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Hundreds of employees of the national airlines who were allegedly forced to retire under the voluntary retirement scheme last year are preparing to file writ petitions with the High Court against the authorities of Biman Bangladesh Airlines Ltd.
   A number of the employees told the news agency that they decided to file writ as the Biman management forced them to go on retirement under VRS last June.
   Before the issuance of VRS last year, around 200 employees were either forced to retire
   or terminated. Most of them were learnt to be contemplating filing writ petitions with
   the High Court to get back their jobs.
   The High Court issued show-cause notices on the Biman managing director to explain why they were ‘terminated or forced to retire’.
   The Biman authorities planned last year to cut 1,593 jobs in eight departments to squeeze its manpower to 3,400 from about 5,000.
   Accordingly, the authorities had invited applications from its employees willing to go on retirement under VRS on June 4 last year under the trimming plan.
   The eight departments are Customer Service, Engineering, Project and Planing, Administration, Finance, Store and purchase, Flight Operation, and marketing and sales.
   Till June 20 last year, 2,267 employees had submitted their applications. But, most of the employees alleged that they were made to sign printed VRS forms of retirement.
   As the number of applicants exceeded the number of planned job cuts, the government formed a committee, headed by the Biman managing director, to shortlist the applications.
   The committee finalised a list of 1,877 employees of different Biman departments for voluntary retirement-euphemistically called golden handshake.
   A flight stewardess, requesting anonymity, said when she went to the office on June 20, she came to know that a list of 119 names of flight service department was hung on the notice board. She was allegedly told that she must sign VRS form or else lose her job without any benefit.
   ‘Like me, all of my colleagues, whose names were on the list, submitted VRS forms,’ she said.
   Another employee of the Customer Service Department said he was told that if he did not sign VRS form, he would lose his job and lose his service benefit too.

Flawed land management has resulted in loss of ancestral lands of ethnic minority people to Bengali settlers, which could spark fresh tension in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, a civic group warned.
   Wrapping up a field trip to the south-eastern hill districts, the citizens’ group pointed out that inefficacy of the land commission, constituted to resolve land disputes in the hills immediately after the signing of the CHT peace treaty in 1997, created room for fresh tension in the region, home to at least 11 ethnic groups.
   It called upon the government for full implementation of the treaty signed 11 years ago to bring in meaningful peace in the area that accounts for one-tenth of the country’s total
   land area.
   ‘An uneasy situation has been prevailing in the hills and it can explode into a volatile state any time unless there is a timely intervention,’ said Ajay Roy, a former Dhaka University teacher, who led the fact-finding mission to the CHT.
   The team included teachers, writers, journalists, development workers and retired bureaucrats, and extensively toured in groups in the hilly region between January 28 and 30 to see life of the indigenous people.
   The delegation looked into the rights situation, land disputes, voters’ registration with photographs and other social aspects and talked to a host of people, including chairman and members of the CHT regional council, chairman of hill district council, deputy commissioners, leaders of the ethnic and
   religious groups, Bengali settlers, local media representatives and common people on the ground during the trip to Khagrachhari and Rangamati districts.
   Team leader Ajay Roy said the delegation received a numerous allegations, including intimidation and eviction of indigenous people by Bengali settlers, who in some cases got assistance from the local administration.
   ‘They (ethnic group people) want to get back their lands where they have been residing for generations,’ Roy said Sunday at the National Press Club, briefing the media on the findings.
   The delegation observed that in many cases ‘dual administration’ was found hampering the development process in the CHT and made the regional council and district councils almost dysfunctional.
   On the other hand, a section was believed to have been fuelling the terrorist activities and extortions by an anti-peace group called United People’s Democratic Fronts, born immediately after the peace treaty was signed, according to a report of the team.
   In the name of taming anti-peace elements, the security forces have heightened
   their surveillance and expanded their security periphery
   confiscating lands of the jumma people, causing a sense of
   fresh fear among the hill
   people.
   ‘The indigenous people consider this expansion and land acquisition as an encroachment on their place and privacy,’ said the report.
   Taking part in the discussion on the report, senior politician Pankaj Bhattachariya said it seemed that certain quarter
   had been hatching conspiracy
   to destabilise the entire
   peace process in the CHT, which might affect the national
   politics.
   He called upon all concerned to be vigilant against any ill intention of any quarter.
   Zillur Rahman Siddiqui, a former vice chancellor of Jahangirnagar University who presided over the discussion, appreciated the move by the citizens’ group saying it was a timely trip.
   He called upon the government to consider the demands of the indigenous people to establish peace in the CHT through full implementation of the treaty.
   He said the citizen’s group should hold dialogue with the government and other political parties to help resolve the CHT problems.
   The discussion was addressed by Rangalal Sen, Rabindranath Saren and Chaitali Tripura among others.

At least 20 garment workers, including 10 women, were injured when on duty ansar men spread gas from fire extinguishers on agitating workers of a factory at Maona under Sreepur upazila in Gazipur on Sunday.
   Witnesses and police said several hundred workers of FS Sweater Factory of SQ Group started work abstention since morning to press their nine-point demands including higher allowances.
   At one stage, some hired goons attacked the demonstrating workers, leaving five critically injured.
   The attack infuriated the demonstrating workers, who with support from other workers, countered the assault and attacked the management staff.
   The angry workers ransacked the office building and damaged furniture, computers and office equipments. They also kept confined some foreign officials of the factory in a room.
   The on duty ansar men spread gas from fire extinguishers on agitated workers leaving at least 15 workers, including 10 females, injured.
   Injured workers include Anwar, Ripon, Zaidul, Mokhles, Milon, Monwara, Shapla, Sheoly, Happy, Champa, Milu, Rowshanara, Fatema, Razia, Bedona, Abu Musa, Farhad, Sharif, Mohsin, and Khairul.
   Huge contingents of police and Rapid Action Battalion rushed to the scene and brought the situation under control.