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Four more special judge’s courts are likely to start functioning — in addition to the current nine, four of which are outside the capital — on the Jatiya Sangsad complex in a week focusing on the completion of trials of high-profile corruption suspects before the next general elections.
   The government in the past week appointed Jamalpur special judge Tanjina Ismail, Chittagong administrative tribunal judge AKM Arifur Rahman, Barisal divisional special judge Khandakar Kamaluzzaman, and Khulna special tribunal on public safety judge AKM Siarjul Islam special judges for the new four courts.
   The judges, appointed in consultation with the Supreme Court, were released from their courts on Thursday, said sources in the law ministry, adding they might join the new courts in a week.
   The courtrooms for the four judges have already been set up at the MP Hostel on the Jatiya Sangsad complex, where five more special judge’s courts are now functioning, said the sources.
   After the declaration of the state of emergency on January 11, the government launched drives against high-profile corruption suspects, most of whom are politicians and some former or serving bureaucrats and businessmen.
   The government on April 24 formed nine special judge’s courts to deal with the cases against the high-profile corruption suspects.
   The five special anti-corruption courts of Dhaka were set up on the Jatiya Sangsad complex and they started functioning on May 6.
   The five special judge’s courts of Dhaka have so far given verdicts in 19 graft cases, convicting a number of people, since May 6.
   At least 221 people, mostly involved in politics, have so far been jailed for varying terms in the ongoing drive of the government against high-profile corruption and serious crimes.
   The convicts include seven former ministers, 12 former lawmakers and five businessmen.
   The courts sentenced them to imprisonment, fined them Tk 21.50 crore in all and ordered confiscation of their wealth of an aggregate of Tk 139.24 crore.
   Fourteen of the convicts were jailed for amassing illegal wealth, 4 for not submitting wealth statements defying the Anti-Corruption Commission notification, 16 for evading taxes, 7 for bribery, 41 for extortion, 20 for cheating, 5 for owning illegal arms, 25 for patronising militancy, 1 for possessing illegal liquor and 90 for setting fire to and vandalising houses in Natore.
   The convicts include 6 businessmen, 2 business house employees, 3 policemen, 2 engineers and 210 political party leaders, their relations and party activists.
   Of the convicts, involved in politics, eight are of the Awami League, 1 of the Jatiya Party and the remaining 200 are of the BNP that ruled the country between October 2001 and October 2006.
   The special courts in Dhaka jailed former Awami League minister Mohammad Nasim, former AL sate minister Mahiuddin Khan Alamgir, former BNP state ministers Amanullah Aman and Mir Nasiruddin, former BNP lawmakers Manjurul Ahsan Munshi and Ali Asgar Lobi, Awami Swechchhasebak League general secretary Pankaj Devnath and telephone board CBA leader Firoz Miah, also involved with the BNP for 13 years and ordered confiscation of their wealth of Tk 70.93 crore in all on charge of amassing wealth beyond their known sources of income and hiding information.
   The courts also jailed Nasim’s wife Laila Arzumand Banu, Aman’s wife Sabera Aman, Nasir’s son Mir Helaluddin and Pankaj’s wife Monika Devnath for three years for abetting them in the crimes. The convicts were also fined Tk 1.8 crore in all.
   The courts also jailed former BNP minister Nazmul Huda for seven years, his wife Sigma Huda for three years, and three police officers of the Fatullah police station for seven years for bribery, and ordered confiscation of Tk 2.4 crore and Tk 14.80 lakh Huda and the three policemen took in bribe.
   They also jailed former prime minister Khaleda Zia’s political secretary Harris Chowdhury, former AL lawmaker Joynal Hazari and businessman Gaisuddin Al Mamun, also a close aide to Khladea’a eldest son Tarique Rahman, for three years for not submitting their wealth statements defying the commission notification.
   Eighteen people were jailed by the courts for tax evasion. They include former minister Shahjahan Siraj, his wife Rabeya Siraj, son Rajib Siraj and daughter-in-law Farzana Khan, Ali Asgar Lobi, former lawmaker Mosaddak Ali Falu’s wife Mahbuba Sultana, former housing minister Mirza Abbas’s wife Afroza Abbas, his brother Mirza Khokon and former state minister and Awami League joint secretary Obaidul Kader’s wife Isratunnisa, former BNP lawmaker Salahuddin Ahmed’s wife Shamsunnahar and son Imran Ahmed, Bashundhara Group chairman Ahmed Akbar Sobhan Shah Alam, his wife Afroza Begum and three sons Saadat Sobhan, Shafayet Sobhan and Sayem Sobhan, owner of a chartered accounting firm SM Quddus, and revenue board official ATM Sarwar Hossain.
   The court ordered confiscation of their wealth of about Tk 58.65 crore in all and some landed property and fined them about Tk 17.11 crore in all.

The Awami League on Friday reconstituted its Dhaka city committee to streamline and strengthen the party’s activities in the capital as some of the top ranking leaders have died and a number of others are in hiding.
   City unit vice-president MA Aziz and joint secretary Advocate Quamrul Islam were made the acting president and acting general secretary respectively of the party’s Dhaka city committee.
   AL presidium members, joint secretaries and organising secretaries at a meeting with the city unit leaders at the party chief’s Dhanmondi office, named the acting president and general secretary of the city committee and instructed them to take preparations for the upcoming city corporation elections.
   ‘The voter registration process will begin in the city from Saturday. We have instructed the city unit leaders to get involved in the process to ensure that all eligible voters, including the party supporters, sympathisers and activists are registered,’ the acting AL president, Zillur Rahman told reporters after the meeting.
   Zillur said he hoped the elections would be held as scheduled. The conditions seem to be getting favourable…the party activists should be watchful during the voter registration process.
   He also said that the eight teams formed on May 30, 2005 by the party president, Sheikh Hasina, to strengthen the party at the ward and union levels in Dhaka city were also reorganised through inclusion of some leaders.
   ‘The central leaders instructed us to take all preparations for the upcoming city corporation elections and told us to be involved actively in the voter registration process in the city,’ the newly appointed acting city unit general secretary, Qamrul Islam, told New Age after the meeting.
   The meeting also demanded immediate withdrawal of the state of emergency, lifting of the ban on politics across the country, immediate release of the party president, Sheikh Hasina, withdrawal of the warrant for the arrest of Sheikh Rehana, release of all AL leaders and activists, including general secretary Abdul Jalil, and all the teachers and students who were arrested from different universities in recent times, containing prices of essential commodities and resolving fertiliser crisis.
   Meeting sources said some leaders of the city unit expressed disappointment as the central committee did not take their opinions before naming the acting president and acting general secretary of the city unit.
   ‘Such reactions on the part of some leaders in a large organisation like Awami League is nothing unusual…things will be okay after we hold talks with them,’ Qamrul said.
   ‘There is no scope to express opinion in this regard as the charges were given as per the order of the leadership in the committee,’ an organising secretary, told New Age after the meeting.
   The party’s city the committee was reorganised as number of posts remained vacant for a long.
   The vacuum was created following the deaths of the city unit president Mohammad Hanif and law affairs secretary Khorshed Alam Bachchu while a number of leaders, including the acting president, Rahmat Ullah, went into hiding after the declaration of a state emergency in January.
   City unit general secretary, Mofazzal Hossain Chowdhury Maya, vice-presidents Habibur Rahman Mollah, Mokbul Hossain and HBM Iqbal and joint secretary Haji Mohammad Selim are also in hiding.
   Another vice-president Kamal Ahmed Majumder and information and research secretary Azizur Rahman Bachchu are in jail while vice-president Omar Ali and organising secretary Sayeed Khokon have joined the Progressive Democratic Party of Fedaus Ahmed Quarishi.

Preparation of voters’ roll with photographs and national identity cards begins in Dhaka City Corporation area today through door-to-door visits to collect information of the eligible voters.
   Enumerators have been instructed to complete the task of distribution of voter registration forms and help people to fill them in between November 10 and 20. The other tasks including scrutiny of the filled in forms will have to be completed by November 29.
   Election officials will start taking voters’ fingerprints and photographs from December 1 at the city’s voter registration centres [previous polling stations]. The eligible voters will have to visit the registration centres to have their fingerprints and photographs taken on a particular day.
   The enumerators, mostly schoolteachers, during the collection of the filled in forms, will distribute slips among the eligible voters asking them to visit the registration camps with the slips on a particular day for having their photographs and fingerprints taken.
   The areas where enumerators start door-to-door visits for information collection today, are – Kotwali, Sutrapur, Jatrabari, Shyampur, Paltan, Sabujbagh, Motijheel, Kafrul, Airport, Uttara, Cantonment, Khilkhet, Pallabi, Mohammadpur, Adabar, Dhanmondi, New Market, Lalbagh, Khilgaon, Tejgaon industrial area and Ramna. The task of taking photographs and fingerprints of voters in these areas will begin December 1.
   In Gulshan, Shah Ali and Shahbagh areas voters’ information collection will start on December 9 while taking of photographs starts on January 2.
   In the Mirpur area door-to-door visits for information collection begin November 22 and photographs will be taken from January 12. Enumerators will start distribution of voter registration forms in Badda area from December 6 and Tejgaon area from December 24. Voters’ snaps will be taken in these areas from December 26 and January 16 respectively.

A large number of low-income group people, mainly factory workers, rickshaw pullers and day-labourers, on Friday thronged the voters’ registration centres at Kamrangirchar on the outskirts of Dhaka for enrolment on the electoral roll as they missed their chance when enumerators visited their homes while they were at work.
   Besides taking photographs and fingerprints of the people scheduled for the day, the authorities also enrolled the names and took photographs and fingerprints of the people who were left out during door-to-door enumeration.
   ‘I have missed the chance of getting enrolled on the roll when enumerators went to our house. I have come here to both fill in the form and have my photograph and fingerprint taken as my family members who earlier filled in the forms have been scheduled to have their photographs snapped today,’ Selina Begum, a resident of the area, told New Age at the Rasulpur Community Centres on Friday.
   Eligible voters stood in queues at the registration centres at the Rasulpur Community Centres and Rizia Hafiz Grammar School at Kamrangirchar for enrolment on the electoral roll.
   The enumerators completed the enumeration in door-to-door visits in October and on November 2 started taking photographs and fingerprints of the people of Ward 3 of the Rasulpur union.
   A significant number of the people who gathered at the registration centres were there for enrolment. Many of them said it was like a festival. They heard that there would be photo sessions. A few of them knew of the identity cards.
   Shafia Begum, who was snapped for first time in her 55 years, said she was very happy to become a voter. She said no one else would be able to cast her vote as the roll would have her photograph this time. She said she was unaware of the national identity card.
   Humaira Begum, a garment factory worker, said, ‘I managed two hours’ leave to have my photograph and fingerprint taken for the national identity card.’ She said she heard that the identity card would be required for job and other services. Elderly Based Mollah had his photograph and fingerprint taken at the Rizia Hafiz Grammar School centre.
   He said people this time gathered at the registration centres on their own to get enlisted as voters. The identity card is an added attraction for the voters, he said.

Political sensitivity holds back the government’s plan to increase price of urea fertiliser despite recommendation of a high-powered committee and concerns about additional spending on fertiliser subsidy, officials said.
   Urea, the most consumed fertiliser, is sold out to farmers through a network of dealers at government-dictated rate set 10 years back, which is much lower than import cost and also the prices in neighbouring India and Myanmar.
   While increased amount of subsidy is putting greater strain on the national budget, price gap between Bangladesh and next-door neighbours is encouraging massive smuggling of urea fertiliser, industry officials and intelligence sources reportedly said.
   Though the country has a strong local production base for urea, almost half the domestic demand estimated for the current year is expected to be met by imports, industry officials said.
   So, pressure on the budget would be bigger and the amount of Tk 1,500 crore subsidy earmarked in the current budget might be more than double at the end of the fiscal year, creating extra burden for the government in a year of widening budget deficit, agriculture and finance officials said.
   The government will have to make fresh allocation of about Tk 1,400 crore to subsidise the price of additional urea fertiliser to be imported during the current fiscal year.
   An amount of Tk 1,500 crore has been allocated as subsidy for fertiliser sub-sector and another Tk 770 crore as diesel subsidy in the 2007-08 budget.
   ‘Realistically, the government should increase urea price to reduce trade gap and to discourage smugglers in sending urea fertiliser to India and Myanmar. But it is a difficult decision in view of political sensitivity,’ an official of the finance ministry said adding that the more important issue is to ensure availability of fertiliser at the farmers level than to raise the price at this moment.
   But the interim government is in a clear dilemma over raising farmers’ level price of urea fertiliser to reduce the gap with procurement costs and discourage its smuggling out to neighbouring countries.
   Countywide public apprehensions of a fertiliser crisis much before the peak season of Boro cultivation starts have discouraged the policymakers from making upward revision of the fertiliser price despite higher subsidy projection.
   The selling rate of urea, which was fixed way back in 1996, is Tk 5,300 per tonne as against purchasing rate of urea at approximately Tk 25,000 in the international market. The prices of urea both in India and Myanmar are much higher, and due to the price difference, urea fertiliser is often smuggled out to these neighbours.
   Industries secretary Nurul Amin, who headed a committee on fertiliser management, on Monday said they had recommended that the government should increase prices of fertilisers to save the industries.
   But agriculture adviser CS Karim at a press conference on Monday said the government would not increase prices of fertilisers at this moment.
   Instead, the government was thinking over introduction of card system for farmers to ensure smooth distribution of fertilisers in the coming year.
   ‘This will check misuse or smuggling of highly subsidised urea,’ he hoped, saying that each 50-kg bag of urea costs Tk 1,500, but its official selling rate is Tk 300.
   This year, the government has also increased the target of importing urea fertiliser at 13.5 lakh tonnes whereas the country’s highest record of importing urea is 7.5 lakh tonnes till date, according to official statistics.
   Estimated demand for urea for the current fiscal year is 28.18 lakh tonnes, against local production capacity of 15 lakh tonnes, which may fluctuate due to frequent disruption in production mainly because of erratic gas supply to factories. The government will procure 4.5 lakh tonnes of urea from Kafco while nine lakh tonnes will be imported to meet the demand, according to official records.
   Apart from urea, the government also subsidises the prices of imported triple super phosphate and muriate of potash fertilisers. The demand for TSP is estimated at 4.6 lakh tonnes and MP 4 lakh tonnes.
   The agriculture ministry has directed deputy commissioners and field-level officials to go for urgent interventions, if and where necessary, to ensure adequate supply of fertilisers.
   Agriculture and industries ministries have now been working on how to improve the distribution chains across the country so that there is no crisis of fertiliser in any district during the season.

Today is the second anniversary of the death of Enayetullah Khan, founding editor of the daily New Age and editor-in-chief of the weekly Holiday.
   A titan of Bangladeshi journalism of regional and international repute for his fearlessness for more than four decades, Enayetullah Khan passed away in Toronto, Canada on November 10, 2005 at the age of 66. He had suffered from cancer of the pancreas.
   Having begun his career as a journalist as a cub reporter with the erstwhile Pakistan Observer in 1959, Enayetullah Khan went on to found the weekly Holiday in August 1965, before taking over as editor of the paper in 1966.
   He founded the daily New Age as its editor and publisher in June 2003. He was also editor of the Bangladesh Times between 1975 and 1977. He was awarded Ekushey Padak for excellence in journalism.
   He served as minister of the government of Bangladesh (1977-1978) and as ambassador to China, North Korea, Cambodia and Myanmar (1984-1989).
   Known for his democratic activism, Enayetullah Khan was at the forefront of the Buddhijibi Nidhan Tathyanusandhan Committee instituted on December 18, 1971 to investigate murders of intellectuals in the terminal days of the war of independence in 1971 by the Al-Badr and Al-Shams — the killer wings of the Jamaat-e-Islami.
   He was also an organiser of the Civil Liberties and Legal Aid Committee (1974) that defended the political victims of the Rakkhi Bahini, the Famine Resistance Committee (1974), the Farakka March Committee led by Maulana Bhasani (1976), and the Committee against Communalism (1981).
   He received his MA degree in philosophy from Dhaka University. In his student days, he held leadership positions as general secretary of the Ananda Mohan College Students’ Union in Mymensingh, member on the Dhaka University Students’ Union (1958-59), and vice-president of the Dhaka Hall (now Shahidullah Hall) Students’ Union (1959-60).
   He was president of the National Press Club (1973-76) and the Dhaka Club (1984-85).
   Born on May 25, 1939 in Mymensingh, Enayetullah Khan was the third son of the late Justice Abdul Jabbar Khan, a former speaker of the Pakistan National Assembly.

The Pakistani police placed opposition leader Benazir Bhutto under house arrest Friday, uncoiling barbed wire in front of her Islamabad villa, and reportedly rounding up thousands of her supporters to block a mass protest against emergency rule.
   The United States called for the restrictions on Benazir to be lifted, saying it was ‘crucial for Pakistan’s future that moderate political forces work together to bring Pakistan back on the path to democracy.’ A government spokesman promised she would be free by Saturday.
   Benazir twice tried to leave in her car on Friday, telling police: ‘Do not raise hands on women. You are Muslims. This is un-Islamic.’ They responded by blocking her way with an armoured vehicle.
   The former prime minister had planned to defy a ban on political gatherings and address a rally in nearby Rawalpindi, where the police used tear gas and batons to chase off hundreds of supporters who staged wildcat protests and hurled stones. More than 100 were arrested.
   The city mayor said they had reports suicide bombers might attack the rally. The deputy information minister, Tariq Azim, said there was a restraining order against Benazir, telling her to stay at her Islamabad home and not proceed to Rawalpindi because of the security threat.
   ‘I expect that (the order) is all over by now,’ Azim said. ‘She will be free to move tomorrow.’
   President Pervez Musharraf came under increased pressure from his chief international supporter, the United States.
   ‘We remain concerned about the continued state of emergency and curtailment of basic freedoms, and urge Pakistani authorities to quickly return to constitutional order and democratic norms,’ Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Council said in a statement. ‘Former prime minister Benazir and other political party members must be permitted freedom of movement and all protesters released.’
   The defence secretary, Robert Gates said he was concerned Musharraf’s emergency declaration and the protests and arrests that it spawned could affect operations in Afghanistan.
   Meanwhile, a suicide bombing at a government minister’s home in the northwestern city of Peshawar killed four people. Minister for political affairs Amir Muqam was unhurt.
   The attack underscored the threat posed by religious extremists in this Islamic nation that Musharraf and Benazir are sparring over. It was cited by Musharraf as the primary reason for imposing the state of emergency last Saturday.
   But most of the thousands of people rounded up countrywide since have been moderates – lawyers and activists from secular opposition parties, such as Benazir’s Pakistan People’s Party. The mass detentions have fuelled criticism that Musharraf – who seized power in a 1999 coup – declared the emergency to maintain his own grip on power.
   Friday’s crackdown showed that Musharraf was not letting up on his political rivals, despite saying a day earlier that parliamentary elections would go ahead by mid-February, just a month later than originally planned. His announcement came after intense US pressure.
   But the crackdown further dimmed prospects that Benazir and Musharraf would soon form an alliance, which Washington has pushed for, against Islamic extremists.
   Speaking to a few dozen supporters inside the barricades after her second foiled attempt to escape, Benazir said that ‘we suspended our negotiations’ with Musharraf after the emergency was imposed. She also repeated demands that Musharraf step down as army chief by next week, when his presidential term expires.
   Outside Benazir’s house scores of police, some in riot gear, monitored her supporters, who repeatedly tried to remove barbed wire and steel and concrete barriers.
   At least 30 Benazir supporters were arrested, including a woman who showed up with flowers. An old bearded man who showed up with a sharp machete and a goat he planned to sacrifice to bring Benazir good luck was simply shooed away by the police.
   There was confusion over whether authorities had served Benazir with a formal detention order. Officials said they had, but Benazir’s aides said they had not received it – and would not accept it. An intelligence official said Benazir was ordered detained for 30 days, but Azim denied that.
   After being turned back twice, Benazir delivered an address heard by reporters on the other side of the barricades.
   Benazir’s Pakistan People’s Party, claimed Friday that 5,000 of its supporters had been arrested in the last three days across the eastern province of Punjab. But security officials said only 1,100 had been detained.

A suicide bomber blew himself up at the house of a Pakistani minister in the northwestern city of Peshawar on Friday, killing four people, the police said.
   Federal minister for political affairs Amir Muqam, who is also the local head of president Pervez Musharraf’s ruling party, told state television that he was unharmed in the blast.
   ‘I am not scared. I have survived two attacks in the past,’ said Muqam, adding that his cousin and a former provincial official were wounded in the attack.
   City police chief Abdul Majid Marwat said four people were killed.
   ‘It was a suicide attack. The attacker managed to enter the minister’s residence and then detonated explosives,’ Marwat said, adding that two security officials were among the four dead.
   Muqam, apparently the target of the attack, has been closely involved in negotiations to end a Taliban-style rebellion in Pakistan’s northwestern Swat Valley.
   A close ally of Musharraf, he once said that the military ruler had given him a pistol as a gift in return for services to the party.
   The attack was the first on a civilian target in Pakistan since president Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency on Saturday citing a rise in Islamic militancy.
   Pakistan has been wracked by violence since government troops stormed the al-Qaeda-linked Red Mosque in Islamabad in July, killing scores of alleged militants inside.
   The interior ministry said Tuesday that a record 667 people have been killed and 2,000 injured in ‘terrorist’ attacks, including an unprecedented 43 suicide bombings, during 2007.
   Officials said that of this year’s 43 suicide attacks, the highest in the country’s 60-year history, the majority were in mainland Pakistan outside the troubled tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.

The Pakistani police Friday sealed off a cancer hospital set up by Imran Khan as they sought to track down the cricketer turned politician who has escaped arrest under the state of emergency.
   A police official said the police had cordoned off the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Hospital in Lahore ‘to search for Imran Khan.’
   Khan, who led Pakistan to victory in the 1992 cricket World Cup, went into hiding last Sunday, a day after police placed him under house arrest following president Pervez Musharraf’s imposition of emergency rule.
   ‘We are still looking for him because we have orders to detain him’ under public order legislation, the police official Mohammad Omar said. Khan’s house was also cordoned off.
   Khan, who founded the Movement for Justice Party, said in a statement from hiding that he was in contact with other opposition leaders and ‘we will soon launch a mass movement against Musharraf.’
   He demanded the reinstatement of independent-minded chief justice Iftikhar Muhammed Chaudhry, who was sacked by Musharraf immediately after the state of emergency was imposed.
   ‘We will continue our struggle,’ Khan told private Geo television later.
   ‘We are also preparing our strategy to launch a civil disobedience movement against him. We will not let him (Musharraf) sit in peace.’
   He called for the reinstatement of all other judges who have been detained and spoke of setting up a legal support fund to help them.

Political and socio-cultural organisations observe Shaheed Noor Hossain Day today to commemorate the pro-democracy movement activist of late 80’s on the 20th anniversary of his martyrdom.
   Noor Hossain was killed in police firing at Zero Point in Dhaka during street agitations against the then autocratic regime of General Ershad. The killing of Noor, whose bare body was inscribed with slogan ‘down with autocracy, let free democracy,’ fuelled the ongoing movement leading to fall of Ershad in December 1990.
   Zero Point was later renamed as Noor Hossain Square.
   The day’s programmes are set to be low-key ones and confined to activities like placing of wreaths, issuance of statements and holding of indoor discussions due to restriction on open political activities under the emergency rules.
   Awami League acting general secretary Syed Ashraful Islam in a statement on Friday recalled Noor Hossain’s glorious sacrifice for establishing people’s democratic rights. The supreme sacrifice intensified the anti-autocracy movement, which culminated into a mass upsurge that toppled the then military dictator in 1990, he added.
   He called upon all party activists and leaders to observe the day with due respect all over the country. Centrally, the party will place flowers at the Shaheed Noor Hossain Square at 10:00 am today.
   Acting secretary general of Bangladesh Nationalist Party faction Khondakar Delwar Hossain in a statement said Noor Hossain Day is a milestone in the national life. He urged all irrespective of party affiliations to be united to protect the democracy. Workers’ Party of Bangladesh, Samajtantrik Chhatra Front, Banngladesher Samjtantrik Dal will also pay their tribute to the pro-democracy martyr by placing wreaths at the square in the morning.
   In observance of the day, Bangladesher Samajtantrik Dal will hold a discussion at the party’s central office at 4:00 pm today.
   Bangladesh Students’ Union president Samsul Alam Sajjan and general secretary Khan Asaduzzaman Masum in a statement recalled with deep respect Noor Hossain and Syed Aminul Huda Titu, another victim of the movement against autocratic ruler. The students’ wing of Communist Party of Bangladesh will place wreaths at the square.

Law enforcers have started investigation into the charges of forging freedom fighter’s certificates levelled against 92 customs employees.
   A senior police official of Ramna Zone told New Age, ‘Five investigation officers have been appointed for investigating into the cases and all of the accused would be arrested soon.’
   National Board of Revenue official Golam Rahman on Friday filed six cases with the Ramna police station accusing 92 customs inspectors of forging FF certificates to get the jobs.
   Sub-inspectors Didarul Alam, Lokman Hossain, Maksudur Rahman, Imtiaz Kabir and Wahidur Rahman have been assigned to probe the charges.
   Sub-inspector Didarul Alam, the investigation officer for the case implicating 51 customs employees, told New Age, ‘We have already started investigation into the cases and will arrest them after completing the investigations.’

The advisory committee on the finalisation of the coal policy draft on Friday decided to include a provision that affected inhabitants of any coal field would get back their land after the completion of mining when the lessee would restore the land condition as it was before mining.
   The committee, headed by former BUET vice-chancellor Abdul Matin Patwari, has also decided that the holder of the mining licence will rehabilitate the whole mining area and the land would be handed over to the owners.
   Before mining, the people of the area will need to be resettled in a way so that their living condition improves, the committee has decided. The lessee will bear the cost of resettlement before and after mining. The committee has decided that the lessee will rehabilitate the entire mining area with dirt filling and by flattening out the mounds after mining.
   Miners usually leave a lake or pond in the last phase of open-pit mining and a lake or pond develops because of land subsidence during the open-pit mining.
   The committee has decided that the lessee, if required, will arrange dirt by dredging nearby rivers to fill up the canal-like area at the mine.
   The government will make necessary laws for the resettlement and land rehabilitation and compensation for the affected, it has decided.
   The lessee will submit an environment management programme before the start of mining and will bear related cost.
   The committee has also reviewed the clauses including mine water management, research relating to environmental impact and land use.
   Others on the committee — University Grants Commission chairman Nazrul Islam, BUET professor Nurul Islam, journalist Ataus Samad, Dhaka University professors Badrul Imam and Mustafizur Rahman, Bangladesh army chief engineer Major General Ismail Faruque Chowdhury and Petrobangla director Maqbul-E-Elahi — attended the meeting.

Afghanistan’s education ministry said Friday that a suicide attack this week had killed 59 children and five teachers, taking the death toll to 75 in the deadliest such bombing in the insurgency-hit country.
   Six lawmakers and five bodyguards were also killed in the blast on Tuesday in the northern province of Baghlan, which has been free of the regular attacks by Taliban and other extremist militants that plague the south and east.
   ‘We have got 59 school children, aged from eight to 18, and five teachers killed in that blast,’ education ministry spokesman Zuhor Afghan said.
   Nearly 100 more children were wounded, he said.
   The children, whom one official said were from the same school, had gathered to welcome a visiting delegation of parliamentarians to a sugar factory outside the town of Pul-i-Khumri, about 150 kilometres north of Kabul.
   The Taliban, who have vowed to step up a campaign of suicide attacks in Afghanistan as part of an extremist insurgency launched after they were ousted from power six years ago, have denied involvement in the blast.
   They have also warned they would spread their attacks in the relatively calm north, where a Norwegian soldier died Thursday after being struck by a bomb in an attack also blamed on the Taliban.
   Five of the parliamentarians killed Thursday and five bodyguards were buried in a state funeral in Kabul on Thursday attended by 2,500 people and 1,000 police and soldiers.
   The sixth MP was to be buried in his home province of Helmand.
   President Hamid Karzai, who declared three days of mourning starting Wednesday, and members of his government and the parliament attended a prayer service at Kabul’s mosque Friday in honour of the dead.
   Education minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar, has, in the wake of the devastating blast, reissued a ban on children being assembled to welcome visitors to functions, his spokesman said.
   ‘After this attack, the minister has ordered again that no-one can force any student to participate in those kind of ceremonies any more,’ he said.
   Special prayer services would be held in Kabul and all provinces in the next few days to remember the children and teachers, the spokesman said.
   Meanwhile, Baghlan province Abdul Rahman Sayedkhili said a suspect had been arrested at the site of the blast, a day after the bombing, because he was behaving suspiciously.
   Officials announced Friday they had retaken two remote districts that had been under the control of Taliban rebels for several days.
   Ten rebels were killed in the fighting to take one district, Gulistan in the western province of Farah, provincial police chief Abdul Rahman Sarjang said.
   In other violence, Taliban militants gunned down a district chief in the southern province of Zabul late Thursday, along with two of his bodyguards, the police said.

The government has made mandatory the Bachelor of Education degree for people to be teachers at non-government secondary schools and madrassahs, education ministry officials told New Age on Thursday.
   ‘The ministry made the decision late July and it will come into force in January 2008,’ a ministry official said.
   ‘The existing rules require teachers to have a BEd degree five years inside the job at government secondary schools, it is not yet mandatory for non-government teachers,’ he said. ‘But if no-government teachers obtain the degree and apply to the office concerned, they get extra benefits from the government.’
   More than 3.30 lakh teachers are engaged in 25,185 government and non-government schools and madrassahs that offer education from Class VI to Class X.
   About one lakh of the teachers do not have BEd degrees, said an official of the Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education.
   There are 114 colleges, including 14 public, under the National University, offering BEd degrees.
   These institutions have above 50,000 seats, but most of the institutions lack students.
   An education directorate official said the 14 government teachers’ training colleges have 7,000 seats for BEd students, but the institutions now have only 1,667 students.
   ‘The government early 2006 started a project to offer BEd degrees and subject-wise training to all the teachers by 2011,’ the official said.
   The government has made mandatory the certification of the National Teachers’ Registration and Certification Authority on March 20, 2005 for candidates for the positions of teachers at non-government educational institutions.
   About 10,000 new teachers are required in Bangladesh every year for more than 30,000 non-government high schools, colleges and madrassahs.
   Some private universities also offer the course, which in some cases are not authorised by the oversight agency. The government early August decided not to allow any private universities to offer courses for BEd degrees.
   There were reported allegations against some private universities even in remote rural areas from where such degrees were ‘sold.’
   A number of deputy commissioners over four years have lodged several allegations with the University Grants Commission and the education ministry against some private universities on charge of ‘selling’ BEd and MEd degrees.

The tender evaluation committee of the Power Development Board has recommended again that the government should award a Tk 574 crore contract to the Chinese Sino Hydropower Corporation for setting up the 150MW Shikalbaha power plant.
   The advisory council purchase committee on October 16 asked the board to re-evaluate the bids of four power companies that participated in the tender for setting up the power plant, after the Power Division had placed a PDB proposal to award the contract to Sino.
   The tender committee co-opted two power experts, Kazi Mujibur Rahman of the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology and Lieutenant Colonel GM Azizur Rahman of the Military Institute of Science
   and Technology, as per the directives of the purchase committee.
   The tender committee then re-evaluated the bids of the four companies, including Sino, and recommended again that Sino should get the contract as the lowest bidder.
   The PDB sent the recommendation to the Power Division last week for placing before the purchase committee headed by the finance adviser, Mirza Azizul Islam.
   Sources in the division said they would send the PDB proposal to the purchase committee to award the turn-key contract to Sino.
   Sending back the earlier PDB proposal tabled before the purchase committee at its October 16 meeting, Mirza Aziz told reporters that, after going through the PDB documents, the committee felt the need for re-evaluation of the tenders.
   The tender committee in its first evaluation concluded that two bids were technically non-responsive and Sino became the lowest bidder with an offer of Tk 574 crore, beating the offer of another Chinese company.
   Sources in the PDB, meanwhile, said Sino had agreed to extend the validity of its offer, supposed to expire last month, till November 31.
   They said if the purchase committee approved awarding of the contract to Sino in its next meeting, they would have to issue notice of award to Sino by November 31.
   The PDB completed the tender procedure by June, before the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council headed by the chief adviser, Fakhruddin Ahmed, at a
   meeting on October 8 had approved the Tk 777 crore development proposal of the power project.

The Saifur Rahman-led faction of BNP will not take any steps for release of the party leaders and activists who have been detained on charges of corruption.
   M Hafizuddin Ahmed, made the acting secretary general by a party standing committee meeting on October 29, said on Friday, ‘The law will take its own course [in their cases] but, I must say, they should get justice.’
   He claimed that the party had taken initiatives to free the detained chairperson, Khaleda Zia, through legal process but did not elaborate the move.
   On the arrest of the party chairperson’s adviser, ASM Hannan Shah, he said Hannan was not arrested on any political ground. He was arrested on a specific criminal charge.
   Hafiz was critical about the past two governments holding them responsible for spread of corruption and violence.
   Three of the four former home ministers, who were responsible for managing the law enforcing agencies during the tenures of the past two governments, are now in jail on charges of patronising corruption,’ he said.
   ‘Activities like corruption and criminalisation, which spread in the past 10 years, have no conformity with the ideals of the BNP and the Awami League. Corrupt people infested the parties and derailed them from their ideals,’ he said.
   No development of the country can take place and law and order cannot be maintained if the persons managing law enforcers get involved in corruption,’ Hafiz said.
   ‘There are allegations that these people had links with militants and top criminals,’ he said.
   ‘I have been with the BNP for the past 16 years… the party had drifted from the ideals of Ziaur Rahman. We want to free the BNP from black money, violence, corruption and criminalisation,’ he asserted.
   Responding to a question regarding the assault on standing committee member Mahbubur Rahman on November 7, Hafiz said such bad politics was Awami League’s creation. ‘Awami League began such things during 1991-1996 when they were in the opposition. They had stripped a public servant when he was on his way to office.’
   Hafiz censured their rival Delwar-led faction of BNP for not condemning the solidarity day incident at the grave of Ziaur Rahman.

The Malaysian government may consider lifting of embargo on fresh recruitment of Bangladeshi workers once problems recently caused by unscrupulous agents are resolved.
   Talking to the press agency at his Dhaka residence Friday, Malaysian high commissioner Abdul Malek Bin Abdul Aziz said his government has been taking measures to address the problems recently faced by Bangladeshi workers on their arrival at Kuala Lumpur.
   The measures include the concerned companies will have to pick up Bangladeshi workers within 70-72 hours of their arrival at Kuala Lumpur airport. Besides, before the workers’ departure from Dhaka, they will have to get the “confirmation” from their respective companies in Malaysia.
   Earlier, the High Commissioner said, recruiting agents in Dhaka and Kuala Lumpur recruited and received the workers without proper knowledge of respective companies.
   Now, he said, officials of Malaysian Human Resource Department visit the respective companies to check if they have confirmed the new recruitment of workers for their companies to stop recurrence of unpleasant situation.
   ‘So far, there is no problem now,’ the envoy said, adding that around 200,000 of the Bangladesh workers already arrived in Malaysia and the remaining 100,000 are in the process of departure.
   The Malaysian government had approved an initial intake of 300,000 workers from Bangladesh.
   The workers are employed in manufacturing, plantation and service sectors.
   On October 4, Malaysia banned fresh recruitment of Bangladeshi workers after hundreds of them were stranded at Kuala Lumpur airport because their employers failed to collect them promptly.
   As a result, many workers had to pass days without food. There were some demonstrations by angry workers outside the Bangladesh mission in Kuala Lumpur.
   The Malaysian government placed a similar restriction in 1999, but lifted the ban last year.
   Malaysia has 2.7 million legal foreign workers, mainly from Indonesia. More than 300,000 Bangladeshi workers are now employed in Malaysia with valid documents.

Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi on Friday met members of her opposition party for the first time since 2004, as she pledged to cooperate with the regime that has kept her under house arrest for years.
   The pro-democracy leader also met with a junta official appointed to liaise with her, a Myanmar official said, amid hopes of a thaw in relations with the generals who crushed street protests against their rule in September.
   Aung San Suu Kyi spoke with members of her National League for Democracy at a government guest house in Yangon, an NLD source said, the first time she has been allowed to see them since May 2004.
   The party source said he believed the three central executive committee members held a joint meeting with Aung San Suu Kyi and labour minister Aung Kyi, whom the junta has appointed as a go-between with the opposition leader.
   Witnesses said the Nobel peace prize winner spent around two-and-a-half hours in the building.
   The meetings follow UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari’s six-day mission to Asia, which he said had led to progress towards establishing a dialogue between the junta and the country’s pro-democracy movement.
   Aung San Suu Kyi, in a statement read out by Gambari in Singapore, said she was willing to cooperate with the junta, which has ruled Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, for the past 45 years.
   ‘In the interest of the nation, I stand ready to cooperate with the government in order to make this process of dialogue a success,’ she said.
   It was the first such pledge since she was last put under house arrest in 2003.
   Aung San Suu Kyi, daughter of independence hero general Aung San, has spent 12 of
   the past 18 years under house arrest at her lakeside home in Yangon.
   She welcomed the appointment last month of Aung Kyi as the government’s go-between, describing October 25 talks with him as ‘constructive’.
   ‘I expect that this phase of preliminary consultations will conclude soon so that a meaningful and time bound dialogue with the SPDC (government) leadership can start as early as possible,’ said Aung San Suu Kyi, widely known as ‘The Lady.’
   Any dialogue with the junta would be ‘guided by the policies and wishes’ of her party, but she would also need to consult with other groups and ethnic minorities, according to her statement read by Gambari.
   The Nigerian diplomat met Aung San Suu Kyi on Thursday after warning the junta against a return to the status quo that existed before the mass pro-democracy protests were put down.
   His mission ended without a meeting with junta leader senior general Than Shwe, although the UN envoy met several officials and NLD members.

Hundreds of Islamists demonstrated Friday in front of the Baitul Mukarram National Mosque demanding ban of Prothom Alo and Saptahik 2000 and arrest of their editors for publishing a cartoon and an article that hurt the religious sentiments of the Muslims.
   The All-Party Resistance Committee, a unity of Islamist organisations, held a rally after the Jumma prayers and then brought out a procession, breaking the Emergency Powers Rules in presence of a huge contingent of police and plainclothesmen.
   The Hijbut Tahrir-Bangladesh, Islamic Oikya Andolan, Bangladesh Khelafat Andolan, Islamic Oikya Jote, Khelafat Majlis, International Khatme Nabuwat Movement-Bangladesh, Islamic Constitution Movement, Nejame Islam, and Jamaat-ul-Ulema-e-Islami, combined under the banner of All-Party Resistance Committee, brought out the procession that paraded the road from Baitul Mukarram to Bijoynagar.
   The demonstrators, chanting slogans, torched a copy of Prothom Alo and demanded cancellation of the declaration of the daily as well as the weekly, Sapatahik 2000.
   Speaking at the rally, the leaders of the religious organisations warned that the situation might go out of their control if the interim government did not take an immediate action.
   They said they were ready to be martyred for upholding the dignity of Prophet Mohammad (PuH) but would not forgive the editors and publishers of the daily and the weekly.
   Law enforcers intercepted the protestors as they started parading Bijoynagar Road, resulting in a scuffle between the two sides at the Paltan crossing.
   The demonstrators later started marching towards the Dainik Bangla crossing.
   Traffic movement at Dainik Bangla and Paltan crossings, Kakrail, Bijoynagar, and Topkhana Road remained suspended till 3:30pm, causing severe tail-backs in different areas of the city.
   The Alpin, a weekly supplement of Prothom Alo, published a cartoon on September 17 and the Eid issue of Saptahik 2000 ran an autobiographical write-up titled Sutanati Samachar on September 21, both of which reportedly aggrieved the devout Muslims.

A woman was killed and her husband injured seriously in an attack by their rivals at Pashchim Sangra of Haluaghat in Mymensingh on Friday morning.
   The deceased was Zarina Khatun, 50, wife of Abdul Mazid of Sangra.
   The Haluaghat police said Abdul Mazid took 1.5 acres of land on lease in 1991, but one Hasim Uddin and his men held him back from taking the possession of the piece of land.
   A case was under trial in court. But on a court order, Mazid built two houses on the land on Monday.
   Hasim’s men went to the place at around 9.30 on Friday and damaged the hosues. When Mazid along with his wife tried to put up resistance, they attacked them with weapons, killing Zarina on the spot and injuring Mazid..

The police on Friday attached the moveable property of former Jatiya Sangsad chief whip, Awami League leader Abul Hasnat Abdullah.
   The police said they had gone to the Hasnat’s house at Kalabagan Lake Circus at about 11:00am on a court order, but no family member was found present in the house. They attached the property in the presence of the caretaker of the house.
   The goods were kept at the disposal of the Dhanmondi police.

Yaba queen Jannatul Ferdous Akhi alias Nikita, her brother and parents were taken on three-day remand in connection with Yaba peddling.
   Nikita, her brother Moinuddin, father Abdun Noor and mother Saleha Begum were produced before the CMM court from Dhaka Central Jail Friday afternoon by RAB-3.
   They sought for their five-day remand for interrogation, but the magistrate granted 3-day remand. On November 5, a case was filed against them under Narcotics Prevention Act with Ramna thana as the elite forces recovered 34 Yaba tablets from the bedroom of Nikita at Karnaphuly Garden City at Shantinagar.
   Nikita was arrested from the CMM court premises on November 4 by RAB-3 after she had surrendered. On November 7, the CMM court sent them to jail rejecting her bail petition.

The police have charged six Slovaks and one Indian national with trafficking more than 100 Asians including children through Slovakia, officials said Friday.
   The group had been planning and coordinating the trafficking of illegal immigrants from Pakistan, India and Bangladesh through Slovakia to third countries, the police said.
   The police searched 16 houses in and around the capital Bratislava following a court order on Thursday, finding 19 Indians in one house alone, including nine children, Slovakian interior ministry spokeswoman Vladimira Hrebenakova said.
   More than 100 Slovakian policemen were involved in Thursday’s bust, they said.
   Slovakia, which should become part of the EU’s passport free Schengen zone before the end of the year, is frequently used as a transit country for migrants coming from the former Soviet Union, the Middle East and Asia.

The immigration police arrested 10 Bangladeshis at Zia International Airport midnight past Thursday for reportedly carrying fake visas to China.
   The arrested — Jahangir, 45, Anisur Rahman, 48, Shariful Islam, 26, Jasim Uddin, 32, Mostafiz, 23, Iftekhar, 25, Nurunnabi, 41, Kafinul Haque Chowdhury, 31, Abul Kalam Azad, 36, and Salahuddin, 24 — had planned to go to China to work in shipping lines.
   The police challenged them when they were boarding for Dragon Air flight KA-111 for Hong Kong scheduled to take off the airport at 1:00am Friday.
   The 10 produced fake visas given by travel agency New Funnel Traders based at Agrabad in Chittagong. The police did not find its name on the government list of agencies having permits to get Bangladeshis employed in shipping lines in China.
   The immigration officials later handed them over to the Airport police.
   The police produced them in the court of chief metropolitan magistrate which sent them to jail on Friday.

The inmates of Jhenaidah jail on Friday refrained from having lunch, protesting at curtailing of visiting hours and a restriction imposed on supplying food for them from outside.
   Prison sources said around 745 inmates of the jail, instigated by influential prisoners, including politicians and crime bosses, ganged up at around 1:00pm and demanded cancellation of the newly-imposed restrictions.
   They also demanded withdrawal of three detectives deployed by the prisoner directorate to keep watch on jail affairs, officials and guards, and the prisoners, a prison official told New Age.
   Sources said the detectives imposed the ban on supplying food for the prisoner from outside. The jail authorities recently also stopped providing the inmates with a general bed for Tk 600 and a hospital bed for Tk 1,000, a move which also angered the influential prisoners.
   The sources said, after taking breakfast on Friday, the influential prisoners managed to unite the other inmates and persuaded them to refrain from cooking launch. They demanded to meet the deputy inspector general of prisons, Jessore, and the deputy commissioner and the police super of the district to discuss their demands.
   The prisoners took food at about 4:00pm after holding a meeting with the officials.

Law enforcers have continued their manhunt to nab the rest accused in the case filed on Wednesday following brawls at the grave of BNP founder Ziaur Rahman that saw some leaders assaulted and chased by party rivals.
   BNP chairperson’s adviser Brig Gen (retd) ASM Hannan Shah and three others were arrested on Wednesday and implicated in charges of breaking emergency rules.
   Tejgaon police station filed the case after brawls among BNP rival groups during
   the observance of the
   National Revolution and Solidarity Day on November 7 at Zia Udyan.
   The brawls saw BNP Standing Committee member Mahbubur Rahman, also a former army chief, assaulted while party leaders Dhaka City Mayor Sadeq Hossain Khoka and Maj Gen (retd) ZA Khan chased by rival activists.
    Officer-in-charge of Tejgaon police station Jane Alam
   Khan told New Age, ‘We are now conducting massive raids in the city for nabbing the remaining accused, especially those who are named in the case.’