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The students implicated in a case on charge of assaulting military personnel and setting fire to a military vehicle during the August 2007 campus protests on Tuesday urged the government to withdraw all the cases.
   Five of such students, now remanded on bail, at a briefing at Dhaka University iterated their demand for the withdrawal of the case for setting the military vehicle on fire and all other cases filed against students of other educational institutions across the country.
   They said 10 students of the Western Institute of Business and Technology, Government Titumir College and Bangabandhu College in Gopalganj were detained in jail in connection with the August protests.
   The students, released from jail, in a statement said the flare-up ‘was a spontaneous protest against humiliation of some of the students of the university by military personnel.’
   ‘We do believe that misbehaving with a military personnel and setting fire to a military vehicle on August 22 was not planned. We are anxious about the government’s decision to continue with the case as it will lead us and our families to further uncertainty,’ the statement said.
   Addressing the military personnel, the statement read, ‘you are not our enemies.’
   The students also demanded reintroduction of the elections to the Dhaka University Central Students’ Union at the earliest.
   Five of the students indicted in the case — Zahidul Islam Biplob, Asaduzzaman Asad, Deen Islam Angel, Md Deen Islam, and Rafiqul Islam Sujan — were present. Two students are in hiding.
   Five cases were filed with the Shahbagh police in connection with the Dhaka University incident. The government later withdrew two cases, and the judges pronounced verdict in other two cases.
   The investigation officer of the remaining case filed the charge sheet accusing 25 students and later the government decided not to try 18 of them.

A crow found sick in Gulshan Lake Park in Dhaka on Tuesday was sent to the Central Disease Investigation Laboratory at Phulbaria for bird flu test. Reports on avian influenza, meanwhile, kept pouring in from outside the capital.
   ‘The test result of the dead crows found in the capital on Monday is expected on Wednesday,’ said the Central Veterinary Hospital’s chief veterinary officer, Mosaddek Hossain, who is also the convener of the 11-member committee formed to ensure bio-security in the chicken markets of Dhaka.
   Of the 20 crows found dead in the city on Monday, 15 were found dead at the Gulshan Youth Club and two of them were sent to the laboratory.
   ‘As the case of cow death caused by bird flu has been detected for the first time in Bangladesh, we need to take extra precaution about testing,’ he said.
   Some crows normally die during this season, but a few of the crows that died on Monday might have been due to bird flu, he said.
   He said a meeting of the central monitoring committee was held in the hospital they had decided to ensure bio-security at city chicken markets.
   The meeting also decided on the use of masks and gloves by chicken sellers, check against sales of chickens fallen ill, dropping of wastes into a drum to be burnt later in a particular place.
   ‘We have also decided to request people not to take the skin of chicken home,’ he said.
   He said bird flu is not airborne and it spreads through nasal discharge and wastes of infected birds.
   The New Age correspondent in Chittagong said the agencies concerned had a special coordination meeting in the city corporation auditorium on fight against bird flu. The mayor in-charge, M Manjur Alam, chaired the meeting.
   The meeting was told that a 22-member team had been formed equipped with vehicle sand devices for round-the-clock culling and dumping of fowls after detection of bird flu.
   ‘We have also formed seven-member committees, headed by local ward commissioners, in each of the 41 wards,’ he said.
   Bird flu virus was found in some dead crows at Agrabad in the city on Friday. Seven thousand poultry chickens of five farms have been culled till Monday.
   The correspondent in Rangpur said about 1,000 chickens of a farm at Tajhat in the town died; the death is suspected to have been caused by bird flu. About 6,000 chickens died in the farm in eight days.
   About 1,500 chickens were found dead in a farm in the Laksam municipal area in Comilla on Monday, the correspondent said.
   A few dead birds were sent to the Disease Institute Laboratories in Comilla, said veterinary officer of the Laksam municipality.
   About 5,600 poultry birds were culled and 1,979 eggs were destroyed in two days at Sailkupa and Maheshpur in Jhenaidah, the correspondent said.
   The correspondent in Pabna said more than 1,700 chickens were culled in two farms and some houses at Ishwardi early Tuesday.

A combine of 11 farmers and farm labourers’ organisations, Egaro Krishak O Khetmajur Sangathan, on Tuesday called on the government to take adequate measures for smooth supply of fertilisers, power and diesel during boro season.
   The combine leaders at a briefing in the central Bangladesher Samajtantrik Dal office said insufficient supply of fertiliser, power and diesel would hamper the ongoing boro farming.
   The new fertiliser distribution system fails to ensure that such inputs easily reach the farmers, Mosharraf Hossain Nannu, a leader of the combine, said.
   He demanded that the government should give the farmers and farm labourers rice, flour, cooking oil and other essential commodities on rations as prices of the goods have increased. He also demanded effective measures to control bird flu.
   The leaders called on the organisations of farmers and farm labourers to stand united to push for their demands.
   Combine leaders Tipu Biswas, Abdus Salam, Saiful Huq, Shubhrangshu Chakraborty, Moshrefa Mishu, Zonayed Saki and others attended the briefing.

A Dhaka court on Tuesday remanded in custody for interrogation the associate of an Indian citizen, suspected of possessing the Nobel Prize medal Rabindranath Tagore was awarded in 1913 which was stolen from Santiniketan in 2004.
   The investigation officer of the case, Shyamal Chowdhury of the Criminal Investigation Department, produced Mohammad Hossain Shiplu, arrested at Azimpur early Saturday, in the chief metropolitan magistrate’s court seeking him to be remanded for seven days for interrogation.
   The officer in his remand appeal said the suspect would be interrogated in connection with possible links to the smuggling of archaeological artefacts and drug dealing.
   Shiplu, son of Mohammad Ali Hossain who owns the Rokhshana Pearls Handicrafts at Gulshan 2 DCC Market, was arrested on charge of harbouring Jiban Singh, the prime suspect of the medal theft case filed with the Indian police.
   After the hearing, metropolitan magistrate Abdullah Al Mamun ordered him to be remanded in custody for three days.
   ‘Shiplu, who lives in Italy, has been interrogated in connection with giving shelter to Jiban Singh and his alleged link with the theft,’ said additional superintendent of the CID, Abdullah Arif.
   ‘He gave shelter to Jiban Singh, prime suspect in the case of medal theft,’ Arif said. The CID made the arrest after the Indian authorities had sought cooperation in arresting Jiban Singh, believed to be hiding in Bangladesh.
   The Rapid Action Battalion on November 6, 2007 raided the DCC market in search of the medal.
   The battalion picked up Rokhshana Pearls owner Abul Hossain.
   During interrogation, Abul Hossain admitted talking with an Urdu-speaking person, but he said he had not kept the medal.
   The battalion was keeping watch over a German citizen for his suspected link with the persons who reportedly smuggled the medal into the country.
   In 2004, the police in West Bengal said the Nobel medal was stolen from a museum, part of Visva-Bharati University, founded by Tagore in 1921.
   The Nobel medal for literature and the certificate and some personal possessions were stolen from a locked glass showcase in the museum on March 25, 2004. Tagore was the first non-westerner to win the Nobel Prize in literature in 1913.

The Anti-Corruption Commission chairman, Hasan Mashhud Chowdhury, called for creating social and mental
   pressures on the corrupt to prevent corruption in society, as the crusader against the vice continued his cross-country campaign.
   ‘We have to put corruption into criticism so that people scare to commit any corruption in society,’ the ACC chairman said while presiding over a view-change meeting on prevention of corruption at Chittagong Engineering Institution auditorium on Tuesday.
   He was exchanging views with the members of Anti-Corruption Nagarik Committee of 99 upazilas of 11 districts under Chittagong division as part of massive campaign under the ongoing purge against widespread corruption.
   He said, ‘Maybe, we will not be able to uproot corruption from the society completely
   but we have to create hatred among the people against corruption.’
   Only then, corruption would not take place on such a massive scale in society, he told his audience.
   General Mashhud called upon the committee members to criticise the corrupt persons and also asked the members who have positive attitude toward the corrupt to stay out of the anti-graft body.
   He also urged those members who did not submit their wealth statements to the ACC
   till now to submit those immediately.
   ACC secretary Mukhlesur Rahman, ACC director general Abu Taleb Miah and ACC director of Chittagong divisional office Major Zulfikar Ali Majumder were present on the occasion.

The government has suspended ration of rice for tea garden workers citing depleting official food stocks, garden owners said.
   The decision will affect food security of about 10 lakh people.
   Bangladeshiya Cha Sangsad, an association of tea garden owners, received a food ministry order suspending monthly allocation of 1000 tonnes for the rationing scheme.
   The news came as a fresh blow to the poorly-paid tea garden workers at a time when they need the ration most due to exorbitant prices of rice, and amid calls for a wider safety-net for vulnerable groups.
   ‘They are at a loss now. Many of them will be starving,’ said Parag Baroi, a former tea garden worker who is now a union parishad chairman at Kalighat.
   The suspension letter, signed on January 31 by food ministry deputy secretary Salah Uddin Ahmed and food department deputy director Shefaur Rahman, read considering the food stock situation in the official warehouses, the government has decided to suspend the supply of 1000 tonnes of rice monthly for the rationing programme of tea garden labourers.
   Out of the country’s 163 tea gardens, 92 are in Moulvibazar employing roughly one lakh workers.
   Tea labourers, BCS and different political parties have expressed their concerns over the suspension of ration of rice.
   Ration of rice was introduced long ago for tea garden labourers, who are traditionally low-paid and reside along with their families in the immediate vicinity of tea gardens.
   Getting rice at fixed rate greatly helps them maintaining their families with whatever meagre wages they get.
   Suspension of the ration has put them in trouble to meet both ends meet given the soaring prices of rice and other food items in the market.
   ‘How will we feed our children now? Will the government take steps to raise our wages?’ questioned a tea garden worker of Srimangal, Nitai Rajkor.
   Few labour organisations submitted memorandum to the authorities urging for a review of the government decision.
   Food department officials at Moulvibazar declined to talk on the issue saying that the decision was sent from Dhaka. But a BCS official told this correspondent over phone that the garden owners’ body was contacting the food ministry in this regard.
   District unit leaders of left leaning parties — Communist Party of Bangladesh, National Awami Party (Mujaffar), Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (Inu) and Bangladesher Samajtantrik Dal have urged the authorities concerned to allocate the ration rice, considering the woes of tea garden workers and their contribution to the export earning sector.

Painter Debdas Chakraborty died in Dhaka on Tuesday. He was 79.
   The artist left behind his wife and two sons –– Goutam Chakraborty and Rousseau Chakraborty —- and host of relatives and friends to mourn his death.
   Born in Faridpur in 1933, Debdas first took admission in Calcutta Art College in 1948 and later shifted to the Government Institute of Art, now the Institute of Fine Art, from where he graduated in 1950s.
   He received higher training on printmaking from Warsaw under the Polish government’s scholarship from 1977
   to 1979.
   The painter had participated in a number of group and solo shows both at home and abroad with his first show in the Pakistan National Art Exhibition in 1957.
   In 1990, Debdas was honoured with the Ekushey Padak.
   His death came as a shock to the country’s artist com- munity.
   One of the intimate friends, artist Murtaja Baseer said people like him were rare in the society. ‘He was lion-hearted and polite. He had created his own way of expression in art,’ he said.
   Artist Aminul Islam said, ‘Debdas contributed a lot to the development of art in Bangladesh.’
   Poet and art critic Rabiul Hussain admired Debdas’s amicable personality. ‘He was a real artist. He didn’t blindly follow the conventional style of the West,’ Rabiul said.

Coast Guard seized eight big dead sharks from fishing trawlers in the Bay of Bengal near Dublar while they were being smuggled out on Tuesday.
   Coast guard Mangla West Zone commander captain Abdur Rahim said a patrol team on search of fishing trawlers found the dead sharks.
   None of the smugglers could be arrested. The sharks were handed over to the Sundarban forest office.
   Earlier, a rare species of whale was also recovered last month from the bank of River Mangla.
   Informed sources said, smugglers are engaged in smuggling certain variety of fish catching and marketing of which are banned. Shark and whale are smuggled abroad, including the USA and Japan.

The Workers Party of Bangladesh and the Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal on Tuesday called upon the government and the Election Commission to remove the confusion created in the people about the holding of parliamentary elections.
   The top leaders of the two parties said that the present political crisis could be resolved only by holding a free and fair election within December, according to the roadmap announced by the Election Commission.
   Workers Party’s president Rashed Khan Menon and JSD’s president Hasanul Haq Inu led their party delegation at the meeting held at the JSD’s central office.
   The components of the Awami League-led alliance have started holding meetings among themselves for preparing a common agenda for the proposed dialogue with the interim military-backed government.
   The Awami League will hold bilateral meetings with its partners later for finalising the alliance’s common agenda for the proposed dialogue, the party’s acting president, Zillur Rahman, announced recently.
   The Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal faction led by Hasanul Haq Inu and Samyabadi Dal held a meeting at JSD’s central office and issued a joint statement after the meeting on Monday.
   They urged the government to hold a national dialogue for holding the elections and reaching consensus on various issues.
   The Workers Party will hold a bilateral meeting with Samyabadi Dal at its central office on Wednesday.

An under-trial prisoner, facing a woman repression case, died at Sadar Hospital in Sirajganj Tuesday morning.
   Hospital sources said prisoner Mohammad Ali, 50, of Kaliganj village under Ullapara upazila, was admitted to the hospital in the morning as he complained of severe chest pain. He died at the hospital at about 10:30am.

A teenage boy, accused in a murder case, has been languishing in the Barisal central jail.
   Nur-e-Alam Sabuj was only eight years old when Tera Shahjahan, one of the top terrors in the city, was lynched on September 16, 2003, the police said.
   The police arrested Sabuj, now a student of Class VI, and his father Abdus Sobhan at their house on December 2, 2007 after investigation officer Meer Kashem submitted charge sheet against 51 people, including the two, on October 27, 2007. According to the birth certificate issued by Barisal City Corporation, Sabuj was born on November 15, 1994.
   Sub-inspector Meer Kashem, who received reward from Inspector General of Police for submitting the charge sheet, acknowledged that he included the name of Sabuj as 19-year-old youth in the charge sheet according to the statements of witnesses.
   Khan Sayeed Hassan, commissioner of BMP, said he would investigate the matter.
   Victim’s wife Shahanara Parvin Renu on September 21, 2004 filed the case against 20 people. After political changeover, she also filed another case with sadar upazila magistrate’s court on June 5, 2007.
   After investigation, the police on July 25, 2007 recorded it as a regular case against 25 people and on October 27, 2007 submitted charge sheet against 51 people, including mayor Sarwar.

The home affairs ministry at a meeting on Tuesday decided to put in place a two-tier security system at the Central Shaheed Minar for the observance of Ekushey February and International Mother Language Day.
   The home affairs adviser, MA Matin, presided over the meeting, also attended by home secretary Abdul Karim, education secretary Momtazul Islam, Dhaka University vice-chancellor SMA Faiz and other officials concerned.
   The meeting decided to deploy 7,000 security personnel in and around the Shaheed Minar on the Dhaka University campus to ensure a foolproof security on the occasion.
   ‘A two-tier foolproof security system will be in place at the Shaheed Minar on the occasion of Ekushey February,’ Abdul Karim said as he briefed newsmen after the meeting.
   He said, 6,300 personnel of the police, 600 of the Rapid Action Battalion and 100 of the Bangladesh Rifles would be deployed in and around the venue.
   Bomb disposal units and sniffer dog units will also work at the venue. Security archways will be set up and closed-circuit television cameras will be installed at all entry points leading to the venue.
   People visiting the Shaheed Minar at midnight past February 20 will be searched with metal detectors at the entry points.
   Additional striking force of personnel from different law enforcement agencies will be readied to respond to any emergency. Fire fighters and medical teams will also be in place.
   The Dhaka Metropolitan Police will keep in touch with Dhaka University authorities, who coordinate the observance of Ekushey commemorating the martyrs of the language movement.
   Asked whether the ongoing protests at the university on various issues had been taken into consideration regarding Ekushey security, the home secretary said the university authorities would look into their internal matters.