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Some 2.058 diarrhoeal patients were treated at different hospitals and health complexes in the country while the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Diseases and Research, Bangladesh in Dhaka alone handled 866 patients in 24 hours till 8:00am on Tuesday.
   According to the directorate general of health services’ control room, there were 134 reported cases of diarrhoea in Bhola, 123 in Jessore, 110 in Naogaon, and 103 in Gopalganj on Tuesday.
   Sweltering heat and dry weather across the country kept the diarrhoea situation almost unchanged
   on Tuesday, health officials said.
   The ICDDR,B has set up three makeshift wards on its Mohakhali premises to cope with the growing number of patients coming to the specialised hospital for the treatment of the disease.
   The research-based hospital has advised all to drink water which is boiled for at least 10 minutes, and to use water purifying tablets to avoid the attack of diarrhoea.
   It has also asked mothers to feed their children up to six months of age only with breast milk.
   Talking to New Age on Tuesday, the centre’s short-stay unit head, Dr Azharul Islam Khan said, ‘The mothers need to maintain exclusive breast feeding for the babies up to six months old in order to save them from the attack of diarrhoea. Breast milk helps develop the immune
   system.’
   The physician also advised all to drink water after boiling it for at least 10 minutes and to use purifying tablets for water in the reservoirs or tanks.
   People should be made aware to take safe drinking water as water is one of the major causes of diarrhoea, said the doctors at the ICDDR,B.

The Dhaka Metropolitan Police, which claims law and order is under control, is going to launch special drives to keep criminals at bay, said the city police commissioner AKM Shahidul Haque.
   ‘We are updating the criminals’ database and we hope to launch the special drive this week to keep law and order,’ he said as he briefed newsmen after presiding over the monthly crimes review meeting at the Razarbagh Telecom auditorium on Tuesday.
   In reply to a question, the city police chief said the database would be updated with information criminals irrespective of their political affiliation.
   Giving statistics, Shahidul Haque claimed the overall law and order was under control.
   According to the statistics, the number of dacoity and robbery has increased in March than in February. The number of murder was 34 in March and it was 16 in February. The incidents of mugging decreased in March when 34 cases were filed while there were 65 such incidents in February.
   The incidents of repression on women and children, abduction and theft also marked a decrease in March in comparison with figures of February, the statistics showed.
   The officers-in-charge of all the 35 police stations in the city and senior officials, including the deputy commissioners concerned, attended the meeting.

Social workers, physicians and experts at a discussion on Tuesday urged the government to allocate sufficient money for the health sector in the forthcoming budget to help the people avail themselves of free health services.
   They also called upon the government not to privatise the state-run health institutions, saying that the poor people of the country received free treatment from the public hospitals.
   The Rajshahi district unit of Campaign for Good Governance organised the meeting at the GDRC auditorium in the Rajshahi city.
   Dr Abul Fazal, deputy civil surgeon of Rajshahi, president of the district unit of Citizens for Good Governance, Professor Nurul Alam also former chairman of the Rajshahi education board, president of the health rights movement committee, Mozammel Haque also former deputy director of social welfare department at Rajshahi and Dr AFM Jahid, deputy chief of the Rajshahi University Health Centre, spoke at the meeting as guest speakers.
   Professor Fazlul Haque, president of SUPRO presided over the meeting.
   Advocate Dilsitara Chuni, divisional coordinator of the Bangladesh Women Lawyers’ Association, Fayezullah Chowdhury, general secretary of Barindra Unnayan Forum, Jesmin Akhter Panna, area manager of Transparency International Bangladesh, SKL Muhammed Lalon, executive director of Nishkrity, Tajul Islam, vice president of Rajshahi association and Jamaat Khan, convener of the Rajshahi Rakkha Sangram Parishad, also addressed the meeting.
   Speakers said most of the poor people went to the public hospitals and health complexes as they did not have the ability to get health services from the private clinics.
   They urged the government to extend health education to rural areas and set up more health centres so that the poor can receive better health services.

THE Criminal Investigation Department is going to seek further remand of a former NSI officer Akbar Hossain after he was produced in the court on Wednesday in connection with the sensational 10 truck load of arms haul case, the investigators said.
   The CID arrested Akbar and got him on remand for two days, which expired on Tuesday, they added.
   ‘Akbar remained tight-lipped when we interrogated him during the remand’, said the investigation officer, Mohammad Momiruzzaman, also assistant superintendent of police of the CID.
   ‘Even he denied his involvement in hiring of 11 trucks from a transport agency for carrying the arms, though the prime accused Hafizur Rahman and transport company employees had revealed it in their confessional statements’, he added.
   ‘We need to quiz him further to ferret out the leads in the arms deal. So he should be put on a fresh remand’, he said.
   Earlier, the CID quizzed about 20 naval personnel, who were posted at the coast guard during unloading of the weapons at the CUFL jetty.
   Some more navy men will be called in for interrogation, the investigators said.
   Former deputy director of the NSI Mohammad Ali was also questioned recently after he appeared at the Chittagong CID office, they added.
   The police seized 10 truck loads of arms from the jetty of CUFL on April 1, 2004.
   The case restarted with the recording of the confessional statements of the two prime accused Hafizur Rahman and Deen Mohammad, officials said.

A total of 121 firearms, mainly small arms, have been missing from the armouries after the February rebellion at the Bangladesh Rifles headquarters in Pilkhana.
   The missing arms include 83 pistols, 17 rifles, four sub-machine guns, one SMG used for training, two Walther PPK pistols, seven NPB pistols, three .22-calibre rifles, two 12-calibre shotguns and two single-barrel guns.
   The Walther PPK pistol, NPB pistol, 22-calibre rifle, 12-calibre shotgun and SBBL guns were owned by the officers and licensed for their personal use and kept in BDR’s 24 armouries. But the rebels also took away the personal arms along with the BDR’s arms after breaking open the armouries.
   The BDR authorities also said a number of firearms were damaged and many firearms have missing parts.
   However, the BDR authorities could not yet ascertain the number of missing explosives and ammunitions.
   ‘We have been able to count the firearms, but we could not yet complete the count of missing grenades, ammunitions, mortar shells, rocket launchers and other explosives,’ said the BDR Director General Major General Mainul Islam.
   The DG however said the counting of explosives and ammunitions would be completed shortly.
   After the rebellion the arms were recovered from different places and kept in the armouries of different units where they belonged to, and after the final stock-taking the number of missing arms was found to be 121, said a release issued on Tuesday.
   The family members of BDR soldiers continued to take their belongings out of their quarters, and 17 families vacated the quarters inside the Pilkhana on Tuesday, raising the number of quarters vacated so far to 404.
   The lawmen recovered two mobile telephone sets, believed to have been looted from the officers during the rebellion, from one Barek, a cowboy, on Tuesday.
   Forty-four more BDR soldiers were shown arrested on Tuesday in the BDR carnage case filed with New Market police station.
   The Criminal Investigation Department produced the 44 soldiers before the court of the chief metropolitan magistrate on Tuesday, showing them arrested in the case, but did not appeal for their remand. The court sent them to the jail.
   So far a total of 1,146 people, mainly soldiers, have been shown arrested in the BDR carnage case.
   The police also produced two other soldiers, Sepoy Sajjad Hossain and Sepoy Arifur Rahman, before the court on Tuesday afternoon after the end of their 5-day remand and sought a further 10-day remand. But the court remanded them in custody for 5 days only, said court sources.

At least 25 people, including five policemen, were injured in a clash as the police tried to quell a mob, which resorted to vandalism over raffle draw at a fair in Birganj upazila headquarters on Monday midnight.
   Two people, including a woman, also received bullet wounds in police firing during the melee.
   Witnesses said the raffle draw of Baishakhi mela was to be held at 11:30pm at the fair ground. But the organisers appeared to be dillydallying in holding the draw, which angered the visitors.
   At one stage, the agitating people started vandalising the stalls of the fair.
   The police charged batons and fired blank shots to disperse the mob, triggering a violent clash.
   Two visitors to the fair- Habibar Rahman, 35, and Nargis, 25 - suffered bullet wounds during the police firing.
   Following the police action, the enraged people attacked the local police station and damaged the gate, light posts and several police vehicles.
   The mob also put barricade on Dhaka-Panchagarh Highway.
   Later, the authorities imposed section 144 at the upazila headquarters and called in police reinforcement to bring the situation under control.
   The deputy commissioner of Dinajpur, Abdul Jalil, and the police super, Abu Kalam Siddiq, visited the spot.
   Two bullet-hit visitors and five police members were admitted to Birganj Upazila Health Complex.
   A tense situation was prevailing in the area.

Liakat Ali on Monday resigned as the chairman of the Khulna Water Supply and Sewerage Authority on personal grounds.
   Liakat, also editor of the Khulna-based newspaper Dainik Purbanchal and president of the Khulna Divisional Press Club Federation, took charge as the chairman of the agency in September 2008.
   A release issued by Purbanchal said Liakat had taken over as the first chairman hoping to modernize the supply water agency.
   But a few months inside taking charge, he came to realize it would not be possible for him to live up people’s expectations and he would be blamed for that, said the release.

The National Committee to Protect Oil, Gas, Mineral Resources, Power and Port on Tuesday requested Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to fulfil the commitment she had made as the leader of the opposition in 2006 to not allow open-pit mining in the country.
   ‘The former opposition leader and the incumbent prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, visited Phulbari in Dinajpur on September 4, five days after the Phulbari tragedy, and made a strong announcement that she would resist any move to operate any open-pit mine there as well as any other place in the country,’ said the committee’s convenor, Sheikh Md Shahidullah, at a discussion meeting in the National Press Club.
   He said that Sheikh Hasina had also extended her full support to the agreement that the committee signed on behalf of people of Phulbari with the then BNP-led four-party government for cancelling the contract with Asia Energy for mining the Phulbari coal-field and for banning open-pit mining.
   The then government signed the six-point Phulbari agreement with the committee, who represented the people of Phulbari, after three persons were killed on August 26, 2006 when law enforcers opened fire on people demonstrating against the Asia Energy’s proposed open-pit mine at Phulbari.
   Hasina held a public meeting in the premises of the Phulbari Government College on September 4 to protest against the killing. Influential AL leader Matia Chowdhury, who is now the agriculture minister, Mostafizur Rahman Fizar, who is now the state-minister for forest and environment, and Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal’s president, Hasanul Haque Inu, were present at that meeting.
   Shahidullah, at a the discussion meeting on Power Crisis, Evil Circle in Energy Ministry and Aggression of the Multi-National Companies, alleged that a minister, who is a relative of Hasina, had reportedly said that the open-pit mining was the only way to overcome the current energy crisis.
   He said that energy shortage could be mitigated by underground mining of various coal-fields. ‘If we go for underground mining, we can extract 10-20 per cent of our coal reserve and with this amount we can meet our demand for 20 years. If we do open-pit mining, there will be environmental disaster and the extracted coal will have to be exported because of the high cost of extraction,’ he claimed.
   The member-secretary of the committee, Professor Anu Mohammad, said that the current power and energy crisis has been ‘artificially created’ so that the country’s gas- and coal-fields can be handed over to foreign companies on the plea of exploration and production. ‘It is like blackmailing the nation to force the launching of projects beneficial to the foreign companies,’ he said.
   The former director-general of the Power Cell, BD Rahmatullah, also claimed that the power crisis has been artificially created to push more controversial power projects like rental power plants.
   He blamed the previous BNP-Jamaat government for failing to commission new power plants and observed that the present government had also failed to take any initiative to do so.
   He also blamed the bureaucracy for the current crisis and observed that the secretariat should be ‘bombarded’ to root out ‘hooligans’.
   Shahidullah said that certain quarters were blaming the national committee for the delay in formulating the coal policy and awarding of offshore gas blocks. ‘It is the government, which is delaying, not we. The coal policy is being delayed so that it can be formulated in a way that will favour the multinational companies,’ he observed.
   ‘We demand that the coal policy should be formulated immediately, keeping the peoples’ interest in mind. The government should also scrap the bidding process for offshore blocks that took place during the tenure of the interim government and go for fresh bidding after framing a new model production sharing contract by taking the people’s opinion,’ he said.
   He claimed that the PM’s adviser, Tawfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury, was the leader of the ‘evil circle’ in the power and energy ministry, and the new chairman of Petrobangla, Muktadir Ali, was a ‘member’ along with others, and demanded their removal.
   Justice Golam Rabbani, Professor Shamsul Alam, journalist Syed Abul Maksud and leftist leader Ruhin Hossain Prince were present on the occasion, along with others.

The High Court on Tuesday granted an anticipatory bail for six months to a former lawmaker of Jamaat, Moulana Shakhawat Hossain, and a local teacher Amin Uddin in the case of committing crimes during the war of liberation in 1971.
   The case was filed against them with the Keshobpur police station in Jessore district on April 4 last.
   The High Court bench of Justice MA Wahhab Mian and Justice M Marzi-ul-Huq also granted an anticipatory bail to Moulana Shakhawat Hossain in another case of war crimes till submission of the police report in the trial court.
   A freedom fighter Omar Sarder lodged the case with the Jessore Judicial Magistrate Court against Moulana Shakhawat Hossain and Abdul Gani. The accused Gani did not apply for bail.
   The same court also ordered the authorities concerned not to arrest or harass the eight accused in another case of war crimes lodged with the Jessore Judicial Magistrate Court by one Haider Ali.
   The accused are Moulana Shakhawat Hossain, Abdul Azim Hossain, Hossain Ali Moral, Abdul Aziz, Ibrahim Hossain, Alim Khan, Abdul Bari and Lutfor Rahman.
   For the first time, an accused came to the HC seeking bail in the cases of war crimes and the court granted him bail.

The government has decided to take up programmes to rehabilitate the ‘poverty-hit, innocent people’ who somehow got involved in militancy because of their social condition.
   ‘Many innocent people have been recruited by the militant outfits operating in the name of Islamist movements. As such people are very poor, they are misguided and get paid to launch terrorist attacks,’ the state minister for home affairs, Tanjim Ahmed Sohel Taj, told a meeting with the Crime Reporters’ Association of Bangladesh at the secretariat on Tuesday.
   He said the outfits were recruiting people in three tiers —field-level recruits were responsible for launching bomb attacks, mid-level activists were involved in various political activities and brilliant students from private universities and other educational institutes were being planted into the police, army and the media.
   The authorities were going to take up on a rehabilitation programme for such innocent people who were unknowingly serving the purpose of such militant organisations, the state minister said. ‘We are also planning motivational programmes so that innocent people can get back to normal life.’
   The newly-elected office bearers of the association, led by its president Akhtaruzzaman, made a courtesy call on the home affairs minister, Sahara Khatun, at her office. The home secretary, Abdus Sobhan Sikder, also attended the meeting.
   Sahara Khatun said some of the detained militants had gave statement in court saying the prime minister Sheikh Hasina, also the ruling Awami League president, was the prime target of their attacks.
   Sohel Taj said the militant organisations such as the Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh and Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami had always targeted the heritage and culture of this land as they attacked the Pahela Baishakh celebrations programme at Ramna Batamul and a cultural event by Udichi in Jessore.
   He said the government wanted send out a signal to the people that Islam is a religion of peace. ‘We are committed to uprooting militancy wherever it exists.’
   Imams and school and college teachers will be trained so that they can make students and people aware of militant organisations, he said.
   The minister and the state minister, however, said the government had already initiated a move to increase facilities and logistics of the police which, according to them, was poorly equipped to tackle crimes.

The Bangladesh Better Business Forum, a high-powered body formed during the last caretaker government for strengthening the country’s trade and economy, will get a new footing, the finance minister, AMA Muhith, has said.
   Talking exclusively with news agency on Monday, Muhith said, ‘The forum worked well during the caretaker government’s two years. Quite a good number of recommendations from the BBF had a positive impact on the country’s economy.’
   ‘So we want to revive the BBF,’ he said.
   The Fakhruddin Ahmed-led interim administration, in a move hailed by businesses, unveiled the 38-strong high-profile forum on November 26, 2007 to maintain institutional relations with the private sector. Its stated aim had been ‘to create an environment favourable to investment and economic growth’.
   The government will soon reconstitute the body with the prime minister at its head, as the chief adviser had been before, said Muhith.
   ‘There will be little change to the number and composition of members and its working areas will be the same,’ he said.
   He said the forum would meet at least once a month, as it did previously, to suggest measures for the economy to overcome hurdles.
   ‘And the government will enforce the recommendations,’ said the minister.
   The forum was launched with members from the top tiers of the government and private sector.
   Muhith said he met Sunday with a number of BBF members, including the FBCCI president, all of whom asked the government to keep up the forum active.
   Anisul Huq, president of the country’s apex trade body FBCCI, also lauded the efficiency of the BBF and said the institution was able to ensure swift actions as the head of the government was the chief of the body.
   ‘There was little bureaucratic tangle,’ Huq said, with a hope that the body would be able to carry out its tasks under the present government as well to boost the country’s economy and trade.

Labour leaders, academics and factory owners on Tuesday agreed that the wages of the garment workers should be raised so that they could cope with the price spiral of essential commodities.
   In a roundtable titled ‘Present perspective and the minimum wage of the garment workers’, the labour leaders and factory owners acknowledged that garment workers in Bangladesh drew the lowest wages in the world.
   Economist MM Akash, who read out the keynote paper, said the minimum wage of the garment workers must be increased to Tk 4,500 per month from the existing Tk 1,662.
   He gave a comparative scenario of wages drawn by the garment workers worldwide referring to the Global Apparels Manufacturing Limited updated in June 1, 2008.
   Bangladeshi workers get 22 cent per hour while the Cambodian garment workers draw 33 cent, Pakistani workers 37 cent, Vietnamese workers 38, Sri Lankan 43, Indonesian 44, Indian 51 and Chinese 86 cent.
   Labour leader Abul Bashar said the minimum wage of the garment workers must be increased without any delay as it was impossible for them to run their families with the present wage they draw.
   He demanded greater unity of the labour organisations and trade union rights in the garment factories.
   Shahjahan Khan, chairman of the labour affairs committee of the parliamentary committee, said that present government had taken a move to increase the minimum wages of the workers.
   He called on the labour organisations to submit a proposal of the minimum wage.
   The BGMEA director, Haroon-or-Rashid, said the global economic recession had made a negative impact on the garment factories.
   He called on the government and workers’ leaders to consider the issue of recession in re-fixing the minimum wage of the garment workers.
   Labour leader Shafiqur Rahman Majumder said the garment factory owners must be sincere in increasing the minimum wage of the workers.
   The Sramik Karmachari Oikya Parishad coordinator and Trade Union Centre general secretary, Wazedul Islam Khan, demanded recession fund for the workers.
   Chaired by labour leader Amirul Haque Amin, the programme was also attended by labour leaders Abdul Kader Hawlader, Shirin Akhter, Nizam Uddin, Touhidur Rahman and Quamrul Ahsan.
   Bangladesh Garment Sramik Oikya Parishad organised the roundtable at the CIRDAP auditorium.

Rights activists on Tuesday demanded that the government include the poverty reduction maternity-based project, SAPNA, conceived by the Development Organisation of the Rural Poor, in the upcoming national budget and ensure its implementation for establishing a poverty-free country by 2030.
   Speakers at a pre-budget discussion on ‘SAPNA maternity allowance for poverty alleviation’ also said that a long-term policy was necessary for implementing the project.
   The DORP, in association with the daily Jugantor, organized the discussion in the Bangladesh Economics Association’s auditorium on Tuesday morning.
   The Social Assistance Programme for Non-Asseters, or SAPNA, includes a package of five rights — health and birth control card, education card, housing cost of Tk 30 thousand, livelihood seed money of Tk 30 thousand, and micro-credit if necessary — for poor families during maternity.
   The prime minister’s adviser, HT Imam, said, ‘Unequal distribution of wealth is mainly responsible for extreme poverty. This project can be very effective in eradicating poverty from the country if everyone, especially the rich, help to create the fund.’
   ‘The project will need around Tk 80,000 crore to provide facilities to one crore mothers in the next 20 years,’ said the DORP’s secretary-general, AHM Nouman, while presenting the keynote paper.
   The speakers also demanded the setting up of a poverty alleviation authority and introduction of a levy for creating a fund to implement the SAPNA.
   Meher Afroz Chumki, chairman of the parliamentary standing committee for the women’s and children’s affairs ministry, expressed her commitment to carry the demands to the concerned government bodies.
   Bangladesh Economic Association’s president Qazi Kholiquzzaman Ahmad, Shishu Adhikar Forum’s chairperson Wahida Banu, parliamentarian Golam Faruk Khandokar Prince, Agriculture University’s Professor Shamsul Alam Mohon and Bangladesh National Workers’ Alliance’s president Shirin Akhtar also spoke on the occasion.
   The cover of AHM Nouman’s compilation, ‘Din Badaler Swapna’, was also unveiled at the programme.

The Anti-Corruption Commission on Tuesday approved the promotion of 47 of its officials, said informed sources.
   The ACC’s approval, given at a meting, was based on the recommendations of a five-member committee assigned to ascertain which officials deserved promotion.
   The acting chief of the ACC was not available for comment.
   Seven of the officials were promoted to the position of director, 18 to deputy director and 22 to assistant director, an ACC official told New Age.
   Deputy directors AKM Amirul Alam, Abul Kalam Fakir, Golam Yahia, Md Shahiduzzaman, Mozammel Hossain Khan, Abu Torab and Wakilur Rahman were promoted to the position of director.
   Most of the officers worked for the now defunct Bureau of Anti-Corruption and were suspended on allegations of irregularities when the bureau was turned into a commission in 2004. They were taken back to the commission after Hasan Mashhud Chowdhury, the last chairman, took over in February 2007, said officials.
   More than 130 employees of the ACC who have reportedly been deprived of promotion for a long time demonstrated in front of the acting chairman’s office on Tuesday. They wanted their demands to be realised soon.

About 50 examinees were expelled for adopting unfair means in exams halls on the 3rd day of the higher secondary certificate, business management and alim examinations under the 10 education boards on Tuesday.
   A total of 3,822 examinees did not take the exams on the day.
   According to the education ministry control room, 15 examinees were expelled under the Technical Education Board and 14 under the Madrassah Education Board.
   Under the general education boards, 7 examinees were expelled under the Dhaka board, 6 under the Dinajpur board, 1 each under the Rajshahi, Comilla and Barisal boards, 3 under the Chittagong board and 2 under the Jessore board. No student was expelled under the Sylhet board.
   A total of 6,18,308 candidates have registered to take the exams and 277,202 of them are female, according to statistics available with the education ministry.
   The number of the total examinations centre is 1,919 and the number of colleges and madrassahs is 7,237.

Two minor siblings were burnt to death in a fire in a house at Gulyakhali village under Hatiya upazila in Noakhali Monday night.
   The deceased were Meghna, 5, and Surma, 1, daughters of Sahabuddin.
   Witnesses said the girls were sleeping when the fire originated in the thatched house of day-labourer Sahbuddin at about 9:00pm.
   The flame took few minutes to burn down the straw-made house and perish the kids inside it.
   Sahbuddin and his wife were staying outside home at that time.
   Local MP Fazlul Azim visited the scene Tuesday morning and donated Tk 20,000 to Sahbuddin.

Md Masud Alam, assistant director of accounts section at Dhaka University, died of cardiac arrest on Thursday morning at the age of 57.
   He left behind his wife, a son and two daughters, a DU press release said on Tuesday.
   He was buried at a graveyard at Madhya Badda in the city on April 17.
   DU vice-chancellor AAMS Arefin Siddique, pro VC, treasurer and officials of the university expressed deep shock at the death of Alam.
   Alam joined the accounts section in 1973 and served with honesty and sincerity till his death.

Qul khwani of Md Nazrul Islam will be held at 567/A, Payarabagh, Bara Moghbazar, Dhaka after asr prayers today.
   Nazrul Islam, son of Taherul Islam, a former economics professor of Dhaka University, died of liver cirrhosis in a city hospital at 5:00am on Monday at the age of 51.
   Relatives and well-wishers of the deceased have been requested to attend the Qul khwani.

A crew member was missing and shipping was suspended as a vessel carrying clinker sank in the Karnaphuli channel at Chittagong port Tuesday night.
   Eleven crewmen of the lighter ship ‘Seven Circle-25’, which went down at around 8:30pm, managed to swim to shore.
   ‘The twelfth crewman, Bahar Master, remains missing,’ deputy port conservator Captain Nazmul Alam told Bdnews24.com at around 10:00pm. The lighter vessel sank after taking on clinker from a mother ship at the outer anchorage.
   It was becoming impossible to locate the accident spot in the dark and stormy weather, said the port official.
   He said they suspected the ship might have sunk due to the storm.
   ‘As special cautionary measures all types of ship movement in the Karnaphuli channel has been suspended for the night,’ he said.

Sheikh Abdur Rashid, an organizer of the liberation war, was laid to rest at his Jafatnagar village under Fatikchhari upazila on Tuesday with state honours.
   Rashid died of old-age complications at his Hill View Society residence in the city Monday evening at the age of 75.