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Tainted milk powder brands are still on sales in stores in Dhaka and other major cities as the weekend comes as a good excuse for the government to delay execution of a court order.
   The High Court on Thursday ordered the government to take immediate action to stop display and sales of eight milk brands, tested melamine positive.
    The order followed a public interest litigation filed amid a heightened nationwide health care as a Dhaka University test found industrial chemical melamine in eight major-selling milk brands sourced from China, Denmark, New Zealand and Australia.
   The baby formulas in question are Yashili 1, Yashili 2 and Sweet Baby sourced from China, Dano from Denmark, Red Cow and Diploma from Australia, and Nido Fortified Instant and Anlene from New Zealand.
   Hours after the delivery of the court order, acting commerce secretary Ghulam Mustakim Thursday evening said they would take a decision on eight milk powder brands only after it ‘officially’ got the copy of the High Court ruling in hand. He declined to say what the government would do since the copy of the court order was unlikely to reach the ministry before Sunday because of the two-day weekend.
    The counsels of the petitioners, on whose writ petition the High Court issued the directive, said they conveyed to the respondents on Friday the High Court’s order issuing a certificate.
   The certificate, addressed to the inspector general of police, was handed over to his personal staff at his house in the afternoon, said the writ petitioner’s counsel Manzill Murshid.
   He also mentioned that certificates were also issued to the home, finance and commerce secretaries, National Board of Revenue chairman, Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission chairman and Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution director general, who were ordered by the High Court to enforce the ban until further test reports from home and abroad found the milk brands melamine-free.
   The certificates were sent to them by fax message in the afternoon Friday, the first day of the weekend.
   IGP Nur Mohammad told New Age Friday evening that he had received an envelope, but did not open it since it was a public holiday.
   Asked about the implementation of the High Court directive, the police chief said that the police, if asked, would assist the authorities concerned in implementing the directives.
   A senior official of the Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution, seeking anonymity, said that their lawyer informed them about the High Court ruling, but no action could be taken since it was a holiday and no copy of the directive was available to the institution.
   Meanwhile, the banned eight brands were seen on display at the shelves of stores across the country including those in Dhaka, Chittagong, Khulna, Rajshahi, Barisal and Sylhet.
   Most of the shopkeepers said that they were not aware of the High Court order, while others said that they did not remove the brands from shelves as none asked them to do so.
   Some shopkeepers in Dhaka were prompted to remove the disputed brands from their shelves following the High Court ban and upon advice from distributors of Nido and Dano brands.
   The owner of Ananda Stores on Sir Iqbal Road in Khulna, Ananda Saha, on the other hand, said the distributors of Nido on Friday visited the shop and requested him to continue with the display and sales of the brand showing newspaper advertisements that claimed the brand was melamine-free.
   The shopkeepers, however, said the sales of the eight brands, and other brands of powdered milk as well, came almost to a halt, while market sources claimed that the brands in question were being sold out to bakeries, confectioners and sweetmeat makers.
   Many shop owners in Dhaka were found caught in a dilemma on Friday about what to do with the milk brands in stock as a High Court order was there but the government action was missing.
   A shopkeeper at the city’s Moulvibazar commodity wholesale market, Momen Ali said they did not see any problem in keeping the brands on display, as they neither got any copy of the High court order nor any directive from the government and the companies concerned.
   Momen Ali, however, said that he had purchased Dano milk at Tk 545-550 per kg and was trying to sell them to restaurants at cheaper price to offset some of the loss.
   Another trader Mintu of Karwanbazaar area said, ‘Now we have a milk power stock of about Tk 20,000, but the companies so far did not give any assurance to recall the products and repay the money.’
   The consumers would have to buy the milk brands at their own risk, said Abu Taher, a trader in the New Market area.
   Most of the grocery shops in Chittagong continued to display and sell the tainted brands as of Friday.
   Sources at different kitchen markets in the port city, including Reazuddin Bazar, Karnaphuli Market, Kazir Dewri Bazar, Chawkbazar, Bahadderhat, Faillatoli Bazar, Barapul Bazar and Nalapara Bazar, said no administrative measure was seen to remove the milk powder from the market in line with the court directive.
   Market sources said people, still unaware of or indifferent to melamine hazards, continued to buy the tainted milk powder to feed their babies.
   Mohammed Nizamuddin, proprietor of Hoque Traders at the Karnaphuli Market, said he continued to display the banned brands, as he was not aware of the court order. ‘You will get the milk powder of the brands at every shop in the market,’ he added.
   Most of the shops in Sylhet were seen displaying the disputed milk brands on Friday, while those disappeared from the shelves of a few shops.
   A shop owner at Jindabazar in Sylhet said he removed the brands from the shelf following the High Court order. But sales were going on from secret stocks, though the sales were very low, he admitted.
   New Age correspondent from Barisal reports, most of the tinned and packed milk brands, tested melamine positive, were on sales in the city stores. But traders reported sharp declines in sales as test results and High Court order scared customers off.
   ‘Milk sales in my shop declined to less than Tk 2,000 a day now from an average daily turnover of Tk 10,000 before the melamine scandal surfaced,’ said Khokan Saha, a wholesaler in Barisal.
   Our Rajshahi correspondent adds, traders in the city were selling banned eight brands both in retail and wholesale shops until Friday.
   Traders said they were yet to get any announcements from the companies concerned whether or not to sell those milk powder brands.
   Shops at Saheb Bazar, New Market, Upashahar New Market and RDA Market are found selling the banned brands openly.
   Salahuddin Ahmed, an employee of Ruchita Confectionary in the city, said that they were selling the brands as none so far asked them to stop the sales.

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party on Friday said it would not contest the parliamentary elections, slated for December 18, without participation of the party chairperson Khaleda Zia, and asked the interim government to meet all its seven demands.
   ‘Participation of Khaleda Zia in the elections has to be ensured, otherwise BNP will boycott the polls’, party secretary general Khandaker Delwar Hossain said.
   He told reporters at his Sher-e-Bangla Nagar flat that the party also wanted the government to accept all the seven demands it had placed at Thursday’s dialogue at the Chief Adviser’s Office.
   The government at the latest dialogue with the party agreed in principle to six of its seven-point demand but ruled out the possibility of deferring upazila polls – a thorny issue standing in the way of successful talks.
   Delwar also renewed his call for complete withdrawal of the state of emergency.
   ‘There cannot be any national elections without participation of Khaleda Zia and under the state of emergency’, he said.
   He refused to accept a relaxed state of emergency saying ‘The state of emergency needs to be withdrawn at once, not in phases. BNP will contest the polls if the government accepts the demands we placed at the talks.’
   Delwar said it would be tough for many candidates to go for electioneering if the emergency power rules remained in force.
   The adviser for commerce and education, Hossain Zillur Rahman, after the second round of talks with the BNP, said there was no bar to Khaleda leading her party but her participation in elections was a ‘legal matter’ and that there would be an answer in time.
   Party insiders said the entire issue of BNP’s participation in the polls still depends on Khaleda’s participation in the polls and the party is taking preparations for both election and street agitation. Once the issue is settled, the party will take up the other matters, they said.
   When asked why the question of Khaleda’s eligibility for contesting the polls arose as there was no legal bar to her contesting, a number of BNP leaders said the tone of the advisers while answering the questions from reporters made us suspicious. Besides, the issue was not discussed at the talks.
   Their choice of words and tone could not convince the party that the government has dropped its so-called minus-two theory, they said.
   They also said the government’s rigid stance on upazila elections five days inside the parliamentary polls also added fuel to the confusion as there was no logic in holding two elections in a span of five days.
   The party chairperson’s adviser, ASM Hannan Shah, on Friday told reporters the government’s stand on upazila polls reflected its negative attitude.

The Awami League on Friday asked the interim government to shun ambiguity and make it clear whether the party president Sheikh Hasina could contest the parliamentary polls, scheduled for December 18, and warned it that the elections would not be acceptable without her participation.
   Addressing a discussion in the city, the party leaders said Hasina’s contesting the election was a must for making it acceptable.
   They renewed their call for the party leaders and activists to remain united to thwart conspiracies to foil the December 18 elections.
   The discussion was organised by Borni Kalyan Samity, Dhaka, an organisation of the people of Borni union of Gopalganj living in the city, at the Supreme Court Bar Association auditorium. Samity president Badruddin Biswas presided over the meeting.
   AL presidium member Amir Hossain Amu warned the party activists that conspiracies to foil the national elections and prevent Sheikh Hasina from contesting the polls were still going on and asked the caretaker government to clearly say whether she could contest the elections.
   ‘At the dialogue with us, the government assured us that the party chief would enjoy freedom and could join the election campaign. But there is ambiguity about what it actually means…It will have to make it clear whether she can contest the polls’, he said.
   He reiterated that the Awami League would join the electoral process only under Hasina’s leadership.
   Party presidium member Abdur Razzak expressed his conviction that the people would thwart conspiracies to foil the national elections.
   Presidium member Tofail Ahmed asked the government to be more serious about holding parliamentary polls on time as there was no alternative to elections. He said the party would contest the general elections under Hasina’s leadership.
   Tofail asked the Election Commission to defer the upazila polls by a rational length of time.
   Party presidium member Suranjit Sengupta demanded that the caretaker administration should hand over power to an elected government immediately by holding a free, fair and acceptable election in deference to the people’s expectation.
   He expressed his optimism that the AL-led alliance would form the next government under the leadership of Sheikh Hasina with the people’s mandate.
   Party leaders Faruq Khan, Kazi Akramuddin, Ismat Kadir Gama and Molla Mohammad Abu Kaiser and Kalyan Samity leaders MH Kuddus Mia, Keramat Ali Molla and Munshi Manzurul Huq also addressed the discussion.

Protests continued at different places in the country on Friday with a call for unity among all the progressive forces to resist religious bigots at every front to safeguard the country’s culture and heritage.
   The call came from different programmes organised to protest against the dismantling of baul sculptures at the Airport crossing in Dhaka in the face of bigots’ threat on October 15.
   ‘Down with the zealots; bring the culprits to justice and safeguard the culture’ were among the slogans chanted by the protestors on the Dhaka University campus and elsewhere in the country.
   Cultural activists, artistes, sculptors, playwrights and students in general took part in the protest programmes.
   They also demanded formation of a national committee, comprising leading intellectuals, artistes, sculptors, architects and government officials, to formulate a guideline for installation of sculptures. The committee will also implement the policy, they proposed.
   Sachetan Shilpi Samaj, a platform of sculptors, singers, artistes and cultural activists, brought out a procession singing baul and patriotic songs starting from the Faculty of Fine Art of Dhaka University and paraded main thoroughfares on the campus.
   Through the songs, the demonstrators chastised the government leniency towards the fundamentalists and asked the interim administration to take steps to safeguard the country’s culture and heritage from religious extremists.
   They also announced to hold a protest rally at the university’s Faculty of Fine Art today.
   Sramik-Karmachari Oikya Parishat organised a protest rally and formed a human chain at the Central Shaheed Minar demanding immediate rebuilding of the baul sculptures at the airport crossing.
   They also demanded punishment for those responsible for the removal of the baul monument, saying fundamentalist elements were hatching conspiracies to destroy the country’s culture and heritage.
   The programme was attended, among others, by workers’ leaders Wazedul Islam Khan, Abdul Matin Master, Abul Bashar, Roy Romesh Chandra, Shah Md Abu Jafar, Raziquzzaman Ratan and Abdul Kader.
   Left and social democratic 11-Party Alliance extended support to the human chain programme to be formed by Nagarik Samaj in Dhaka today.
   The decision was taken at an exchange of views held at the Workers Party’s central office attended by the leaders of the alliance and Nagarik Samaj.
   The threat of the religious bigots to damage all the sculptures in the country was part of conspiracies against the culture of the country and contrary to the Bengali culture, the leaders observed.
   They also called upon all the progressive forces to be united to foil the conspiracies.
   Chaired by the coordinator of the alliance Abdus Samad, the meeting was attended, among others, by Workers Party president Rashed Khan Menon, Gana Forum presidium member Pankaj Bhattachrya, Workers Party general secretary Bimal Biswas, Gana Forum acting general secretary Subrata Chowdhury, Anisur Rahman Mallik and Nagarik Samaj leaders Khan Sarwer Murshid, Ajoy Roy, Hamida Hossain and Syed Abul Moksud.
   New Age Moulvibazar correspondent adds: Different organisations organised protest programmes in the district headquarters and asked the government to reinstall the baul monument at the Airport crossing in Dhaka.
   Bangladesh Chhatra Union and Bangladesh Juba Union formed a human chain to protest at the demolition of the sculptures. Nilimesh Ghosh Bulu, ASM Saleh Suhel, Badrul Islam Suhel and Abdul Hafiz, among others, took part in this programme at Court Road in the town.

Major political parties seem to be indifferent even 10 days after the government dismantled the baul monument in the Dhaka airport crossing bowing down to the pressure of the Muslim bigots.
   Most left-leaning political parties, socio-cultural organisations, and groups of artistes, however, took to the streets to protest against the removal of the sculptures, and are still continuing their agitations.
   The military-controlled government of Fakhruddin Ahmed, reportedly after being threatened by bigots, removed the sculpture, titled ‘Khanchar Bhitar Achin Pakhi,’ on October 15.
   The sculpture was designed to represent the cultural heritage of rural Bangladesh where the bauls, who look distinctive in their simple, saffron clothing, are the primary sources of music, especially in the religious shrines on religious occasions. They usually sing mystic songs to the accompanying music of an ektara (single-stringed percussion instrument) held in one hand.
   The United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation included the baul genre of music in its list of ‘Masterpieces of the Oral Intangible Heritage of Humanity’ in 2005.
   The removal of the sculptures sparked off protests across the country which, however, were not joined by the country’s major political parties like the Awami League, Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Jatiya Party that hardly miss any opportunity to speak rhetoric about the country’s cultural heritage in peace time.
   Initially, the Awami League at a meeting of its presidium, condemned the government’s decision and accused it of being partial to the fundamentalist forces, but it neither staged rallies nor went for protest programmes.
   When asked about her party’s failure to protest against the removal of the sculpture, the party’s presidium member Matia Chowdhury referred to the meeting which condemned it and asked the government to re-install the sculpture.
   When she was asked to comment on the issue, she said that the government had deliberately remained silent over the issue.
   ‘They want to re-establish the fundamentalist forces in Bangladesh,’ she said, referring to a meeting between chief adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed and the fugitive Jamaat-e-Islami leader Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojahid.
   She said this had exposed the government’s real character.
   The Bangladesh Nationalist Party was silent from the beginning. No statement in protest was issued officially by the immediate-past ruling party which is allied with some right-wing political forces.
   When asked to comment, one of the party’s joint secretaries-general, Selima Rahman, also former state minister for cultural affairs in Khaleda Zia’s 2001-2006 cabinet, claimed that she had personally condemned the government’s decision to remove the sculpture.
   ‘It is definitely a matter of concern that the government caved in to the threat of the zealots and removed the sculpture,’ she said.
   When asked about the party’s position on the matter, the former state minister expressed her ignorance.
   She said the government should have thought about the matter well before it had launched the project. ‘We cannot afford to waste public money in this manner.’
   The Jatiya Party also issued no statement against the government’s decision.
   When contacted, a member of its presidium requested this correspondent not to ask about his party’s position.
   ‘I feel embarrassed. The government shouldn’t have bowed down to the bigots. It is really unfortunate,’ the Jatiya Party’s leader, Ghulam Muhammad Quader, told New Age.
   This unelected government might consider it unwise to confront Islamists at the moment, especially ahead of the general elections, said Quader. ‘It may be one of the reasons for the government to bow down, but it could have avoided such a situation.’
   Quamaruzzaman, the assistant secretary-general of the Jamaat-e-Islami, refused to make any comment on the issue. ‘Why you want to bring up this matter since your newspaper does not normally publish our news? Why are you so interested in it?’

Law enforcers on Friday foiled the scheduled grand rally of Muslim fanatics, who forced the interim government to pull down the baul statues from the airport crossing in Dhaka on October 15 and demanded a Hajj minaret there.
   Muslim bigots under the banner of ‘Bimanbandar Golchattar Murti Protirodh Committee’ said if the government failed to meet their demand they would stage a grand rally at the north gate of the Hajj Camp.
   The Dhaka Metropolitan Police, in an announcement on Thursday, imposed a ban on any kind of procession and demonstration at Ashkona and in the area around the Zia International Airport.
   The fanatics tried to stage demonstrations in front of the Hajj Camp near ZIA, trying to defy the police ban after jum’a prayers, but a huge contingent of law enforcers and intelligence agency personnel foiled their attempt.
   Several hundred leaders and activists of the fanatics started to gather in front of the Jamiya Babus Salam Mosque and Hajj Camp at around 12:15pm, but were intimidated by the huge contingent of police, riot police and the Rapid Action Battalion deployed in the areas since 11:30am.
   The law enforcers took up positions at all the key points and locked the main gate of the Jamiya Babus Salam Mosque, confining 300 madrassah students just after the local people went out after completing the jum’a prayers.
   The bigots, after being obstructed by the law enforcers in front of the Hajj Camp mosque’s gate, instantly returned to the mosque and held a rally inside it.
   The committee’s chairman, Mufti Nur Hossain Nurani, also the chief of the anti-Ahmadiyya outfit Khatme Nabuwat Andolan, said anti-Islam forces, taking advantage of the state of emergency, decided to erect a sculpture in front of the Hajj Camp.
   ‘The five baul statues were being constructed at the personal wish of the chief adviser’s special assistant in charge of civil aviation and tourism ministry, Mahbub Jamil, so we declare him persona non grata in the airport and adjoining areas,’ said Nurani.
   He also said that more than 10,000 diehard activists are ready to sacrifice their lives for Islam, so they will resist any attempt to re-install the sculptures in the same place.
   He demanded destruction of all sculptures in the country, setting up of a Hajj minaret in the roundabout and naming of the road from Hotel Siraj International at Ashkona to the airport terminal as Hajj Avenue.
   Deputy commissioner (north) Mirza Abdullah Hel Baki told journalists, ‘We were ready to go into action to maintain law and order if they tried to bring out a procession.’
   Meanwhile, the Khelafat Andolan and Islami Chhatra Shakti tried to bring out a procession from the Baitul Mokarram’s northern gate after the jum’a prayers, but being prevented by the police, they held a brief rally at the mosque’s northern porch demanding removal of all sculptures.
   Huge contingent of police were deployed at both north and south gates of the mosque.
   The religious fanatics forced the Roads and Highways Department and the Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh to remove the statues of five bauls, holding ektaras, on October 15.
   Following the dismantling, different political and socio-cultural organisations and individuals condemned the removal of the statues and demanded that they should be re-installed immediately and the bigots be punished.
   They urged the people to launch a movement against the fundamentalists, who are posing threats to Bengali culture and heritage.

The authorities have hardly been able to establish control over the city’s traffic although a month has elapsed since the chief adviser asked them to put the traffic system in order.
   Indiscipline dominates the city streets, lanes and alleys, and traffic almost crumbles during rush hours with tailbacks killing tens of thousands of working hours everyday.
   Piles of construction materials, unauthorised parking and so-called garages for car repair on busy roads make the situation worse and indiscriminate stoppage of motorised vehicles before the eyes of lawmen are still frequent on the city streets.
   With more than 100 new motorised vehicles hitting the streets everyday, the situation is getting from bad to worse, officials at the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority and traffic department of police said.
   The situation appears to be choking for commuters and pedestrians in a rapidly growing city of over 12 million people, and it will worsen in the days to come unless the road infrastructures are improved, said Shihab Ullah, the director of Dhaka Transport Coordination Board, a donor-funded scheme for improving the capital’s thoroughfares.
   With Dhaka’s traffic system collapsing, the chief adviser to the interim government, Fakhruddin Ahmed, held a series of meetings with officials from BRTA, DTCB, police, Dhaka City Corporation, communications ministry, and town planners to find ways to ease the upsetting tailbacks.
   A meeting chaired by the chief adviser on August 21, 2008 announced a package of plans, which included eviction of illegal occupants, construction of safe bus stands, marking of bus-bays, and introduction of staggered school timing, to ease congestions. The head of the government also set September 30, 2008 as the deadline for the officials to improve the situation.
   But the steps appear to be a futile exercise as officials say setting a deadline without equipping the departments with adequate resources would hardly help improve the situation.
   And in many cases, the government started backtracking on its decision finding it difficult to cope with the reality. The education ministry has already redirected schools to begin classes at any time between 7:00 am to 8:30am instead of 7:30 as ordered by the chief adviser.
   The ministry could not ascertain whether all the city schools arranged school buses to transport their students as directed by the high-profile meeting.
   Progress in marking bus-bays and zebra crossings, removal of illegal possessions on streets and pavements in different areas are frustrating as of now.
   ‘We failed to complete the tasks on time. We have kept our efforts on despite limitations’, said Shihab Ullah giving an account that his department could mark four out of six bus-bays in the city and 24 zebra crossings out of 260.
   Only 45 of the zebra crossings are well marked out while the rest have faded.
   The DUTP head said in contrast to the growing number of vehicles – both motorised and non-motorised – the road space in the city is precariously inadequate.
   With 400 enforcers against a demand for 3,000 personnel to handle the situation, the traffic department of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police failed to start all of its tasks, assigned by the head of the government, on time.
   The department is scheduled to launch a special drive against buses which ply the streets violating permits for routes the number of which have been reduced to 40 from the previous 138.
   The department, however, has been carrying out other drives like removing illegal occupants from footpaths and streets, said the joint commissioner of the department, Jasim Uddin.
   According to the traffic department, as many as 5,000 buses in addition to over 2,00,000 motorised vehicles and some 700,000 non-motorised vehicles ply Dhaka streets everyday.
   The authorities have identified 65 city points as most notorious for traffic congestion.
   Asked for comment, the inspector general of police, Nur Mohammad, told New Age that a lack of coordination was to a great extent responsible for the city’s worsening traffic congestion.
   ‘Mere enforcement of law won’t work…Road users and other agencies concerned must behave to help ease the situation’, he added.

Parliament witnessed noisy scenes on Thursday after a group of lawmakers demanded a ban on a Hindu group suspected of involvement in two bomb blasts last month, officials said.
   Members of the left parties demanded an immediate ban on Bajrang Dal and Hindu Jagran Manch, following a report in a newspaper that Jagran Manch was involved in two blasts in western India.
   Confirmation of Hindu groups being involved in attacks would undermine a widespread perception in India that Muslim militants have always been behind a wave of bombings in India in recent years in which hundreds have died.
   The Indian Express newspaper, quoting sources in the police, said two bombings, one in the town of Malegaon and the other in Gujarat, were carried out by Jagaran Manch.
   Five people were killed in the blasts that hit the two Muslim-dominated towns within minutes of each other on September 29.
   ‘Terrorists, regardless of their caste, should get equal punishment, but unfortunately in India the effort is to identify terrorists with the Muslim community,’ Brinda Karat, who demanded a ban on the group in parliament, told Reuters.
   She said Bajrang Dal, another hardline Hindu group, should also be banned.
   ‘Criminalising the entire community and targeting Muslim youths gravely weakens the nation’s unity.’
   Muslim leaders accused authorities of conducting a witch hunt and reinforcing stereotypes about their community after dozens of Muslims were detained following a string of bomb attacks across the country this year.
   Police in Maharashtra were tightlipped about the news report, with officers saying they were still investigating the case.
   The state’s anti-terrorism squad had evidence of the involvement of ‘extremist Hindu groups’ in the Malegaon blast, NDTV news channel reported, without citing sources.
   Police initially said the Indian Mujahideen, a militant Islamist group, could be involved in the attack. But it was unclear why they would set off blasts near mosques and in Muslim-dominated areas, some analysts said at that time.
   In August, two suspected Hindu militant fundamentalists died while trying to build a bomb in Kanpur.

Bihar continues to burn for the fourth consecutive day Friday in the aftermath of anti-MNS protest as youths indulged in arson and vandalism across the state.
   Violence erupted in Boring road area of the state capital with nearly 100 youths armed with sticks descending on the streets smashing window panes of shops and pulling down arches put up for Deepawali festival, the police said.
   Two students suffered minor injuries in the baton charge by the police near the outpost while a strong contingent of police was rushed to control the situation.
   The agitators also blocked the Anisabad chowk area of the city by burning two bitumen containers. The police chased away the students. After these incidents, the security of all the major installations have been beefed up.
   The agitating students ransacked the circle office, National Rural Employment Guarantee office and post of Madhuban block in East Champaran district.
   The students set documents on fire and also burnt tyres, Superintendent of Police Madan Kumar Anand said.
   They also attacked a branch of State Bank of India in Madhuban block and smashed the window panes and computer, Anand said adding the agitators pelted stones at a passenger train passing through Mehsi railway station.
   Prohibitory orders under section 144 of CrPC has been imposed in Motihari town where the agitators had Thursday targeted the railway station.

Chittagong mayor ABM Mohiuddin Chowdhury has vowed to go for legal battle as his appeal for withdrawal of the restriction on his taking the mayoral charge was turned down by the LGRD ministry.
   ‘I’ll fight to establish my right as the Chittagong mayor. If necessary, I shall die. I am not afraid of death,’ he told New Age on Thursday, adding ‘My daughter also died. I could not see her alive due to the dilly-dallying process in issuing order for my visit to Bangkok.’
   Mohiuddin, who won the August 4 mayoral election to the Chittagong City Corporation remaining in jail and was released on bail on October 9 after 19 months of detention, was barred from taking the charge of CCC mayor following a restriction imposed by the army-controlled interim government.
   The local government ministry in sent a notification to the chief executive officer of CCC on October 14 with an edict that the acting mayor, instead of Mohiuddin, is to carry on.
   Mohiuddin had appealed to the LGRD ministry for lifting the restriction, but his prayer was rejected on Tuesday, he said, adding that it was totally an injustice in me.
   ‘I came to know unofficially that my petition has been turned down. As soon as I get the official copy, I shall file a writ petition with the High Court to get back my right and position. As I am an elected mayor, nobody can bar me to take the charge,’ he said.
   Mohiuddin, also an Awami League leader who applied to the government on Wednesday to allow him to go to Bangkok for treatment, warned that if the government wanted to see peace in Chittagong, he must be allowed to join as the CCC mayor immediately.

The cloudy sky with outbreaks of rain and drizzle due to a low over the Bay of Bengal is threatening to mar the second Test between Bangladesh and New Zealand beginning at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium today.
   The match will start at 9:30am. State-run Bangladesh Television will telecast the match live, while Bangladesh Betar will give ball-to-ball commentary. New Zealand won the first Test by three wickets to lead the series 1-0.
   The weather office in a special bulletin on Friday advised all three maritime ports of the country to hoist signal No 3 and forecast the low would move in the north or north-westerly direction after intensifying further.
   It has already taken a toll on the visiting New Zealand, who abandoned their practice before the match-day and returned to their hotel from the SBNS. It also left both the teams in a selection dilemma.
   Bangladesh, who looked happy to go with the squad of the first Test, included uncapped pacer Mahbubul Alam in the line up. Bangladesh will likely drop Naeem Islam, should Mahbubul play.
   A source in the he team management also did not rule out the chance of excluding left-arm spinner Abdur Razzak. Razzak was preferred to Sakib al Hasan in Bangladesh’s last Test against South Africa at this venue in March.
   The Tigers were found regretting the decision later after they set South Africa 205 runs to chase in the fourth innings and still lost the game by five wickets due to a lack of any support to their spinner Mohammad Rafique.
   Sakib bowled only 17 (10+7) overs in two innings and went wicketless in that match. He, however, rediscovered his spinning tricks in the first Test and claimed nine wickets, including a record 7-36 in the first innings.
   A 71-run knock in the second innings with his wicket-taking feat made Sakib an obvious choice this time around.
   The selection dilemma was no less easy for New Zealand as well as they were found struggling to choose the appropriate replacement for injured Jacob Oram, out with a back injury.
   South African-born all-rounder Grant Elliott was a logical replacement, but the bad weather condition also created a chance for swing bowler Mark Gillespie, who came into the side as a late replacement for pacer Chris Martin.

A clear depression formed over the Bay of Bengal on Friday, causing light showers across the coastal districts and drizzles elsewhere in the country.
   The maritime ports of Cox’s Bazar, Mongla and Chittagong have been asked to hoist local cautionary signal number 3 till further orders.
   The depression was staying over the west-centre and adjoining northwest bay on Friday noon, said the Met office.
   The meteorologists have asked all fishing boats and ships on the Bay of Bengal to stay near the coast and move cautiously.
   The New Age correspondent in Patuakhali said the sky remained cloudy in the coastal districts where there were sporadic showers.
   The low triggered panic in the region, especially among fishermen on the bay who headed for the landing stations of Mohipur and Alipur under Kalapara upazila.
   The Kalapara Doppler Radar Station asked the local administration to hoist cautionary signal number 3 in the district. The Met office also asked all fishing boats and ships on the Bay of Bengal to stay near the coast and move cautiously until further advice, according to Prodip Kumar Chakrobarty, who is in charge of the radar station.
   ‘The depression that formed over west-middle Bay of Bengal on Thursday turned into a clear depression on Friday morning. It was on the west-middle and adjoining northwest Bay of Bengal at noon,’ said Prodip.
   Md Fazlu Gazi, president of the Alipur and Mohipur Fish Warehouse Association, said they were trying to contact the fishermen over mobile phones to ask them to return. By Friday noon more than 300 fishing boats had reached the port that mostly serves trawlers.
   Md Riaz Ahmed, deputy commissioner of Patuakhali, told New Age that they have already instructed the upazila nirbahi officers and Red Crescent Society members to be prepared for facing any disaster.

The New York Times endorsed Barack Obama for president on Friday, saying the Democratic hopeful has grown into the kind of leader the United States needs after eight years of George W Bush in the White House.
   ‘Hyperbole is the currency of presidential campaigns, but this year the nation’s future truly hangs in the balance,’ began a lengthy editorial in the nationally-circulated newspaper reviled by conservatives for its liberal slant.
   ‘The United States is battered and drifting after eight years of President Bush’s failed leadership (but) after nearly two years of a gruelling and ugly campaign, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois has proved that he is the right choice to be the 44th president of the United States,’ it said.
   The Times joins 127 other daily newspapers across the United States that have come out for Obama, against 49 newspapers supporting Republican rival John McCain, according to a tally by Editor and Publisher, a trade journal, that was updated Thursday.
   ‘Mr Obama has met challenge after challenge, growing as a leader and putting real flesh on his early promises of hope and change,’ said the Times, which has not endorsed a Republican for president since the 1950s.
   ‘He has shown a cool head and sound judgment. We believe he has the will and the ability to forge the broad political consensus that is essential to finding solutions to this nation’s problems.’
   It lashed out at McCain for retreating ‘farther and farther to the fringe of American politics’ with an ‘ugly’ campaign based on ‘partisan division, class warfare and even hints of racism’.
   ‘His policies and worldview are mired in the past. His choice of a running mate (Sarah Palin) so evidently unfit for the office was a final act of opportunism and bad judgement that eclipsed the accomplishments of 26 years in Congress.’
   On the economy, Obama has ‘correctly identified the abject failure of government regulation that has brought the markets to the brink of collapse,’ it said, adding it was right to make well-off Americans pay more taxes.
   On national security, the Times said Obama would face a ‘learning curve’ assisted by his running mate Senator Joe Biden, ‘who has deep foreign policy experience,’ but that he was ‘far more likely’ to repair the image of the United States in the world.
   ‘This country needs sensible leadership, compassionate leadership, honest leadership and strong leadership,’ it concluded. ‘Barack Obama has shown that he has all of those qualities.’

Thirty-two per cent of Pakistanis say they have cut down on food because of rising prices, for which 70 per cent of the population blame the government, a research group said on Friday.
   Soaring food prices and shortages of staples mean about 77 million of Pakistan’s 160 million people are food insecure, a 28 per cent increase over last year, according to UN World Food Programme estimates.
   The survey, of 1,732 people in rural and urban areas, conducted in early August, also found that 56 percent of people said rising costs of food, fuel and electricity had had a severe impact on them and their families.
   ‘It might be a serious concern for the government to know that 70 per cent of Pakistanis blame the food price hike on government policies as opposed to other factors such as global price trends,’ said the Pakistani Institute of Public Opinion, which carried out the survey.
   The institute is the Pakistani affiliate of Gallup International.
   Like most emerging economies, Pakistan was badly hit by soaring global oil and food prices over the past year and the country was facing an economic crisis even before the global financial crisis developed.
   Pakistan is facing inflation at close to 25 per cent, a balance of payment crisis and foreign reserves falling by $1 billion a month.
   With no external funding, analysts say the country will most likely have to agree to help from the International Monetary Fund.
   International organisations say about a third of Pakistanis live in poverty and an increasing number of them are turning up at food centres set up by charity organisations.
   ‘If we don’t tackle the problem, we’ll start finding dead bodies,’ said Abdul Sattar Edhi, head of one of Pakistan’s main private aid groups, the Edhi Foundation. ‘We’ll find entire families dead from hunger.’
   Another charity, the Sailani Welfare Trust, says more than 30,000 people come to its 25 free food centres in the city of Karachi every day.

The power division has sought opinions of the Implementation, Monitoring, and Evaluation Division on whether the tender committee for the 450MW Bibiyana independent power plant would consider evaluating the fresh offer of the lone bidder.
   The division on Thursday requested IMED’s central procurement technical unit to give its opinions on the new proposal of the consortium of Powertek Berhad of Malaysia, Siemens Project Ventures of Germany and Korea Electric Power Company, that it would lower the ‘levellised power tariff’ to around 4.39 cents from 4.53 cents.
   The lone bidder, in its desperate attempt to get the ‘lucrative’ deal, in a letter to the Power Cell on Tuesday proposed around only 3 per cent or 0.14 cents reduction in the power tariff it had offered earlier.
   The consortium’s move follows the October 13 decision of the cabinet committee on purchase to re-evaluate the bid as the committee found the consortium’s power tariff offer on the higher side.
   ‘We want to know from the technical unit whether it would be lawful to consider the change in the power tariff in the bid. If the committee gives the nod, the tender evaluation committee will evaluate the fresh offer,’ a high official of the division told New Age on Thursday.
   The division decided to seek the opinions of the technical unit as the tender evaluation committee, headed by the Power Cell director general, Abdul Jalil, was not certain whether any change in the financial bid, especially price offer, could be considered.
   Power division and tender committee members, who earlier recommended accepting the exorbitant price offer, meanwhile, are found to be happy with the 3 per cent reduction in the power price by the consortium.
   ‘If the technical unit gives the nod, it is highly likely that the committee will recommend again accepting the Powertek price,’ said a source.
   The purchase committee, headed by the finance adviser, Mirza Azizul Islam, on October 7 sent back the proposal to award Powertek the contract and asked the power division to re-evaluate the consortium’s offer in line with the recent global economic crisis that led to a decrease in steel prices, observing that the consortium’s price offer was too high.
   The Power Development Board signed two agreements with a US company in 1998–1999 on the purchase of electricity from the 450MW Meghnaghat IPP and the 360MW Haripur IPP at a levellisd rate of 2.79 and 2.72 cents. The power board started buying electricity from Haripur in 2001 and Meghnaghat in 2002 under 22-year deals.
   The tender committee earlier recommended accepting the high tariff offer of the consortium saying the cost equipment of power plants had increased by around 130 per cent from the time when the Meghnaghat deal was signed 10 years ago.
   ‘But in the last few weeks, the price of steel has decreased by more than 60 per cent on the international market. Given the worldwide economic recession and decreased fuel oil prices, the power plant equipment price is bound to come down sharply. Powertek’s reduced price offer is still too high,’ observed a power official.

More than 50 gangs in Dhaka and adjoining areas are actively involved in counterfeiting currency notes, especially dollars, euros, pounds, Saudi riyals and Bangladeshi takas, said RAB sources.
   ‘We came to know more than 50 gangs are now engaged in producing fake currencies in the city and nearby areas,’ Saiful Islam Chowdhury of RAB told New Age.
   ‘Criminals usually choose lowly areas like slums in Dhaka, Narayanganj, Savar, Tongi, Gazipur, Munsiganj and Keraniganj to carrying on their illegal business,’ he said.
   He also said they had arrested scores of people for counterfeiting notes and selling them.
   ‘The gangs spend around Tk 150 to produce a Tk 500 note, as a real note of Tk 100 and chemicals costing Tk 50 are used,’ he said, quoting some counterfeiters interrogated by RAB.
   ‘The counterfeiters sell a fake note of Tk 500 for Tk 250 to the wholesalers who sell it to the third party for Tk 350, who later sell it to the fourth party for Tk 400,’ he said.
   ‘Though we have filed scores of cases against the arrested, they get bail from the court after a period as the sections under which the cases were lodged are bailable, and again begin counterfeiting notes,’ he said.
   ‘We have formed teams to monitor big cases of counterfeiting to ensure punishment of those involved in the trade,’ he added.
   A team of RAB raided the first floor of a house at Auchpara of Tongi in Gazipur, and arrested Mahbubur Rahman, 30, of village Ataul Kati in Bagherhat.
   The team seized counterfeit notes of US dollars and local currencies worth about Tk 3.84 lakh and some equipment including one laptop, four printers, 115 printer cartridges, two kilograms of chemicals, one dye for producing US dollars, CD and Tk 45,500 in cash earned from selling the fake notes.
   During the preliminary interrogation, Mahbub confessed that he had been counterfeiting high-denomination notes and selling them to the wholesalers for a long time.

The Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association on Friday arranged a daylong workers’ festival at the Osmani Stadium in Narayanganj amid protests by the Garments Sramik Sangram Parishad which staged demonstrations and marched through the roads of the industrial town.
   Addressing the inaugural session of the festival, BKMEA president Fazlul Hoque said, ‘We are trying to take more care of the workers who make world-class apparels for export and have helped us to earn over $5.5 billion in foreign exchange in the last financial year.’
   He said the problems between owners and workers of knitwear factories would be solved.
   ‘We will not allow any outsiders to interfere with our workers and thus aggravate the existing problems,’ he said.
   The BKMEA’s directors and two senior knitwear workers, Mohammed Younus and Badsha Mia, who have been serving this sector for more then 25 years were present at the opening programme.
   To develop good relations between the owners of knitwear factories and the workers, the BKMEA has decided to arrange the ‘Workers Festival’ as part of its pro-worker activities that will continue throughout the year, said Fazlul Hoque in his inaugural speech.
   Workers from Dhaka, Savar and Gazipur also participated in the festival.
   The roads adjacent to the Osmani Stadium remained congested for the whole day as thousands of workers, male and female, marched towards the first festival of its kind since early morning. Several thousands of workers were seen standing outside the stadium as it had failed to accommodate them. A large stage was built at the south-east side of the stadium where various amusement programmes, including concert, dance and drama, were performed.
   The programmes were produced by several knitwear factories including Fakir Apparels, Bay Cotton, Fatullah Fabrics, Lakhya Knitwear, Model D’ Capital and Anwara Textiles. The programme was started by workers of Fakir Apparel who sang the National Anthem. The whole programme was conducted by BKMEA’s vice-president, Zahidul Hoque Dipu, and its director, GM Faruk.
   The BKMEA announced a holiday for all knitwear factory workers on Friday.
   No workers’ leaders were invited by the BKMEA to the first ever ‘Workers Festival’ in the country.
   The Garments Sramik Sangram Parishad staged demonstrations and several rallies in the town in protest against the ‘hypocritical’ Workers Festival that was arranged while most of the garment factory workers remain hungry. The Parishad’s members sat down for a symbolic hunger strike at the Shahid Minar from 9:00am to 5:00pm. They demanded implementation of tripartite agreement signed between government, workers and garment factory owners, regularly payment of wages, the recognition of trade union rights and increase of the wages of the workers in line with the present market prices of essentials.
   A daylong workers’ rally was organized by the Parishad at the Shahid Minar, presided over by Advocate Mahbubur Rahman Ismail. It was addressed by Jubaran Ali Jewel, Bahrane Sultan Bahar, Shahidul Islam Sabuj, Master Mukhlesur Rahman, Shamim Imam, Dr Shamsul Alam, Abul Kalam Azad, along with others. Leftist leaders Abu Nayeem Khan Biplab, Md Haniful Kabir, Abu Hasan Tipu and Abdul Khalek expressed their solidarity with the workers and spoke at the rally. Mass and Baul songs were sung in favour of the workers’ demands.

A senior Thai prosecutor admitted Friday that there was only a ‘slim’ chance of extraditing convicted former premier Thaksin Shinawatra from Britain.
   But the director of the attorney general’s international affairs department told AFP he hoped to begin the legal process by the start of next year.
   Thaksin, ousted in a military coup two years ago, was sentenced to two years in prison on Tuesday for his part in a securing a land deal for his wife while he was prime minister.
   He fled to Britain with his wife Pojaman and children before the verdict, saying he would not receive a fair trial in Thailand after his wife was convicted on tax evasion charges.
   ‘I admit that getting Thaksin extradited will be difficult and complicated,’ Sirisak Tiyapan said.
   ‘But I still have hope... we still have a chance although it’s slim,’ he said.
   The prosecutor’s office cannot begin work on the case until 30 days after the conviction, allowing Thaksin the right to appeal.
   Earlier this month a British Home Office spokesman said Thaksin and his wife had applied for political asylum, but on Wednesday people close to Thaksin were quoted in local media as saying that report was not true.
   Following Thaksin’s ouster in September 2006, the interim military government set up a corruption investigation unit to look into alleged abuses of power.
   So far, the Supreme Court has agreed to hear five cases against Thaksin.
   The land deal verdict on Tuesday was the first judgement against Thaksin since the coup.
   An attempt to extradite Thaksin during his first period in exile following the coup got bogged down in complexities, as the charges he faced in Thailand were not covered by the extradition treaty with Britain.

Security forces pushed deeper into territory held by Tamil Tiger rebels in nor- thern Sri Lanka and captured several strongholds of the guerrillas, the defence ministry said Friday.
   Government forces are engaged in a major offensive to capture the town of Kilinochchi which has served as the political headquarters of the Tamil Tigers for over 10 years.
   ‘Troops made further headway towards Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam hiding areas in the south and the south-western areas of the Kilinochchi district,’ the ministry said in a statement.
   It gave no details of casualties and said the authorities
   had decided not release
   figures of those killed and wounded in the latest round of fighting.
   ‘This is in consideration of the continuing advance of the security forces there (in Kilinochchi district) and
   the need for operational
   security, whereby such reportage (of casualties) may impede the successful accomplishment of the mission,’ the ministry said.
   Earlier this week, the military reported that security forces lost 36 soldiers killed and another 48 wounded in the worst single loss for security forces in the past six months.
   The ministry did not say how many Tigers had been killed in the latest fighting. The guerrillas also gave no details of the fighting.
   Defence ministry maps show that troops are about 10 to 15 kilometres (six to 10 miles) southwest of Kilinochchi.
   Tens of thousands of people have died on both sides since 1972, when the LTTE launched its campaign to carve out an independent state in the Sinhalese-majority island of 20 million people.

Want to lose weight? Try eating. That’s one of the strategies being developed by scientists experimenting with foods that trick the body into feeling full.
   At the Institute of Food Research in Norwich, England, food expert Peter Wilde and colleagues are developing foods that slow down the digestive system, which then triggers a signal to the brain that suppresses appetite.
   ‘That fools you into thinking you’ve eaten far too much when you really haven’t,’ said Wilde. From his studies on fat digestion, he said it should be possible to make foods, from bread to yogurts, that make it easier to diet.
   While the research is preliminary, Wilde’s approach to curbing appetite is one that some doctors say could be key in combating the obesity epidemic.
   ‘Being able to switch off appetite would be a big help for people having trouble losing weight,’ said Steve Bloom, a professor of investigative medicine at London’s Imperial College, who is not connected to Wilde’s research.
   Scientists in North America and elsewhere in Europe are also trying to control appetite, including through chemical injections or implantable devices that interfere with the digestive system.
   Bloom said that regulating appetite through modified foods is theoretically possible. Other mechanisms in the body, like cholesterol production, are already routinely tweaked with medicines.
   But Bloom warned that controlling appetite may be more challenging. ‘The body has lots of things to prevent its regulatory mechanisms from being tricked,’ he said.
   For instance, while certain hormones regulate appetite, the brain also relies on nerve receptors in the stomach to detect the presence of food and tell it when the stomach is full.
   Wilde’s research hinges on the body’s mechanisms for digesting fat.
   Fat normally gets broken down in the first part of the small intestines. When you eat a high-fat meal, however, the body can only digest the fat entirely further down in the intestines. That sparks a release of hormones that suppress appetite.
   Wilde’s approach copies what happens with a high-fat meal: He coats fat droplets in foods with modified proteins from plants, so it takes longer for the enzymes that break down fat to reach it.
   That means that the fat isn’t digested until it hits the far reaches of the intestines. At that point, intestinal cells send a signal telling the brain it’s full.
   Even though the body hasn’t had a high-fat meal, it suppresses the appetite as if it has. If the fat had been digested earlier in the intestines, no such signal would be sent.
   Wilde said the technique should work with any foods that contain fat, like dairy products, precooked sauces, mayonnaise, breads and pastries, and that taste would probably not be affected.
   If all goes well, products could be on shelves within a few years, he said.
   In another technique, scientists at the University of Newcastle have been testing a seaweed extract called alginate that reduces fat absorption by cutting the level of glucose digested by the body before it gets broken down in the large intestine.

At least eight suspected separatists have been killed in shootouts with security forces in India’s restive north-eastern state of Manipur, police said Friday.
   Five of the militants belonged to the Kangleipak Communist Party, a rebel group fighting for an independent homeland for the majority Metei community in Manipur, which borders Myanmar, a police spokesman said.
   The KCP had claimed responsibility for a powerful explosion on Tuesday in the state capital Imphal in which 17 people were killed and more than 30 wounded.
   Police did not reveal the identities of the other suspected militants killed on Thursday.
   More than 19 militant groups are active in Manipur, a state of 2.4 million people in India’s remote northeast region.
   Nearly 10,000 people have died in insurgency-related violence in the state in the past two decades.

Jatiya Party (Ershad) candidates, who are interested to contest in the forthcoming general elections, have been asked to collect their nomination forms between October 26 and 30.
   The intending candidates for all constituencies of the country can collect nomination forms from Mohammad Khaled Akhter, treasurer of the party, from the party chairman’s Banani office.
   The fee for each nomination form has been fixed at Tk 5,000 which should be submitted to the party treasurer by October 31, said a party news release on Friday.
   The party chairman, HM Ershad, will inaugurate the form distribution by collecting his form at 11:00am tomorrow, the release said.

The first group of the Bangladeshi Multi-role Logistics Unit, comprising of 163 personnel, reached at Nyala under South Darfur in Sudan on Thursday.
   The new deployment gave a much-needed boost to UN African Union Peacekeeping Force in Darfur for logistical support, a UN news release said.
   The remaining 162 soldiers were scheduled to reach on Friday.
   Bangladesh’s deployment in Darfur already includes one police unit also deployed in South Darfur, and a total of 53 individual police advisers.
   The Bangladeshi police unit arrived in Darfur in November 2007 and it is playing an increasingly important role in ensuring security at camps for internally displaced persons, the release said.
   Bangladesh is the second largest contributor of uniformed personnel to United Nations peacekeeping operations, with more than 9,000 troops and policemen serving around the world, the release added.

Bangladesh has attained remarkable progress in fulfilling the Millennium Development Goals on children issues, especially in reducing infant death, raising the rate of enrolment in primary education and bringing gender equality in primary education, says a UNICEF report.
   According to a recently-conducted survey of UNICEF, among the slum children in Bangladesh, 52 per cent are attending schools, while 13 per cent are engaged in child labour.
   Families living in Bangladesh are exposed to recurring natural disasters, putting some lower-middle class families under poverty line, the UNICEF report shows.
   About 40 per cent population who are living under poverty line are the most sufferer of these catastrophes, it says adding that the hike in food prices hits many people throughout the country including the lower-middle class households.
   Quoting the report of the FAO and the WFP, the UNICEF report says the number of absolute poor in the country has increased to 75 lakh, and under this circumstance, the children become the most sufferers.
   UNICEF representative Carel de Rooy in a message on the occasion of Children Rights Week from October 13 to 20 had said: ‘If we are serious about children’s rights, we should not leave one single child behind. It is vital to provide these poor families with safe water and sanitation, improved child nutrition and maternal care, equality education and protection for children at risk in order to reduce their vulnerability.’
   ‘This can be achieved by prioritising budgetary allocations for the realisation of the economic, social and cultural rights of children, in particular those belonging to economically and geographically disadvantaged groups, including indigenous children,’ Carel added.

A local leader of Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal was shot dead and five others received bullet wounds in a clash between Chhatra Dal and Bangladesh Chhatra League at Tulagaon in Patiya upazila on Friday.
   The police said activists of the two rivalry student organisations clashed at Nalanda in the area over the snatching of a mobile phone set of a JCD activist at about 3:00pm.
   The feuding groups exchanged several gunshots leaving six of the both sides injured. They were rushed to the Chittagong Medical College Hospital where doctors declared Khorshed Alam, 25, general secretary of Tulagaon union unit of JCD, dead.
   Didarul Alam, 32, Mohammed Mafiz, 32, Mahabubul Alam, 28, Abbas Ali, 30, and Amanullah, 30, were undergoing treatment at the hospital till Friday evening.