave the list to his Indian counterpart, AK Mitra, during a 6-day border conference between the two next-door neighbours that began at New Delhi on Monday.
   ‘We have given the list and requested them to nab the criminals and hand them over to us,’ Shakil told the media at Zia International Airport on his arrival from the Indian capital on Saturday.
   At the conference the two sides discussed a number of contentious issues and agreed to cooperate in reducing the border tension, holding regular flag meetings and combating cross-border crimes.
   The crucial meeting, which took place after an unusual gap of 17 months, was aimed at breaking fresh grounds against the backdrop of regular skirmishes along the Indo-Bangla border. The meeting had been postponed thrice before it was finally held.
   Although there is no extradition treaty between the two neighboring states, the BDR chief said that exchange of criminals could take place on the basis of goodwill and bilateral relations.
   He said that the BSF in the past also had given them a list of 76 terrorists, including some separatists.
   ‘On the basis of that list, we conducted investigations but did not find any Indian terrorist or their camp inside Bangladesh,’ he told the media.
   Shakil, however, said this time he asked his counterpart to submit a fresh list on basis of which Bangladesh would initiate a fresh drive. ‘If any Indian terrorist is hiding on our soil we will nab and hand them over to the Indian authorities,’ he declared.
   About the intention of their counterpart, the BDR chief said the BSF had assured them of trying their best to catch the Bangladeshi criminals and hand them over to the Bangladesh Police.
   Killing of unarmed Bangladeshi civilians by the BSF and Indian criminals, intrusion of the BSF and Indian nationals into Bangladesh’s territory, abduction of Bangladeshi nationals by them, and the BSF’s bids to push in Bangla-speaking Indians to Bangladesh were the issues that dominated the discussion.
   India’s move to fence its border with Bangladesh with barbed wire within the 150 yards from the no-man’s land and the BSF’s interception of Bangladesh’s development work were also discussed at the conference, BDR sources said.
   They said the conference was held in a cordial and friendly atmosphere despite the recently growing border tension following persistent killings of Bangladesh nationals by the BSF.

The Chittagong University on Saturday cancelled the Bachelor of Law and bachelor’s (pass course) certificates of 100 people, including a judge of the High Court, Justice Faisal Mahmud Fayezee, on charge of tampering with the result sheets.
   The Chittagong University Syndicate at a meeting with the vice-chancellor, M Badiul Alam, in the chair came up with the decision as per the recommendation of the five-member probe committee, headed by Dr Mohammed Shamsuddin.
   ‘Allegations were brought against 111 people accusing them of tampering with the mark certificates in the past 10 years,’ Helal Uddin Nizamee, a syndicate member, said adding that the certificates of 100 persons were cancelled in accordance with the recommendation of the probe committee.
   The meeting decided to issue letters immediately to the persons, whose certificates have been cancelled, and ask those who have already collected their certificates, to return the same, meeting sources said.
   The syndicate also decided to recommend the Anti-Corruption Commission to take proper steps against the persons responsible for the tampering.
   Two national dailies published reports on October 30, 2004, saying that Justice Faisal Mahmud Fayezee, who was then an additional judge of the High Court, had obtained his Bachelor of Law certificate through unfair means although he denied the allegations.
   According to the reports, Fayezee had tampered the mark certificate in Muslim Law examination he sat from the Chittagong Law College in 1989.
   The Bangladesh Bar Council, the statutory regulatory body for lawyers, on April 24, 2004 cancelled the advocateship licence of Fayezee on allegation that he had obtained the licence producing doctored LLB results and false date of birth.
   However, the High Court on May 7, 2005 stayed the operation of the Bar’s decision and issued a rule on the Bar asking it to explain within eight weeks why cancellation of the advocateship certificate of Justice Fayezee would not be declared illegal. The rule is yet to be disposed of.
   Justice Fayezee’s father, meanwhile, filed a contempt of court petition with the High Court on November 8, 2004 against the publishers, editors and reporters of the two dailies, and the High Court on March 21, 2005 convicted them of contempt of court.
   Amidst protests of the Supreme Court Bar Association, the chief justice, put him (Justice Fayezee) out of the bench on October 31, 2004 and he had been out of the bench for long time.
   He was, however, later allowed to perform judicial functions.
   His service as a judge of the High Court was confirmed by the president on August 22, 2006 reportedly ignoring the chief justice’s recommendations.
   The president’s decision led the bar association to go for agitation on the demand of cancellation of his appointment.

Two Bangladeshi schoolboys were shot dead by the Border Security Force of India on Maheshkhali border Saturday evening.
   The victims were identified as Mantu Halder, 15, son of Sonatan Halder and Bikash Halder, 14, son of Bijoy Halder of Malopara in Kushumpur border village.
   Parents of the victims said the BSF troops opened fire at Mantu and Bikash at about 7:30pm when they went to extreme border point to procure date juice from a tree.
   After the killing, the BSF troops took away the bodies.
   BDR officials confirmed the BSF firing but could not immediately confirm the death of the two boys.

The first meeting of the Executive Committee of National Economic Council ECNEC under the caretaker government on Saturday sent back three power project proposals involving Tk 1,077 crore for further review.
   ‘None of the three proposals, which were on the agenda was approved,’ the finance and planning adviser, AB Mirza Azizul Islam, told reporters after the meeting.
   ‘The project proposals were sent back for further examination as some irregularities like the length of implementation period, procedures to forward the project and estimated costs were detected there,’ Azizul briefed the journalists at the National Economic Council conference room.
   The ECNEC chairperson and chief adviser, Fakhruddin Ahmed, chaired the meeting attended by the advisers and the secretaries of different ministries.
   The last meeting of the ECNEC was held on October 16 last year while BNP-led government was in power.
   Some 15 projects, including three power projects, were tabled for approval at the meeting.
   A total of eight projects involving Tk 748 crore, including Tk 75.59 crore project aid, were approved at the meeting.
   The power projects which failed to get approval are — the Tk 210.2 crore rehabilitation and modernisation of units 1 and 2 of Ghorasal thermal power station (revised), Tk 180.2 crore rehabilitation of unit 3 of the Karnaphuli hydro power station (revised) and Tk 687 crore Chandpur 150 megawatt combined cycle power plant and its transmission line (revised).
   Power, energy and mineral resources ministry recommended approval of these projects considering the current power shortage situation in the country.
   ‘But the ECNEC meeting did not approve these projects due to some alleged irregularities there,’ an official of the power ministry who was present at the meeting told the news agency.
   Azizul Islam, however, said, ‘The power projects would be placed at the next ECNEC meeting to be held in one month after detail review’.
   Of the approved projects, two are refurbishment of fertiliser companies at a cost of Tk 371.7 crore.
   Renovation proposals for Zia Fertiliser Company Ltd at Tk 190.22 crore and Jamuna Fertiliser Company Ltd at Tk 181.48 crore were approved to keep up the productivity, the finance adviser said.
   The meeting also approved development of Paglapeer-Dalia-Teesta barrage road (Tk 32.33 crore), rehabilitation of water treatment plants at Mohora and Kalurghat (Tk 82.3 crore), infrastructure development for the Military Institute of Science and Technology (phase II) at the Mirpur cantonment (Tk 32.72 crore), infrastructure development of greater Rajshahi district at Tk 116.24 including Tk 75.59 crore project aid.
   Expansion of research and services of atomic treatment centres in Bogra, Barisal, Khulna and Mymensingh at the cost of Tk 45.53 crore and removing water-logging at Bhabodaha and adjacent water bodies were also approved at the meeting.

The Asiatic Society of Bangladesh has started the groundwork on a 10-volume new encyclopaedia — ‘Bangladesh: A Cultural Study’.
   The corpus of culture is expected to come out in January next year, Prof Serajul Islam, chief editor of the encyclopaedia, told the news agency on Thursday.
   Banglapedia, the first encyclopaedia on Bangladesh published in March 2003, has inspired the Asiatic Society to take the new venture.
   Prof Islam said like Banglapedia, the new encyclopaedia would also have both Bangla and English editions.
   The new encyclopaedia will have a special volume on art, culture, history, language and lifestyle of the people from small ethnic groups to remove misconceptions about them.
   A recent study by the news agency has found that entries on language, art, culture and lifestyle of indigenous people in Banglapedia are far from reality.
   Prof Islam admitted that there were some distortions of facts about the country’s ethnic minority groups.
   The special volume of ‘Bangladesh: A Cultural Study’ will be appended to the second edition to Banglapedia, Prof Islam said.

The education ministry on Saturday directed Dhaka University to submit the investigation report on award of first class marks to 52 master’s students of the department of political science and a report on the expenditure of the money collected from sales of application forms for honour’s admission test.
   ‘I received a letter of the education ministry which asked us to submit the university’s opinion on the expenditure of the earning from the sales of the first year [2006–07] admission forms and the investigation on the award of first class marks to 52 political science students in a session.’ Professor Sayed Abul Kalam Azad, the university treasurer, told New Age.
   Dhaka University earned about Tk 3 crore from the sales of 1,09,375 admission forms for the session.
   The admission committees were asked to deposit 25 per cent of the total earning from the admission form sales with the university fund.
   ‘But on which the larger portion of the money has been spent so far is not clear,’ he told the state-run news agency, Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha, adding the remaining 75 per cent of the earnings were meant for development works.
   The university earlier carried out an investigation on the award of first class marks to the students.
   ‘The ministry letter also asked us to apprise the government of the investigation’ Azad said.

Members of the police are still engaged in wrongdoings despite the ongoing clampdown on corruption.
   Policemen have been engaged in taking bribes from the people who come to seek justice or from the accused at different places and even in police station compounds while the army-led joint forces and special police vigilance teams continued their surveillance on such corruption suspects.
   The joint forces on Thursday arrested an assistant sub-inspector, Suruj Miah, when he was taking a bribe of Tk 6,000 from a man in Karnaphuli Jute Mill area in Chittagong.
   The same day the Sherpur police administration suspended ASI Abul Hasan of Nakla police station for allegedly taking Tk 10,000 from Abdul Hannan, a farmer, promising to release him from a certificate case for defaulting on agricultural loan.
   An on-duty police constable, Mohsin, was arrested for extorting Tk 6,000 from a rickshaw passenger near the parliament building on Wednesday night.
   On February 20, the joint forces detained a sub-inspector of Sadarghat police box, Fasiruddin, when he was taking Tk 1,000 in bribe from Yusuf Ali, a businessman, at Roy Saheb Bazar in Old Dhaka. The businessman alleged the SI had threatened to implicate him in a case if he did not pay the bribe.
   The same night, Anti-corruption Commission officials and the joint forces detained an ASI, Syed Moudud Hossain Rumi, of the Kanaighat police in Sylhet when he was taking Tk 10,000 from an expatriate Bangladeshi, Rupa Miah, in the name of dropping his name from the charge sheet of a case related to extortion.
   Although the officer-in-charge of the police station, Abdul Majid Bhuiyan, who allegedly had masterminded the graft, managed to avoid arrest, the authorities closed him to the police lines.
   On February 17, the administration closed an SI and three constables for allegedly exacting Tk 500 from two college students on the previous night, when they were on patrol duty on Sherpur-Jamalpur Road.
   An on-duty immigration officer, SI Motaleb Khan, was arrested for allegedly taking bribe from a Bangladeshi, Harun-or-Rashid, who was returning from Malaysia in the early hours on February 14.
   Earlier, the joint forces arrested the OC of Fatullah police, Ashraful Islam, and two SIs, Miraj Al Mahmud and Enamul Haque, on charge of taking Tk 15 lakh from two employees of Abul Khair Group on January 30.
   The police administration formed 100 special vigilance teams across the country to check such immoral activities by police personnel. The teams comprising 20 additional superintendents of police, 20 assistant SPs and 60 inspectors of the police security cell have already started their operations.
   The new inspector general of police, Noor Mohammad, on assuming the office on January 30 vowed to eradicate corruption from the police and asked its members to discharge their duties with utmost honesty and sincerity.
   The IGP also asked the police personnel to behave well with the people coming to police stations seeking help and to become friends of the people.
   Accordingly, the unofficial post of cashier at the police stations was dissolved. A havilder or a senior constable used to act as the cashier, whose job was to gather tolls and bribes from different crime and illegal business spots under the jurisdiction of a particular police station as well as criminals in exchange of letting them run their crime rackets unhindered.
   The police administration warned the OCs that stern actions would be taken if any cashier was found engaged at their police stations.
   The IGP, Noor Mohammad, said the police administration had taken a zero-tolerance stance on corruption in the police force.
   ‘It will take some time for all the policemen to get the message loud and clear and the police will certainly be free of corruption one day,’ the police chief said in an optimistic vein.
   An official at the police headquarters told New Age that the administration took actions against 1,122 police in January. Two of them were sent on forced retirement and five sacked. Major punishments were awarded to 46 police and minor ones to while 1,069, he added.

Twenty-six Indian nationals were pushed into Bangladesh by the Border Security
   Force of India through Mohanpur border under Dinajpur sadar upazila early Saturday.
   Sources in the Bangladesh Rifles said BSF troops of Kamdevpur camp in the first phase pushed in 17 Indian citizens at gunpoint through a river channel near a place opposite to the Mohanpur BDR outpost at about 2:00am.
   Later, the BSF troops of the same camp pushed in nine more Indian nationals through Mohanpur border, BDR sources said.
   Hearing cry of the victims, BDR personnel of the Mohanpur outpost went to the spot and detained all the pushed-in Indian nationals with the help of villagers.
   After providing food, clothes and medicines to the victims including children, the BDR pushed back 14 of them through the same border at about 4:00pm, the sources said.
   The victims told BDR that Indian police picked up a number of Bangla-speaking Indians from different slums in the capital city of Delhi a few days ago and later they were sent by trains with police guards to different BSF camps in West Bengal to push them into Bangladesh.
   When contacted, senior BDR officials regretted the push-in of the Indian nationals by the BSF saying this happened when the high-level BDR-BSF border conference is taking place in New Delhi.

Farmers in Barisal district are highly aggrieved facing an intensified and severe fertiliser supply shortfall in the current IRRI-Boro season that runs from January to March.
   Department of Agricultural Extension officials admitted the fertiliser crisis, which they warned would make it impossible for the IRRI-Boro production target for the district to be achieved this year.
   Meanwhile, agitated farmers in Mehendiganj, Hizla, Muladi, Agoiljhara, and Gournadi upazilas demonstrated against the situation holding a number of programmes including protest processions, siege of some government offices concerned, barricading roads and highways, and even assaulting some local agricultural officials.
   In the 10 upazilas of the district this year IRRI and Boro paddy have been cultivated on 56,737 hectares of land, for which at least 22,000 metric ton fertiliser is needed.
   But, only 2,908 metric ton fertiliser was supplied to the upazilas in January and February against the demand for 10,728 metric ton, marking a huge supply deficit of 7,820 metric ton.
   On top of that, the fertilisers needed for March are yet to reach the district, which now has a mere 278 metric ton buffer stock.
   GMS Alam, deputy director of the DAE and member sectary of the fertiliser and seed distribution monitoring cell, blamed insufficient supply by the Bangladesh Chemical Industries Corporation for the acute fertiliser crisis.
   The deputy commissioner of Barisal, Manjur Elahi, said they had faxed a letter on February 20 to the higher authorities concerned to immediately arrange for adequate supply of fertiliser on an emergency basis but they were yet to see any step in response to that appeal.
   On other hand, some farmers alleged the Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation at the moment had no control over the fertiliser market. It even had leased out its fertiliser warehouses to private dealers.
   They further said the BCIC was selling fertilisers directly from its factories to the authorised dealers and, in absence of any monitoring of the retail marketing, a situation had arisen that not only had put the farmers at peril but also increased smuggling and scope for creating artificial crisis in the market.

The US defence secretary, Robert Gates, sacked the civilian chief of the US Army Friday, saying he was ‘disappointed’ with the service’s defensive response to a scandal over the care of wounded troops at a top military hospital.
   Already under fire for surging more troops to Iraq, the White House announced it was forming a bipartisan presidential commission to review the care given wounded service members.
   The president, George W Bush, in comments prepared for a weekly Saturday radio address, said he was ‘deeply troubled by recent reports of substandard conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Centre.’
   Refusing to take questions, Gates made a brief statement to reporters announcing the resignation of army secretary Francis Harvey.
   ‘I have accepted his resignation,’ Gates said.
   It came a day after major general George Weightman was relieved of command of Walter Reed, which came 11 days after revelations in The Washington Post newspaper about poor outpatient care of wounded soldiers at the renowned hospital.
   In the stories, the Post exposed how convalescing soldiers were housed in rooms with mould-covered walls, holes in the ceiling and infestations of rodents and cockroaches.
   Once released as outpatients, they often became lost in a bewildering labyrinth of bureaucracy in a bid to get benefits to which they were due.
   Defence officials said Harvey was fired because of the army leadership’s failure to move more decisively to fix the problems.
   ‘I am disappointed that some in the army have not adequately appreciated the seriousness of the situation pertaining to outpatient care at Walter Reed,’ Gates said.

The Ahmadiyyas in the Khulna fear that they might be attacked by the people against their doctrines over putting up and dismantling of signs at a mosque of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat.
   Tension mounted among the Ahmadiyyas as they on Saturday morning dismantled a sign put up at the mosque at Nirala in the city by the Khatme Nabuwat Andolan Bangladesh on August 13, 2004.
   The sing the Khatme Nabuwat put up read: This is the place of worship of the Kadiyanis at Nirala, Khulna. No Muslim should think of it to be a mosque.
   The Ahmadiyyas said they had dismantled the Khatme Nabuwat sign at the gate of the mosque complex at about 10:00am and soon after the incident, a group of 50 to 60 men reached the place and threatened the Ahmadiyyas for dismantling the sign.
   The Ahmadiyyas informed the police of the incident at about 10:30am, said the police, who reached the place and tackled the situation.
   The Khulna police said no case had been lodged in this connection till evening and more policemen were deployed at the place to avert any untoward incident.
   The Khulna Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat amir, Muhammad Shamshur Rahman, told New Age that they feared they might be attacked.
   Around 4,000 Ahmadiyyas — about 500 each in Khulna and Bagerhat and about 3,000 in Satkhira — live in the region.

Bangladesh has established diplomatic ties with Montenegro, a small European country which became an independent state last year.
   The diplomatic relation between Bangladesh and Montenegro was formally announced at a ceremony at the Bangladesh’s permanent mission to the United Nations in New York on Friday, a foreign ministry media release said.
   ‘It is a significant step that will vastly enhance our bilateral trade and economic relations,’ the foreign affairs adviser, Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury, told the participants of the function, adding it was a part of the Bangladesh government’s policy to strengthen ties with all potential partners.
   Montenegro, a former Yugoslav country, has a population of about 630,000 with a territory of 13,812 sq km. It became independent based on the outcome of a referendum held on May 21, 2006 and formally announced its independence on June 3.
   Ambassador Nebojsa Kaludjerovic of Montenegro and Bangladesh’s acting permanent representative to the UN Muhammed Ali Sorcar signed the documents formally launching the diplomatic relations on behalf of their respective sides.
   Kaludjerovic praised Dhaka for the manner in which the decision was processed. ‘Montenegro is a new country and we greatly value Bangladesh’s friendship,’ he said.
   The council of advisers of the interim government recently approved the decision, the release added.
   Earlier on February 1, the foreign affairs adviser at a news briefing informed that Bangladesh was going to establish diplomatic relations with two other small European nations — the Republic of Macedonia and the Republic of San Marino.
   Macedonia is a landlocked country in the south-east Europe, with a 25,333 sq km territory and a population of only 600,000. Also a former Yugoslav country, it became independent in 1991.
   San Marino is the third smallest country in Europe and the fifth least-populated one in the world. Entirely surrounded by Italy, it claims to be the oldest republic in the world.

A delegation of the BNP will meet the chief election commissioner, ATM Shamsul Huda, today to discuss matters of the stalled general elections.
   The vice-chairman of the party, MK Anwar, will lead the four-member team at the talks — their first with the reconstituted Election Commission.
   The other members are BNP chairperson’s advisers M Mufazzal Karim and Enam Ahmad Chowdhury, and joint secretary general Nazrul Islam Khan, according to party sources.

The British Broadcasting Corporation has been stopped from broadcasting a story about a political funding scandal that has cast a shadow over the final months of the British prime minister, Tony Blair, the police said on Saturday.
   The injunction against the BBC on Friday followed a police request over concerns disclosure of ‘certain information at this stage would impede their enquiries’.
   Blair, who is set to step down this year after a decade in power, has been questioned twice as a witness by detectives investigating whether political parties awarded state honours in return for loans.
   Top government lawyer attorney general, Lord Peter Goldsmith, obtained the injunction following the police request.
   ‘The attorney general acted in this regard completely independent of government and his independent public interest capacity,’ the Metropolitan Police said in a joint statement with Goldsmith’s Office.
   The BBC had argued its reporting of the story was a matter of public interest.