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A total of 218 judicial magistrates, supported by 1,043 staff members and burdened with a backlog of about four lakh criminal cases, started functioning independently on Thursday in 64 districts and four metropolitan cities of the country.
   Bar associations in 64 districts celebrated the formation of judicial magistracy that heralded a new era in the country’s judicial system, ending decades of influence from the executive.
   In the capital, Dhaka Bar Association members welcomed the judicial magistrates, who started functioning in the courtrooms at the Dhaka District Judicial Magistracy, separated from their colleagues in the executive now attached to the Dhaka Metropolitan Magistracy.
   Chief adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed formally announced the separation and formation of two separate organs— Dhaka Judicial Magistracy and Dhaka Metropolitan Judicial Magistracy in a ceremony at the Bangladesh-China Friendship Conference Centre.
   Inaugural ceremonies were also arranged at the court premises of the 64 district judicial magistracies and other three metropolitan magistracies also.
   Six hundred and fifty-five posts of judicial magistrates have been created to meet the demands of the courts in district and metropolitan magistracies. Of them, 218 judicial magistrates have so far been appointed to take over more than four lakh criminal cases, which were pending with the courts of 635 magistrates across the country.
   According to the report submitted by the government to the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, 4,84,832 cases, as of February 28, were pending with the courts of magistrates across the country and at least 890 magistrates were required to deal with them.
   The judiciary became separate from the executive following the 12-point directive issued by the Appellate Division on December 2, 1999 in its landmark judgement in the government appeal against the High Court verdict in Masdar Hossain’s case, popularly known as the separation of judiciary case.
   All the subsequent governments delayed the implementation of the directives and took repeated extensions of the time since then.
   Although finally the judiciary became separate on Thursday, the government still faces two contempt of court proceedings drawn against 13 bureaucrats, including four top ones, for procrastination in implementing the directives and distorting its orders on the separation of judiciary.
   The full court of the Appellate Division will pass its order on the issues on November 15.
   In Dhaka courts, lawyers and litigants face new norms, as judicial magistrates started functioning.
   ‘We never wear gowns at magistrates’ courts before, but we do today,’ said lawyer Mohammad Selim.
   All benches of magistrates’ court were also covered with red garments.
   A total of 15-newly appointed judicial magistrates attended the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court and the District Judicial Magistracy in the capital. Of them, ten metropolitan magistrates, led by CMM AKM Enamul Haque, and five judicial magistrates, led by chief district judicial magistrate MA Sufian, worked at the both courts.
   Lawyers and justice seekers found some differences on the very first day.
   ‘I get justice for the first time in lower judiciary,’ a senior lawyer Shamima Akhter told New Age after coming out from the court of metropolitan magistrate Shawkat Ali Chowdhury.
   ‘We are surprised when the court granted our bail prayer in a theft case rejecting the prayer for a seven-day remand by police,’ she added.
   Asaduzzaman Dulal, another counsel for the detainee said, ‘Had the executive magistrates heard the case, they would place my client on remand.’
   Previously, magistrates used to hear cases based on police reports, but now the court hears petitions and original case records, he compared.
   ‘We earlier worked standing close to the dais, where magistrates heard petitions. But today we were not allowed there,’ police sub-inspector Ratan Sheikh, posted at CMM court, said adding that they were also asked to appear in court in uniform.
   The police also said that they have to queue in line with case records as only ten judicial magistrates were appointed against the 30 previous posts of metropolitan magistrates.
   Our Barisal correspondent reports, only 21 magistrates, appointed so far, started running judicial magistracy in the Barisal division to deal with 17,000 cases, which were being handled by 40 magistrates.
   Narayanganj correspondent adds, 9,868 pending cases were transferred to three judicial magistrates in the district.

The people of the Chittagong Hill Tracts have now got partial access to justice with judicial magistracy, which into force on Thursday, 36 years after the independence.
   Judicial magistrates began discharging their functions in the three hill districts — Khagrachari, Rangamati and Bandarban.
   Judicial officials, other government officials, lawyers, litigants and a cross-section of the people distributed sweetmeats on the court premises, which had remained unused for 15 years as no courts of law were there.
   The local people needed to trek all the way to Chittagong to lodge lawsuits and the divisional commissioner or additional divisional commissioner, being an official of the executive wing, dispenses judicial functions in the cases in accordance with the Chittagong Hill Tracts Regulation 1900.
   Considering the infringement on fundamental rights of the hill people to access to justice, the caretaker government in September 2001 for the first time initiated to set up district and sessions judge’s courts in the three hill districts.
   The administration prepared a draft of an ordinance for promulgation, making necessary amendments to the Chittagong Hill Tracts Regulation.
   The Chittagong Hill Tracts Regulation (Amendment) Act 2003 was enacted on September 21, 2003, making mandatory provisions for the establishment of civil and criminal courts (district and sessions’ judge courts) in the three districts. The amended law, however, is yet to come into force.
   The judicial officers informed the people at the inauguration of judicial magistracy in the three districts that the process of appointing some more judicial magistrates and establishment of district and sessions judge’s courts was going on.

Chief adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed has said separation of the judiciary from the executive, a constitutional obligation implemented 36 years after the country’s independence, is a milestone in establishing good governance and rule of law.
   He hoped that public servants would extend all out support for smooth operation of the independent judiciary.
   ‘I call upon all officials of the executive branch, besides those of the judiciary, to carry out their respective responsibilities in the changed situation with honesty, sincerity, patriotism and farsightedness,’ he said at a function Thursday that marked formal separation of the judiciary.
   The chief adviser inaugurated the two separate entities—Dhaka District Judicial Magistracy and Dhaka Metropolitan Magistracy— at the China-Bangladesh Friendship Conference Centre.
   Chief justice Ruhul Amin also addressed the function, attended by law adviser Mainul Hosein and acting law secretary Kazi Habibul Awal.
   Fakhruddin said separation is not enough to ensure justice. ‘It will require more reforms to three other pillars of the criminal justice system—police, courts and legal profession— to establish a just and better society’.
   He said that the Code of Criminal Procedure (Amendment) Ordinance, 2007 came into force on November 1 as per the decision of the Supreme Court, and consequently, two different types of magistracy—judicial and executive—came into being.
   The chief adviser said the judiciary had been given sufficient power to protect the fundamental rights of the people and uphold the supremacy of the constitution. ‘The judiciary will discharge its responsibilities according to the expectations of the people and “the words of justice must not go in vain,” he hoped.
   Advisers to the government, sitting and former judges of the Supreme Court, senior officials, lawyers, diplomats and the city elite were present.
   Justice Ruhul Amin asked all judicial magistrates to remain fully committed to delivering their responsibilities with utmost sincerity and dedications up to the expectations of the people.
   ‘You [judicial magistrates] are to justify the separation from the executive by your deeds,’ he mentioned.
   The chief justice said the nation had to wait for three decades and a half to see the separation of the judiciary from the executive as stipulated in Article 22 of the constitution drafted in 1972.
   Mainul said, ‘We have separated the judiciary from the interference of the executive not as a favour to the judges, but to assign them with even a bigger responsibility to uphold justice and contribute to good governance.’
   He said independence of the judiciary must also mean cleansing of the judiciary by judges themselves independently without intervention from outside.
   ‘It is only through personal integrity and good conscience judges can ensure people’s confidence in the judiciary,’ the law adviser added.

The chief justice, M Ruhul Amin, on Thursday asked all judicial magistrates to remain fully committed to discharging the assigned challenging task with utmost sincerity and dedications and live up to the expectation of the people.
   ‘The judicial magistrates, you are to establish justification of separation of magistracy from executive,’ he said delivering a statement at the inauguration of separation of the judiciary at Bangladesh-China Friendship Conference Centre.
   The chief justice said he had firm conviction the members of the judiciary shouldering the new responsibility would be able to magnify the image of the judiciary and restore public confidence through their hard task and dedicated service.
   ‘So far, I understand every member of the judiciary is under a public duty to administer justice in its trust sense at minimum time and cost,’ he told the function.
   The chief justice said the duty of the state did not end with enactment of some laws and establishment of some institutions.
   To make the law effective and justice delivery system functional, he hoped other organs of the state, including the executive, would play a supporting role for making the promise of justice a real one.
   The chief justice said since the making of the constitution on November 4, 1972 the entire nation had to wait for about 35 years to see the separation of the judiciary from the executive in view of the mandate enshrines in article 22 of the constitution.
   He admitted that it had been too late in fulfilling the constitutional obligation but said, ‘it is better late than never.’
   Following the separation of the judiciary, he said members of the judicial service would be exercising the magisterial power for handling criminal cases at district level.
   ‘The judicial functionaries wield judicial power which is actually not a power, but a pledge to wipe off tear caused by injustice.’
   The chief justice said he was aware of the problems and disadvantages with which the newly posted judicial magistrates would have to work during the transitional period.
   He said each organ of a state had its own set of duties. ‘But to my mind the end of all activities of each organ is to secure justice for the people.’

Political party leaders on Thursday welcomed the separation of the judiciary from the executive saying it met the constitutional obligation and it would benefit the people.
   The acting Awami League president, Zillur Rahman, appreciated the implementation of the judiciary separation, but he demanded that accountability of the judiciary should be ensured.
   ‘We appreciate the journey of the independent judiciary, but the accountability of the judiciary should be ensured,’ he said at a briefing after the party’s central working committee meeting at the party chief’s Dhanmondi office on Thursday.
   He said the Awami League government, led by Sheikh Hasina, had taken a number of measures to separate the judiciary and ensured the financial autonomy of the Supreme Court.
   Zillur also demanded immediate implementation of the verdict in the Mujib murder case by the execution of the death sentence to the killers.
   Both groups of the BNP welcomed the separation, claiming that the party had begun the separation process and the interim administration finished the task.
   The party chief’s adviser, ASM Hannan Shah, on Thursday said, ‘We are happy that the judiciary has been separated. The government should be thanked for completing the process initiated by the BNP government.’
   He said the BNP had initiated to separate the judiciary in 1991. ‘The BNP implemented eight points of the 12-point directive issued by the Supreme Court in 1999 and the Awami League implemented only one point,’ he said.
   M Hafizuddin Ahmed, who was made acting secretary general at the October 29 meeting, on Thursday welcomed the move. ‘More than six lakh cases are still pending with courts.’
   The Workers Party president, Rashed Khan Menon, said it was a long-cherished expectation of the people, but the judiciary could not be separated for bureaucratic tangles and the authorities of the executives.
   ‘It has become possible following the Supreme Court directive and initiative of the caretaker government,’ he said.
   Menon observed that the independence of the judiciary had not yet been ensured and people would get benefit only if the judiciary could overcome ‘the disrepute of corruption and nepotism.’
   The Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal president, Hasanul Huq Inum said the separation of the judiciary was a constitutional mandate and no debate on it was warranted.

Development expenditure under revenue budget has been capped at Tk 10 crore for a single project which will run for three years, the finance ministry said in its latest directive as part of its belt-tightening measures amid concerns about growth slowdown.
   The directive, issued to all government ministries and divisions recently, has scrapped purchase of vehicles, maintenance cost and manpower recruitment under any revenue project.
   The objective of the ministry order is to lessen pressure on the revenue budget and restore fiscal discipline in the public procurement process, officials said.
   ‘The current economic situation does not allow any undue expenditure under the development projects of revenue budget,’ a high official in the finance ministry told New Age.
   Project approval process under the same head would be made more difficult in future, he said.
   ‘We had to take some austerity measures as the government’s expenditure is on the increase mainly due to enhanced prices of food grains in the international markets,’ the official said, explaining the government’s immediate priorities.
   The current budget has kept aside Tk 309 crore in block allocation for development projects under the revenue budget. These projects are approved by the finance ministry, instead of the Executive Committee on National Economic Council, sources said.
   Lax regulations on spending of development fund or absence of a ceiling and timeframe for development expenditure for a project under the revenue budget resulted in misuse of fund in many cases in the past. Many projects continued even for a decade, finance officials said.
   The new directive said a project could continue for one more year after the three-year period ends, but there will be no allocation for the additional time.
   Spending on car rentals and job outsourcing could be allowed in special cases, added the ministry order.
   Jhatka (hilsa fry) conservation, and seed production, preservation and distribution are some of the development projects currently being implemented by various ministries under the revenue budget, sources said.
   According to the order, proposal for a development project by any ministry must be approved by an inter-ministerial meeting, chaired by an additional secretary of the finance ministry, before it is placed for the finance adviser’s consent.

Mufti Mohammad Hannan, leader of the banned Islamist outfit Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami, on Thursday made a confession in the court of the chief metropolitan magistrate in connection with the grenade attack on an Awami League rally on Bangabandhu Avenue in Dhaka on August 21, 2004.
   His associate, Sharif Saidul Alam Bipul, was making a confession in the same court till 11:00pm. Mufti’s brother, Muhibullah, was the next to make a confession.
   The Criminal Investigation Department, assigned to investigate the case, produced the three in the court of additional chief metropolitan magistrate Sultan Mahmud.
   The three along with another militant, Maulana Abu Sayeed, were remanded in custody for 10 days on October 23 and Thursday was their ninth day in custody.
   Based on their statements, the Rapid Action Battalion arrested nine of their associates at Narsingdi, Kushtia, Jhenaidah and Magura on October 29 in possession of 16 grenades, similar to those used in the August 21, 2004 attack, explosives, firearms and other materials.
   The details of the confession could not be known, but the battalion said more than 10 militants took part in the attack on the Awami League rally and the attack was planned two days before the incident in a house at Madhya Badda in Dhaka.

The education ministry on Thursday directed the authorities concerned to transfer the teachers of government secondary schools working with the same institution for more than five consecutive years.
   Signed by a deputy-secretary the directive asked the Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education to implement the transfer of such teachers and inform the ministry as early as possible, it said. .
   ‘The decision came on a directive recently issued by the Chief Adviser’s Office in this regard,’ he said. ‘We received a similar directive from the chief adviser early June which asked for the transfer of government teachers working with the same institution for more than 10 years.’
   The government rules required to have transfer after maximum three years in a place.
   The ministry official said, ‘Such transfers will discourage the teachers from spending more time on private tuition and coaching centres.’
   ‘There are 317 government secondary schools across the country employing more than 8,000 teachers and most of the teachers are allegedly involved in private tuition and with coaching centres,’ he said.
   An education directorate official on Thursday told New Age, ‘The transfer of school and college teachers solely depends on the education ministry officials, although we officially are designated to do the jobs.’
   ‘We earlier prepared a list of the teachers who have been working with the same institution for more than 10 years on a directive of the ministry. We have failed to make the transfers, mostly in the case of teachers of metropolitan cities including Dhaka because of lobbying,’ he said.

The Awami League on Thursday finalised a set of electoral reforms proposals, including keeping Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh out of the election process, to be placed at the dialogue with the Elections Commission scheduled for November 4.
   The central working committee of the party at a meeting, which was adjourned earlier, at the party chief’s Dhanmondi office reviewed the draft proposals prepared by the 21-member committee on EC talks and approved it for placement before the commission.
   ‘We discussed the draft proposals prepared by the 21-member committee and approved it unanimously,’ the acting party president, Zillur Rahman, told reporters after the meeting.
   He said the Awami League decided to support some of the commission’s proposals and to place some alternative proposals on some other issues.
   ‘The meeting condemned the audacious statements of the Jamaat leaders regarding the independence war and demanded legal action against the leaders who made the statements,’ Zillur said, adding that his party would urge the commission not to allow Jamaat either to be registered or to contest the polls.
   He said the proposals were prepared based on the 31-point proposals earlier announced by the alliance led by the Awami League.
   He said the party had adopted some resolutions such as demands for immediate lifting of ban on politics, unconditional release of the party president, Sheikh Hasina, general secretary Abdul Jalil and other leaders, withdrawal of the case and the warrants for arrest for Sheikh Rehana, arrest of abnormal increase in the prices of essential commodities, and ensuring adequate supply of fertiliser.
   Sources attending the meeting said the proposals would support the judicial powers for the commission to punish anybody for the violation of the electoral laws, appointment of the chief and other election commissioners in consultation with major political parties, making the EC Secretariat independent with financial independence and necessary amendments to the Representation of People Order 1972 instead of the introduction of a new order to replace it.
   The Awami League proposals are aimed at enlistment of homeless people and non-resident Bangladeshis as voters, no citizenship for stranded Pakistanis and Rohingya refugees living in shelters, publication of voters’ roll in all constituencies at least 10 days before the announcement of the election schedule, and not allowing the officials of non-government financial or commercial organisations to be election officials.
   The party also agreed to the commission’s proposal for Tk 5 lakh to be required as deposit for each constituency if a candidate runs for constituencies more than one, and suggested that the money deposited with the commission by candidates should not be refunded if any candidate fails to win one-fifth of the votes cast in a constituency.
   The proposal, however, termed unrealistic the commission’s proposals for having one-third positions of the party committees to be represented by women and for scrapping the traditional allotment of electoral symbols for party candidates. The proposal also demanded that transparent ballot boxes should be used.
   The Awami League will propose that it should be allowed to print the photograph of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the party chief and the candidate in its campaign posters.
   The part rejected the commission’s proposal for a ban on the use of mobile during election days or during election campaigns, the sources said.
   The sources said presidium member Sajeda Chowdhury had asked the committee about the reason for increasing the number of members on the committee on draft proposals to 21 from the earlier announced 16.
   ‘Sajeda Chowdhury wanted to know the reason behind the formation of a committee of 21 members, but Zillur Rahman and Tofail Ahmed, who is the committee convener, said it needed to be done in the present situation,’ a senior leader said.
   Another leader said Abdul Latif Siddique wanted to withdraw his name from the committee following questions raised by some leaders, but Zillur pacified him.

The group led by Delwar in the BNP has dismissed the unity move by Saifur Rahman and Hafizudin Ahmed and labelled it as part of a conspiracy.
   The party’s secretary general Khandaker Delwar Hossain declined to talk with M Hafizuddin Ahmed, who was made acting secretary general at the October 29 meeting, Wednesday night when Hafiz visited him at BIRDEM Hospital.
   Delwar’s daughter Luna Khandaker told New Age Hafiz had reached the cabin when Delwar was asleep. ‘As he [Hafiz] entered the cabin, Abbu [Delwar] woke up and requested him to leave the place. He [Hafiz] then went out.’
   ‘Nobody on earth will believe the people who are against unity will initiate moves for unity. It is a part of a conspiracy against the BNP and the chairperson, Khaleda Zia,’ said the party chief’s adviser ASM Hannan Shah on Thursday.
   ‘Saifur Rahman gave me a call Wednesday afternoon and requested me to get involved in the move for unification of the party leaders and activists and in the drama that began after October 29 midnight. I humbly rejected the request. I told him he should not have done what he did. I do not know under what circumstances he did it,’ Hannan said at his house at the DOHS.
   ‘It is in no way a process for unity. It is rather an extension of the conspiracy,’ he said.
   Hannan asked newsmen to name the people who, along with the seven BNP leaders, attended the meeting at Saifur Rahman’s house on October 29. ‘It will establish if the leaders attended the meeting willingly.’
   ‘If the leaders went there willingly, we would have nothing to say about it. Is it not surprising that suddenly they have become so caring for the party? There have been no discussions about party meetings since the arrest of Khaleda Zia,’ Hannan said.
   ‘When the Election Commission said it would invite the man who would remain the secretary general at the time of the issuance of the invitation letter, the conspirators became active and within 24 hours of the commission’s statement they staged the drama,’ he said.
   M Hafizuddin Ahmed at a briefing in his house at Banani, meanwhile, claimed they were undoubtedly loyal to Khaleda Zia.
   ‘I want to say that Khaleda Zia is the leader of the BNP. As she is now in behind bars, Saifur Rahman is leading the party. All will go by her decision as soon as she is released,’ he said.
   Hafiz claimed there was no division in the party. He said he and the standing committee members were contacting the leaders opposed to them. He said a discussion would also be held with the chairperson’s adviser Jamiruddin Sircar, also the speaker of Jatiya Sangsad.
   Hafiz lauded the chief adviser’s remark regarding the trial of war criminals. He said he personally did not like the anti-liberation elements, but would abide by the party decision.
   The New Age correspondent in Barisal said more than 20 prominent figures of Barisal district and city units of the BNP and its fronts in a statement opposed the decisions made at the October 29 meeting and expressed their allegiance to Khandaker Delwar Hossain.
   The district unit president in-charge, AHM Saleh, district unit secretary and district unit Juba Dal president Nazrul Islam Rajon, city unit president Mahmud Golam Salek, city unit secretary Asaduzzaman Khasru, former lawmaker Bilkis Aktar Shirin, district unit secretary Shana Saleh, district Mahila Dal secretary Shamima Akbar, central Jubal Dal leaders Mahbubul Alam Nannu and Aktaruzzaman, district Juba Dal vice-president Khaza Md Iqbal, and district JCD president in-charge Hafiz Ahmed Bablu were among the signatories to the statement.

The group led by Delwar in the BNP expects to be invited by the Election Commission to the dialogue on electoral reforms and said it would resort to legal steps if the commission invites others as the BNP.
   The party chairperson’s adviser ASM Hannan Shah on Thursday said they believed the Election Commission would send the invitation to the secretary general Khandaker Delwar Hossain.
   ‘In a follow-up on our latest letter to the commission, we will send another letter to commission informing it of the present situation in the party. A party delegation will soon meet the chief election commissioner,’ he said.
   If the Election Commission does not respond to their letter, they will seek legal recourse after discussion with lawyers, said a senior leader, adding they were busy drafting a letter as a counter measure to the letter sent to the commission on Wednesday by standing committee member Mahbubur Rahman and others.
   ‘We will take whatever measure is needed to establish our rights,’ said Hannan.
   The Election Commission is now in a fix as to which group in the BNP should be invited to the talks, sources in the commission said. The dialogue between the BNP and commission is scheduled for November 22.
   The commission discussed a proposal to send the invitation letter to the party office addressed to the secretary general without mentioning the name after taking measures to have the office at Naya Paltan opened.
   But the commission is also in a dilemma on the proposal as it sent all other such letters mentioning the secretary general’s name through the commission’s messenger.
   As the commission has been vocal for in-party democratisation, some inside the commission prefer to consider taking cognisance of the October 29 meeting held at Saifur Rahman’s house as there had been no council for 13 years and the highest body hardly meets.
   Commission sources said it would make the final decision in this regard on November 4 as the election commissioners would leave on overseas tour on November 5. The letter will be sent on November 7, the sources said.
   M Hafizuddin Ahmed, who was made acting secretary general at the October 29 meeting, on Thursday expected they would receive the commission’s invitation.
   ‘Saifur Rahman has sent a letter to commission informing it of the changes effected in the party on October 29 and we hope the commission would invite us,’ he said.

Former BNP law minister Moudud Ahmed on Thursday filed a contempt of court lawsuit against former NBR chairman Badiur Rahman and three colleagues for refusing to receive tax on his undeclared money.
   The case was filed with the High Court bench of Justice Abdur Rashid and Justice Miftahuddin.
   Three other accused are the former director general of the intelligence cell of the National Board of Revenue, Mostak Hossain, and other officials Shamima Akter and Touhidul Munir.
   The High Court on August 15 asked the NBR to receive tax on Tk 3.84 crore in undeclared income from Moudud.
   In line with the court order, Moudud sent a letter to the revenue board on August 28 to take the money, but the NBR refused in a letter sent on September 26.
   A lawyer for Moudud, now in jail, filed the case as the former minister said the NBR violated the High Court order by not receiving tax from him.

A suicide bomber rammed a motorbike into Pakistani air force bus Thursday, killing eight personnel, while troops killed up to 70 Islamic militants in a northwestern region, officials said.
   The violence intensified the pressure on key US ally president Pervez Musharraf as he seeks to extend his eight-year military rule in the face of mounting political turmoil and Islamist bloodshed.
   The suicide attack in the central city of Sargodha was the latest in a series that have targeted the military since government forces launched a bloody raid on the al-Qaeda-linked Red Mosque in Islamabad in July.
   Interior ministry spokesman brigadier Javed Cheema said eight air force officers were killed in the blast near a major base and around 40 people wounded. Security officials said one of the dead was a squadron leader.
   ‘It was a suicide attack and the target was the bus which was carrying the air force officials,’ chief military spokesman major general Waheed Arshad said.
   The police found the bomber’s severed head while other pieces of his body were stuck to the exterior of the mangled bus at the site of the attack in central Punjab province, witnesses said.
   On Tuesday, a suicide attack near general Musharraf’s army office in the garrison city of Rawalpindi killed seven people, and police said it was linked to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network and the Taliban.
   Musharraf, who seized power in a coup in 1999, has used his controversial military role to push ahead with a US-backed campaign against Islamic militants in the lawless tribal regions bordering Afghanistan.
   The unrest in the tribal belt has spilled over into the former tourist area of Swat Valley in northwestern Pakistan, where followers loyal to a pro-Taliban cleric have been fighting security forces for the past week.
   Fresh clashes broke out after a ceasefire collapsed in the region on Wednesday, and the army said that security forces had killed dozens of militants in the past two days.
   ‘Police and Frontier Constabulary sources have confirmed death of 60 to 70 miscreants,’ an army statement said. On Wednesday night officials gave a death toll of 20.
   Top military spokesman major general Waheed Arshad said that the latest round of fighting began at 4:30am when the rebels attacked the checkpoint and law enforcement personnel responded with mortar and small arms fire.
   ‘It is going on and helicopters are still engaged by law enforcing agencies,’ he said.
   Pakistan moved 2,500 troops into Swat last week to counter radical cleric Maulana Fazlullah, who is also known as ‘Mullah Radio’ for his speeches on his private radio station, in which he calls for a holy war on the authorities.
   A day after the deployment, 30 people were killed in a bomb attack on a paramilitary vehicle in the region.

Former Pakistani premier Benazir Bhutto arrived in Dubai on a surprise trip on Thursday, after earlier cancelling her planned departure from Pakistan because of rumours of an impending state of emergency.
   A Dubai airport official said Benazir, who plans to see her family in the wealthy Gulf emirate, left the airport immediately after landing.
   Benazir returned from Dubai to Pakistan from eight years in self-exile just two weeks ago, on October 18. Hours later, her homecoming parade in the southern city of Karachi was targeted by a suicide bombing that killed 139 people.
   ‘I am going to Dubai to see my children and ailing mother,’ Benazir was quoted as telling members of her Pakistan People’s Party at Karachi airport by senior party official Agha Siraj Durrani.
   ‘I will return to Pakistan on November 8,’ ahead of a public meeting she is due to address in the garrison city of Rawalpindi the following day, Durrani quoted her as saying.
   Benazir’s move came less than a day after she abruptly cancelled a trip to the Gulf emirate, citing speculation that the president, Pervez Musharraf, could declare a state of emergency in troubled Pakistan.
   Benazir said on Wednesday she had decided to postpone her visit ‘due to rumours of the possible imposition of an emergency in view of the pending cases before the Supreme Court about general Musharraf’s elections.’
   The court is hearing appeals against Musharraf’s victory in an October 6 presidential election. It has ruled that the official result cannot be declared until it rules whether the vote was legal.
   Musharraf, a key US ally who seized power in a bloodless coup in 1999, had pledged to step down as army chief by November 15 if he won the election, but has not said what he would do if the court overturns his victory.
   The court had been expected to rule by the end of this week but it said on Thursday that it was unlikely to do so before November 12 – adding that it would not be cowed by ministerial hints of emergency action.
   ‘This bench cannot be influenced by such threats, whether they are of martial law or emergency. Do not take statements of ministers seriously,’ presiding judge Javed Iqbal said.
   A state of emergency would shatter a proposed power-sharing deal between Benazir and Musharraf, which has been pushed by the United States and Britain ahead of general elections due in mid-January.

Power Division has asked electricity agencies to submit within 10 days their detailed plans to expand and upgrade the shabby transmission and distribution networks to handle the pressure from additional generation expected from 2008.
   The division at a meeting, chaired by secretary M Fouzul Kabir Khan, Thursday observed that the existing transmission and distribution networks in the country could reliably supply 3600-3800MW, while the country’s power generation is set to exceed 4500MW by 2008.
   Fouzul asked the power agencies to take steps to increase their transmission and distribution capacities so that consumers get the benefit of increased generation, said power officials who attended the meeting.
   Power distribution and transmission agencies including DESA, DESCO, PDB, REB, PGCB and West Zone Power Distribution Company have been told to submit their elaborate expansion plans by 10 days.
   The agencies will have to give an idea of what additional volume of electricity they would be able to transmit and distribute next year, and what would be the costs involved.
   The power secretary said that the government would approve any project on expansion of transmission and distribution networks as soon as possible, officials said.
   The meeting was told that global lenders like the Asian Development Bank would also provide necessary fund if any transmission project was taken to match the generation projects.
   Despite having sufficient electricity generation for sometime now, some areas in the capital and many parts of the country faced load-shedding in recent days because of age-old transmission and distribution lines and sub-stations, the meeting noted.
   ‘Some of the transmission lines and sub-stations are over 40-year old and they hamper smooth supply of power, resulting in load-shedding,’ said an official.
   The meeting formed a committee, headed by a PDB official and comprised of officials of all power agencies, to make recommendations on what steps the agencies should take to tackle existing load-shedding resulted from network problems.

The Jatiya Party (Ershad) on Thursday asked the Election Commission not to register political parties based on religion and stop people convicted as war criminals from running in elections.
   The party at the dialogue with Election Commission on electoral laws reforms also urged the commission not to register any political parties involved in terrorism and religious extremism.
   Referring to the demands of political parties for barring anti-liberation forces and war criminals from running in elections, the chief election commissioner, ATM Shamsul Huda, said, ‘These are political issues. We have nothing to do with them.’
   The commission’s meeting with the party was the ninth in a series of dialogues with political parties before finalising the draft of proposals on electoral reforms. The commission sits next with the Bangladesh Awami League on November 4.
   ‘According to Section 20 of the Special Powers Act and Article 38 of the constitution, there is no scope for politics based on religion. So such political parties should be barred from being registered with the commission for contesting in polls,’ the party’s acting chairperson Anisul Islam Mahmud said at the dialogue.
   He said there were war criminals, but unfortunately they had not been tried. ‘If they [war criminals] are identified and convicted, the commission should stop them from contesting in polls,’ he said.
   Asked why the Jatiya Party is talking against politics based on religion as the party, when it was in power, amended the constitution to make Islam the state religion, Mahmud said the declaration of Islam as the state religion and doing politics based on religion was not the same.
   Mahmud led the 15-member Jatiya Party delegation to the dialogue. The meeting was chaired by the chief election commissioner, ATM Shamsul Huda. Election commissioners Muhammed Sohul Hussain and M Sakhawat Hussain attended.
   JP presidium member GM Qader placed a set of proposals to stop the use of muscle and illegal money to influence the elections.
   He also proposed that the ceiling of election expenditure for each candidate should be kept within Tk 5 lakh and that the electoral rules should be properly implemented.
   The party opposed the introduction of transparent ballot boxes and supported continuation of the traditional steel boxes.
   As for condition for party registration which stipulates that at least 33 per cent of the party office-bearers should be women, the Jatiya Party suggested all the committees should have women to occupy at least 5 per cent of the positions. They also suggested that 5 per cent of the general seats should be reserved for women by any political party.
   The party suggested that the commission should drop its proposal for the inclusion of a provision of ‘no vote’ on ballot paper to express voter’s lack of confidence in the contesting candidate in a constituency.
   The party supported the commission proposal for disbanding the student fronts and expatriate units of the parties.

The Election Commission has been preparing a draft law outlining the criteria for appointment of future election commissioners. The law will stipulate a three-member EC, and the appointment of a woman as one of the commissioners.
   According to the draft, a special parliamentary committee will prepare a list from where the president will choose the commissioners.
   The chief election commissioner, ATM Shamsul Huda, on Thursday revealed the drafting of the new law while talking about a proposal of the Jatiya Party on appointment all the members of constitutional bodies including the Election Commission.
   The JP said that in accordance with the constitution there should be specific laws for appointment of suitable persons to the constitutional bodies. It suggested that a parliamentary special committee should prepare a list of eligible persons and arrange an open hearing on the list at the parliament.
   The CEC expressed his agreement with the proposal. He had earlier observed that if the law comes into effect, the successive governments would not be able to appoint any partisan individuals as commissioners at their sweet will because the persons would have to fulfil certain criteria for being appointed.
   There is a provision in the constitution allowing enactment of laws under which the president will appoint the CEC and other election commissioners. But no such law has been enacted as yet, probably because the elected governments wanted to appoint people faithful to them as election commissioners.
   Article 118 of the constitution says: ‘(1) There shall be an Election Commission for Bangladesh consisting of a chief election commissioner and such number of other election commissioners, if any, as the president may from time to time direct, and the appointment of the chief election commissioner and other election commissioners (if any) shall, subject to the provisions of any law made in that behalf, be made by the president.’
   Due to the absence of any law specifying the qualities and qualifications needed for persons to be eligible for becoming election commissioners, all the governments appointed election commissioners of their choice through the compliant presidents.

Leaders of left-leaning parties and a group of eminent citizens, in a statement on Thursday, protested against the World Bank president Robert Zoellick’s scheduled visit to Bangladesh, which will begin tomorrow.
   Terming the lending agency’s activities ‘imperialist’ and detrimental to the interests of the Bangladeshi people, they said the WB chief’s arrival was unwanted and demanded cancellation of the visit.
   ‘The lives and livelihoods of the people of Bangladesh and elsewhere are now at stake as a result of the so-called free market economy policy prescribed by the World Bank,’ they said in a resolution taken after a meeting on Green Road.
   Presided over by the president of the Jatiya Mukti Council, Badruddin Omar, the meeting was also attended by Mujahidul Islam Selim of the Communist Party of Bangladesh, Bimal Biswas of the Workers Party of Bangladesh, Khaliquzzaman of Bangladesher Samajtantrik Dal, retired judge Mohammad Golam Rabbani, Sheikh Muhammad Shahidullah, Akbar Hossain and Salimullah Khan.
   They criticised the World Bank for ‘ruining’ Bangladesh’s jute, sugar and farming industries and also the banking sector by prescribing various programmes that were contrary to the public interest.
   They also blamed the successive governments of Bangladesh for implementing such programmes.
   The leaders and citizens further demanded an investigation into the impacts of the policies of the World Bank and other financial institutions, publication of a white paper on the findings of the investigation as well as compensation for causing damage to the economy and suffering to the masses.

Though cyber crimes are gradually increasing in the country, Bangladesh is yet to develop any means to combat these offences that are committed by using sophisticated apparatus.
   Cyber crime is still a new phenomenon to the country’s law-enforcers who do not even know how to detect those crimes, much less tackle them, said sources in the police.
   They said Bangladesh should develop its capacity to tackle cyber crimes and technology-related crimes since they are on the rise. Current trends indicate that such crimes will become a significant issue in the southern and south-eastern regions of Asia.
   According to police, crimes like forgery of ATM and credit cards, counterfeiting of currency or money laundering through the internet, threats through email, computer intrusion and hacking and child pornography have already been committed in Bangladesh.
   Against this backdrop, the police department will organise a three-day regional conference on cyber crime in Dhaka from November 5 in which delegates from Sri Lanka, Nepal, Australia and Hong Kong will participate.
   ‘Although cyber crime has not grown to alarming proportions in the country, we are organising the event in advance to learn various aspects of cyber crime and get ready to tackle it,’ said NBK Tripura, additional inspector-general of police.
   Tripura, who is also the national director of the police reforms project, said a cyber crime unit will be created in the Criminal Investigation Department to deal with such offences.
   ‘The conference will be an opportunity to familiarise ourselves with cyber crime, discuss effective responses to it and enact the necessary legislation to contain it,’ he told New Age on Wednesday.
   He said the conference would foster regional cooperation and networking in combating cyber crime and would allow national agencies, operating within the region, to exchange ideas and the lessons learnt so far.
   A UNDP expert said that right now Bangladesh needs to determine two things — one is the capacity of the law enforcers and the other is what type of cyber offences are taking place.
   ‘The fact is that you don’t have enough information about it,’ said the expert, who is working for the police reforms programme.
   Although there are no major problems in the current situation, the law enforcers must be trained and equipped properly to tackle such crimes in the future, he said.
   Tripura said that highly trained young officers would man the planned cyber crime unit.
   ‘We have three officers who were sent to Cambridge and London for acquiring the required knowledge in this regard,’ he said, saying that cyber crime is a global issue which a country cannot combat alone.
   Some senior police officers said many countries, including Interpol, the international police organisation are ready to help Bangladesh to deal with cyber crime, but the country cannot take advantage of the opportunity due to lack of capacity.

The Rapid Action Battalion on Thursday night detained Yaba peddler Nikita’s sister Pushpita and her industrialist husband MHN Bulu, but released them after a couple of hours as the team failed to establish their involvement in the trade in Yaba.
   The team interrogated face-to-face Pushpita and Amin Huda, arrested earlier for his involvement in the manufacturing of ice-pills and trading in Yaba tablets at Gulshan on October 25, but Amin said she was not involved in Yaba peddling and he saw her for the first time.
   The battalion said one of its teams raided the house of MHN Bulu, also a director of private satellite television channel Boishakhi, near Circle 2 at Gulshan at around 11:00pm on Wednesday.
   The team members searched all the rooms of the house and interrogated at least 10 people, including the caretaker and security guards of the house, till 5:00am, but they did not find anything illegal there.
   They later took Pushpita and Bulu into their custody.
   The battalion also found a certificate of marriage of Pushpita with Bulu on March 26, 2007 and a photograph of Nikita there.
   The battalion interrogated them about Yaba trading and the whereabouts Nikita. During the interrogation, they pleaded innocent, saying they did not know the whereabouts of Nikita.
   RAB 3 commanding officer Sultan Mohammad Khan Nurani at a briefing at the RAB 3 office said they were yet to establish any involvement of Pushpita and Bulu in Yaba peddling.
   ‘We have interrogated Pushpita and Amin Huda, but Amin has confirmed that she is innocent and we have released them,’ he said.
   Amin and his associate Ahsanul Huq Hasan, who was also arrested on October 25, were taken the RAB-3 office for a face-to-face interrogation with Pushpita in the evening after they had been remanded in custody for three days on Thursday.
   ‘We are now examining some documents, seized from a house of an influential person on Thursday,’ Sultan said.
   He said they would come to know some bits of information on Yaba peddling after examining the computer seized from the house of Mahbubur Rahman Joynal, managing director of the Hotel Purbani, at Dhanmondi.
   ‘Several battalion teams are now conducting raids on different city areas to arrest Nikita and Joynal,’ he said. ‘We suspect Joynal was also involved in the smuggling of gold
   ornaments and diamonds
   as a huge quantity of gold and diamonds worth about Tk 8 crore were seized from his house.
   As part of the drive against Yaba peddlers, a battalion team in a overnight raid on Monday seized foreign and local currencies, gold ornaments, diamonds, four firearms several hundreds bullets and foreign liquor from the house of Mahbubur Rahman Joynal.

Pakistan’s Supreme Court will reconvene a hearing on Friday on whether president Pervez Musharraf’s re-election early October was valid, but has scheduled the following session for November 12, three day’s before his current term expires.
   Pakistan has been awash with rumours, fuelled by comments from government ministers, that Musharraf could invoke emergency powers, or martial law and put off a national election due in January if the court decided that he was not eligible to be president because he was re-elected while still army chief.
   ‘This bench will not be intimidated by any threats,’ Justice Javed Iqbal said, after anti-government lawyers’ noted the warnings issued by some ministers.
   ‘Nobody should think that the court has been taken hostage. Everything will happen according to the law and the constitution,’ said Iqbal, who heads the 11-member bench.
   Musharraf, who came to power in a coup eight years ago and easily won a re-election vote in parliament on October 6, can remain president after his term expires if no successor is sworn in, according to constitutional experts.
   The case was dragged out by a lengthy adjournment during Ramadan, the Muslim fasting month, and the latest adjournment allows one of the judges, Justice Raja Fayyaz, to go on leave for his son’s wedding.
   Musharraf has promised he will quit the army if he gets a second term, and he is committed to holding elections that will mark a transition to civilian-led democracy.
   He allowed opposition leader, former prime minister Benazir Bhutto to return from exile without fear of being prosecuted for old corruption charges that she says were politically motivated.

At least 887 Iraqis were killed in Iraq in October,
   ministry data showed on Thursday, slightly higher than September which saw a total of 840 people killed across the nation.
   Data from Iraq’s interior, defen-ce and health ministries showed that 758 civilians, 116 policemen and 13 soldiers were killed in attacks across Iraq in October.
   Earlier, AFP reported that 554 Iraqis were killed last month and another 333 bodies were found across the country, many of them of people killed in previous months.
   A security official with access to the data, however, said these bodies were of people also killed in October, taking the overall death toll for the month to 887.
   The October death toll is marginally higher than the 840 reported in September which was nevertheless half the August toll of 1,770.
   The bloodshed that broke out in Iraq after an attack on Shia Al-Askari shrine in the central city of Samarra in February last year peaked in January this year with 1,992 deaths reported by the three ministries.
   Iraqi casualty figures are difficult to track as officials get reports of many attacks days after the incidents.
   The prime minister’s office which used to release the data officially also stopped doing so as it was widely disputed. The office used to give the figures after violence surged in the post-shrine attack period.
   The United Nations, one
   of the reliable sources of
   information, also stopped providing the data since early this year.
   British web site Iraqbodycount.net, which tracks the casualty figures, said that 2007 could still end being the second worst year since the March 2003 invasion, behind 2006 which recorded 27,000 civilian deaths.
   US and Iraqi commanders claim that violence has been declining in the recent months, saying it was a proof of the success of a joint crackdown on insurgent and militias launched in Baghdad and other parts of Iraq since February 2007.

The home secretary, Abdul Karim, said on Thursday Yaba peddlers would be tried under the Speedy Trial Tribunal so that they couldn’t slip through the loopholes in the laws.
   The decision was taken at a meeting held at the home ministry to review the ongoing drives against peddling of the drug with the home secretary in the chair.
   He said no ‘so-called’ elite of the society, involved in illicit business and responsible for spreading the drug among the common people, would be spared during the drives.
   The meeting, attended by officials from different law enforcing agencies, department of narcotics control, Bangladesh Rifles and Coastguards, identified two routes of Yaba smuggling in the country – one is air route and other is the land route in Cox’s Bazar.
   ‘Both the routes will be sealed off soon,’ Abdul Karim told journalists after the meeting.
   The meeting also asked the law enforcing agencies to properly carry out investigation into the new form of drug which spread among a section of young people who come of well-off family.
   ‘Carry on drives in cooperation with all the agencies concerned so that the drug can no longer spread in the society,’ the home secretary asked the law enforcing agencies.
   Terming the department of narcotics control inactive, he said some Yaba tablets were seized in 2001 and few people arrested in this connection but they could be able to slip through the loopholes in the laws.
   The meeting also decided to launch a motivational programme against Yaba use and its harmful impacts from North South Univer-sity situated in posh Banani area.
   District offices of department of narcotics control would also be activated to check the spread of the drug at grassroots level.

Winston Churchill had bitter disputes with his cabinet during the Cold War about building the hydrogen bomb and conducting private diplomacy with the Soviet Union – even threatening to resign at one point, declassified documents showed Thursday.
   The aging British prime minister threatened to quit in 1954 in order to quell a revolt by cabinet ministers, angered at his high-handed leadership style, according to cabinet notebooks released by the National Archives.
   The details are in cabinet secretary Sir Norman Brook’s notebooks covering the year 1954.
   The first flashpoint occurred during a two-day cabinet meeting on July 7-8, when Churchill, then 79, announced that the time had come for a decision on whether to replace Britain’s existing atomic weapons with the more powerful hydrogen bomb.
   He argued that the H-bomb was ‘essential’ to deterring a Soviet attack.
   ‘(We) must be able to make it clear to Russia that they can’t stop effective retaliation. That is (the) only sure foundation for peace,’ he said.
   Harold MacMillan, then Britain’s housing and local government minister, was appalled. It was, he said, a ‘shock to be told, casually, that we were going to do this.’
   He was backed by the Lord Privy Seal, Harry Crookshank, who demanded: ‘Is this sensible for (the) UK alone in Europe to do this when we know we shall not wage (a) major war without the US as (an) ally?’
   Churchill prevailed as other ministers argued that the H-bomb was simply a more ‘efficient’ version of Britain’s existing atom bomb.
   Churchill served as prime minister during Second World War as the atomic era dawned, from 1940-1945, and again during the Cold War from 1951-1955
   In 1954, Churchill got into even more trouble with his cabinet when ministers learned he had sent a secret telegram to Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov, proposing a grand Anglo-Russian summit in Vienna, Austria. The ministers were outraged he had not consulted them first.
   The attack was led by Lord Salisbury, the lord president of council, who said that while the prime minister had the constitutional right to make such decisions, ministers had the right to resign if they disagreed.
   ‘If you reserve your absolute right to conduct such personal correspondence, we shall have to consider our position also,’ Salisbury told Churchill.
   With other ministers backing Salisbury, Churchill conceded he may have ‘exaggerated the urgency of my hope for strengthening world peace.’
   However, he was adamant that he would accept no censure for an initiative undertaken in good faith. Ministers remained unhappy when the cabinet returned to the issue two weeks later.
   This time, it was Churchill’s turn to threaten to quit.
   ‘(I) don’t admit that my action was improper. If the cabinet thought so, I should have forfeited their confidence and should resign,’ he told the meeting.
   Despite some grumblings, none of the ministers called his bluff.
   The notebooks also show Churchill was determined to keep Britain out of the looming Vietnam conflict, despite American appeals for support.
   ‘We mustn’t lose our influence with the US but we shouldn’t go into this,’ he told the cabinet in April 1954.

Amin Huda, nephew of industrialist Aziz Mohamamd Bhai, and his associate Ahsanul Haque Hasan were on Thursday remanded in custody again for three days in connection with the manufacturing of and trading in Yaba tablets and ice-pills.
   Metropolitan magistrate Shawkat Ali Chowdhury granted the remand after they were produced in the court of chief metropolitan magistrate of Dhaka with a fresh remand prayer for seven days for each of them.
   A Rapid Action Battalion team in an overnight raid on October 25 busted a factory at Gulshan in Dhaka where Yaba tablet alternative ice-pills were produced and arrested the two.
   The battalion also seized a huge quantity of Yaba (methamphetamine) tablets, ice-pills and machines and raw materials used in ice-pill production, equipment used in internet telephony, tellulars, and local and foreign currencies amounting to more than Tk 50 lakh from them.
   The Gulshan police told the court they continued seizing Yaba tablets based on the statements of the two and the two needed to be remanded in custody for seven more days for further interrogation.
   The defence lawyers opposed the police remand prayer and sought bail for the two, saying that their clients were victimised.
   They were remanded in custody for four days on October 28 in two cases filed with the Gulshan police against them under the Narcotics Control Act related to the seizure of Yaba tables and under the Special Powers Act related to the seizure of compact discs with pornographic contents.

The Standard Chartered Bank has moved its country head-office to 67, Gulshan Avenue after spending 40 years in Motijheel.
   Dr Salehuddin Ahmed, governor of Bangladesh Bank, and Lord Adair Turner, non-executive director of Standard Chartered PLC, jointly inaugurated the new country head-office in Gulshan yesterday. Osman Morad, chief executive officer, and senior officials of the bank were present on the occasion.
   The establishment of the new country head-office underlines Standard Chartered Bank’s commitment to Bangladesh and its confidence in the future of the country, said a press release.
   The Standard Chartered Bank, with a presence of over 100 years in Bangladesh, has continuously striven to provide world class banking services to its clients in this country while maintaining exemplary standards.
   As the oldest and the largest foreign bank in the country, Standard Chartered Bank is the only bank that did not close its doors during the War of Liberation in 1971. It also helped to open the first letter of credit in the newly born nation of Bangladesh.
   Standard Chartered Bank truly believes that partnership changes lives, and wants to lead the way and be the right partner for all their stakeholders.
   The SCB’s new country head-office has 1,10,000 square feet of space on seven floors and will accommodate nearly 700 staff members.
   The bank in its new head-office has also housed its largest branch in the country with 16 counters, separate suites for priority credit cards and many ATM machines.

The man who dropped the first atomic bomb, which devastated Hiroshima during Second World War, died on Thursday in his Ohio home, a spokesman said.
   Paul Warfield Tibbets, Jr piloted a B-29 bomber called the Enola Gay which dropped the bomb on August 6, 1945.
   ‘If Dante had been with us on the plane, he would have been terrified,’ Tibbets recalled years later in an interview with the Columbus, Ohio Dispatch.
   ‘The city we had seen so clearly in the sunlight a few minutes before was now an ugly smudge. It had completely disappeared under this awful blanket of smoke and fire.’
   Warfield was just 30 when he piloted the plane named after his mother. He would remain in the Air Force until 1966 when he retired to fly private planes in Europe and then Ohio.
   He had been suffering from heart problems, said manager and publisher Paul Newhouse. He was 92.

The police on Wednesday arrested a nine-year-old schoolboy on charge of raping a girl student of Class I of the same school in Gazipur.
   The boy kept calling his parents as he was produced handcuffed in court on Thursday.
   The boy said the police had told him he had raped a girl of five years of age, but he said did not know what rape was.
   The police on Wednesday arrested the student of Class III when he was going to school at Aturi in the district headquarters.
   The case statement said the boy had raped the girl of Class I of the same school on September 11. The girl’s father filed the case with the Gazipur police on October 22, accusing the boy of raping.
   The court ordered that the boy should be sent to the Juvenile Correction Centre.