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Former BNP lawmaker, Nasir Uddin Ahmed Pintu, was arrested at the premises of the High Court on Tuesday on charge of helping rebel BDR soldiers flee their headquarters at Pilkhana on February 25-26.
   A team of Detective Branch Police, with the help of Shahbagh police station, picked him up at around 5:15pm just after he came out of the High Court where he had gone to pursue a writ petition.
   Monirul Islam, deputy commissioner of Detective Branch (South), confirming his arrest told New Age, ‘We have arrested Pintu and brought him in our custody on the basis of requisition from the Criminal Investigation Department which is investigating the BDR mutiny case.’
   The 12-member national inquiry committee headed by former secretary Anisuzzaman Khan on May 21 submitted a 309-page report to the home ministry in which they revealed that Pintu had instigated the mutineers and helped them flee the scene after the carnage.
   Court sources said Pintu’s lawyer Mahbub Uddin Khokon filed a writ petition with the bench of justice Tariqul Haqim and justice Azizul Haque on Sunday for no harassment or arrest of Pintu in the BDR mutiny case. But the bench didn’t give its ruling on Tuesday and his lawyer withdrew the petition.
   Earlier, Nasiruddin Ahmed Pintu had been sent to jail after he turned himself to a Dhaka court seeking bail in two cases for attempted murder and theft on February 15, 2007.
   A former leader of JCD, the student wing of BNP, Pintu’s name is closely linked with several crimes and he had been evading arrest since the joint forces launched a countrywide hunt for top corrupt people and criminals in January 2007.
   Former lawmaker Pinto had captured a room at the MP Hostel immediately after winning the 2001 parliamentary elections for Lalbagh-Kamrangirchar constituency (Dhaka-7) although no room had yet been allotted to him.
   During his stint as a member of parliament, Pintu allegedly exerted political influence to grab public land, manipulated tenders, patronised local extortionists and criminal groups, and tortured activists of rival political parties as well as of rival factions in BNP.
   He was once arrested during the 1996-2001 Awami League (AL) rule and even once during the immediate past BNP-led coalition government’s rule. But Pintu could never be brought to book due to government intervention.
   Condemning the arrest, the secretary general of Bangladesh Nationalist Party Khandakar Delwar Hossain in a statement said the government was continuing repression on opposition leaders and activists to cover up its failure.
   He demanded immediate and unconditional release of Pintu and his brother-in-law Mainur Rahman Apu.

A parliamentary panel on Tuesday requested the speaker of Jatiya Sangsad to take legal measures to produce in the committee the former chief and commissioners of the Anti-Corruption Commission who have been charged with contempt of parliament for non-compliance with a legislative summon.
   ‘The speaker has assured us he will take steps to bring them [the ACC bosses] to the committee,’ the chairman of the public undertakings committee, Mohiuddin Khan Alamgir, told reporters after a meeting with speaker Abdul Hamid at the latter’s office.
   The committee at a meeting earlier rejected the explanations the ACC bosses had submitted for not attending the committee meetings. The committee insisted that the ACC commissioners, being in the sphere of public undertakings, were accountable to sovereign parliament.
   ‘We made the request to the speaker and he will determine the next course of action,’ the chairman said adding that the ACC commissioners were given nearly two months to turn up for discussion on the activities of the interim government, many actions of which had been questioned.
   Once again they undermined the sovereignty of parliament, observed the committee members.
   The public undertakings committee had invited the top officials of the ACC and its ex-chief Hasan Mashhud Chowdhury, who resigned in early April, to appear at the committee on April 12 for discussion on the problems in the anti-graft body.
   The parliamentary panel also wanted discussion on the ACC’s annual report, expenditures and its few other actions.
   But the former ACC chief in a letter to the committee expressed his inability to appear before the committee, and the present commissioners – Habibur Rahman and Abul Hasan Manzur Mannan – also explained that the commission was independent and they were only accountable to the president.
   The committee gave them a second chance to appear but none but the former secretary of the commission, Delwar Hossain, now secretary to the land ministry, appeared at the meeting.
   The secretary answered a number of questions from the members of the committee at Tuesday’s meeting. He said that he was served the first letter at short notice and so he could not go through the related laws.
   The former ACC secretary, who had served notices on February 18, 2008 to 50 leading politicians asking them to submit wealth statements in 72 hours when the anti-graft body had no chairman and commissioners, apologised to the committee members and denied he had served the notices following pressure from any quarters.
   ‘I signed the notices consciously, and I will accept any punishment the committee proposes,’ Delwar Hossain told reporters after the meeting.
   But the committee chairman said that he was not satisfied with Delwar’s explanation and asked the cabinet division to take legal action against him.
   When asked whether the committee had suggested any legal measures against the former chief of the ACC and its two commissioners, Mohiuddin Khan Alamgir said that the matter depended on the speaker.
   ‘We put forward a number of suggestions, but we don’t want to make them public now. It will be decided by the speaker,’ he added.
   But meeting sources said that the members had discussed the idea of sending lawmen to ensure that the ACC bosses turn up in the next meeting.
   The committee also asked the cabinet division to suspend the enhanced salaries of a section of ACC officials, who were given promotion by the acting chief of ACC ignoring the committee’s suggestions.
   It also decided to extent support to the government for empowering the anti-graft body to discharge its functions independently and impartially in future.
   The meeting also directed the NBR to open the bank accounts of certain individuals, which were frozen or confiscated by the military-backed government.

The treasury and the opposition bench in the parliament on Tuesday failed to reach any consensus on the sharing of the front-row seats, to the left of the speaker, only a day before the budget session is set to begin at 3:00pm Thursday.
   The parliament speaker, the chief whip and the opposition chief whip Tuesday evening held a meeting in the speaker’s office. But the meeting ended without any consensus.
   ‘There was no agreement as the treasury bench did not place any acceptable proposal for the sharing of parliament seats,’ the opposition chief whip, Zainul Abdin Farroque, told New Age after the meeting.
   ‘I will convey the treasury bench proposals to the BNP’s parliamentary party,’ he said. ‘The parliamentary party will make the decision whether to accept the proposals.’
   The chief whip, Abdush Shahid, however claimed the opposition were given a ‘respectable’ proposal to accept one more seat in the front row.
   ‘But they are demanding all the 10 seats to the left of the speaker,’ he said. ‘They should accept the speaker’s proposal for the settlement of the dispute between the two sides.’
   The speaker, Abdul Hamid, requested the opposition to accept two more seats in the front row, according to sources close to the speaker.
   Former Jatiya Sangsad speaker Jamiruddin Sircar before the first session of the ninth parliament
   allocated 10 seats in the front row, to the speaker’s left, to opposition lawmakers, including one to
   LDP lawmaker Oli
   Ahmed.
   Taking over as speaker, Abdul Hamid, in view of the demand from the treasury bench, changed the seating arrangement, allocating four seats in the front row to opposition lawmakers, including one for Oli Ahmed.
   BNP lawmakers then boycotted the parliament in protest against the speaker’s decision.
   They later attended the first session on assurance of the speaker that their demands would be considered.

Despite persuasion, the state minister for home affairs, Tanjim Ahmad Sohel Taj, is yet to withdraw his resignation. His senior, home affairs minister Sahara Khatun, said she had recommended leave for her deputy.
   Sources close to Taj told New Age that he has not applied for leave and prime minister Sheikh Hasina has not yet accepted his resignation.
   Taj needs to go to the United States to visit his Bulgarian wife, said the sources, adding that because of this he had verbally sought leave from the prime minister.
   Sohel Taj on Monday submitted his resignation to the prime minister through his personal secretary, Md Mofakker Ali, showing personal grounds, but, the sources said, his apparent inability to find satisfaction in his work might have prompted the resignation.
   Taj, son of Tajuddin Ahmed, the country’s first prime minister, told New Age that he is ill and does not want to make any comment in this regard. He did not attend his office on Tuesday and stayed all day at his official residence.
   According to Article 58 (1) (a) of the constitution, the office of a minister other than the prime minister shall become vacant if s/he resigns from office by placing the resignation in the hands of the prime minister for submission to the president.
   Sahara Khatun told reporters that she does not know anything about the reasons for her deputy’s resignation.
   She, however, said she had recommended that he be granted leave from June 6 to June 23.
   ‘Tanjim had talked with me about going to the US on leave to see his wife and children, and applied for leave on Monday from June 6 to 23, and I approved the leave,’ she told reporters.
   Sahara, in reply to a question, said Taj is like her son and there is no conflict between them. ‘After being informed of the rumours of his resignation by journalists, I tried to contact him over the phone, but failed,’ she said.
   Media men gathered at Taj’s official residence on Bailey Road to hear his comments but failed to reach him. People from his constituency also went there to persuade him to withdraw his resignation. Those who met Taj said he was somewhat acquiescent but has not taken any final decision.
   On Sunday evening Taj met Sheikh Hasina at Jamuna, her official residence, to submit his resignation letter but she, instead of accepting it, asked him to pay attention to his duties, sources close to the prime minister told New Age.

People in the remote areas of the south and south-eastern districts, inundated by tidal surges associated with cyclone Aila on May 25, are still facing acute crisis of drinking water, food and medicine amid an alarming spread of water borne diseases.
   A total of 17,708 persons contracted diarrhoea in Khulna and Satkhira in the past seven days, said offices of the civil surgeons. On Tuesday alone, 4,320 people with diarrhoea were treated in the hospitals of the two districts.
   Political parties in the affected region alleged lack of coordination in relief and rehabilitation activities in the southwest districts even after visits by ministers.
   Donor agency Oxfam on Tuesday said more help from the international communities in relief and rehabilitation activities was needed in the affected areas where water became contaminated and diseases were spreading fast.
   The sanitation systems have collapsed in the affected areas and human, animal and fish corpses are polluting the countryside, the organisation said and branded the affected areas as ‘an ideal breeding ground for all kinds of diseases’
   Reports from Barisal said more than five thousand tube-wells in the Brasial division were out of order, triggering acute crisis of drinking water while water-borne diseases were spreading.
   The Barisal public health engineering office said they had repaired about two thousand tube-wells. Sources in the office said a total of 5,203 tube-wells were out of order in six districts of the division.
   Infiltration of saline water and filling of sand and mud after embankments and flood control dams were broken in the affected areas, especially on the shoals and coastal regions, damaged the tube wells.
   Md Yunus Ali, superintending engineer of Barisal PHE, said teams of mechanics have already been sent to the affected areas and already 2,000 tube-wells have been repaired and the rest would repaired or replaced within this month.
   Reports from remote areas in Satkhira, Khulna and Barguna said the relief materials that reached the areas were inadequate and the affected people also alleged mismanagement in the distribution of the little food and water.
   In remote Shyamnagar of Satkhira, where diarrhoea is spreading alarmingly, people said they did not get medicine while the medical officers working in the affected region said they had enough medicine in their stock but failed to reach them to the remote areas for lack of transpiration or funds.
   ‘Medicines could not be reached to the remote villages as boat was the only mean of transpiration when people in the areas are in bad need of medicine,’ said Ataur Rahman who leads nine medical teams at Shyamnagar.
   Members of medical teams deployed in different areas of Shyamnagar and Dacope said they were reaching the remote villages in boats on their own funding and it is tough for them to continue the medical services in this way.
   The Satkhira civil surgeon, Ebadullah, and the Khulna civil surgeon, Md Lutfor Rahman, said they did not get any fund for transporting the medicine to the remote areas.
   They claimed that they were trying to send the medicine at the earliest and the medical teams have been spending money on their own.
   The Khulna district and city units of BNP in a press conference on Tuesday alleged that they observed lack of coordination in the post-Aila rehabilitation activities in the southwest districts, even after visits by the ministers to the Aila-hit areas.
   The party alleged that though lakhs of people have been passing days half-fed or unfed after the cyclone, the government has not taken effective steps.
   It called on the government, donor agencies and the affluent to stand by the affected people.

The BNP’s chairperson, Khaleda Zia, on Tuesday once again accused the government of protecting the interest of foreigners and warned it that she would launch street agitation along with the people if it continues to do so.
   ‘This government assumed office by digital manipulation. Despite that we extended our cooperation. If the government sticks to the alien design of making the country a client state, we will have to take to the streets along with the people,’ said Khaleda while addressing a gathering at the Shahid Barkat Stadium in Gazipur.
   Pointing at the government’s silence over the construction of a dam by India at Tipaimukh, Khaleda said, ‘The government is least eager to fulfil its pledges to people that it made before the elections. Instead, it is implementing its pledges to foreigners.’
   Khaleda urged the people to wage a united movement against construction of the dam which will be a death-trap for Bangladesh. ‘At this critical stage, all of us have to stand together to face this situation.’
   ‘In the six months of being in office, the leaders of Awami League and its fronts went on a grabbing spree everywhere and indulged in extortion,’ she said.
   ‘The government is snatching away the rights of the people like the emergency regime and obstructing observance of the death anniversary of Ziaur Rahman. Even food cooked for the poor was taken away at different places with the help of the police,’ she said.
   Her adviser ASM Hannan Shah, vice-chairman Altaf Hossain Chowdhury, joint secretaries general Abdul Mannan and Gayeshwar Chandra Roy, former lawmakers Hasan Uddin Sarkar and Fazlul Haque Milon also spoke on the occasion.
    The New Age correspondent in Gazipur said Khaleda went there to inaugurate some programmes marking the 28th death anniversary of BNP’s founder, Ziaur Rahman, that were organised by the district unit of the BNP.
   The BNP’s secretary general, Khandaker Dewlar Hossain, earlier in the afternoon in Dhaka said that conspiracies were continuing against the country and the people had to understand the gravity of the situation and be united to face it. ‘There remains no scope to be a spectator. The time has come to be united against such conspiracies,’ he said.
   Delwar was speaking at a rally in front of the party’s central office held to demand reduction of the prices of fertiliser and diesel, bringing commodity prices within the reach of the people, ensuring the right prices for the farmers and protecting the export-oriented industries. The rally was held as part of the party’s month-long programme.
   He said the statements by ministers on the construction of a dam in Tipaimukh were creating confusion in the nation and asked the prime minister to make the government’s position clear to the people.
   Delwar also blasted the government for arresting former BNP lawmaker Nasirudding Pintu. ‘We said earlier that the government had fabricated the Pintu-story in its report on the mutiny at the BDR headquarters to hide the real culprits, and he was arrested as per that design,’ he said and demanded immediate release of Pintu.
   Reports from Rajshahi said the city unit of the BNP stage a rally at Kazla, as part of the central programme, which was addressed by former mayor Mizanur Rahman Minu.
   In Khulna the party held a rally on KD Ghosh Road and brought out a procession.
   In Sylhet city the party staged a rally in Court Point.

International mafia don Daud Ibrahim established his terror network in Bangladesh back in 1995 and started expanding the nexus since 2000, detective branch sources said.
   Abdur Rauf alias Daud Merchant, Indian underworld operative and Ibrahim’s nephew, told police during interrogation that he had first visited Bangladesh in 1995 to establish contacts with local underworld and influentials.
   Daud Merchant along with his fellow countryman and accomplice Zahid Sheikh, were arrested at a village in Brahmanbaria on May 27 and remanded in police custody for eight days by a court for questioning.
   The police also arrested their local shelter provider Kamal Mia from the same place.
   ‘I first came to Bangladesh in 1995 and stayed in Khulna for some time with an aim to establish our network here and Muzahid [Zahid] came here in 2001, to make further contacts to expand the network…,’ Merchant told the interrogators.
   ‘Muzahid and another Indian national Raju were arrested under section 54 by the Mohammadpur police in the city on March 4, 2004 and released on bail with the help of their local links,’ an official of the Detective Branch told New Age.
   ‘Zahid has been staying in the country for the last eight years organising the terror network of Daud Ibrahim on the directives of Chotta Shakil, right-hand man of the mafia don,’ he said.
   Assistant deputy commissioner of DB, Mahbub Alam told New Age, ‘At the moment we are trying to know from Merchant and Zahid about their local links, and their Indian accomplices who are believed to be staying in the country.’
   On the basis of the information extracted from Muzahid, the detective police Monday night conducted a search at Tikkapara, a neighbourhood at Mohammadpur close to Shekhertak where Muzahid stayed.
   Some businessmen of the country having close connection with Dubai-based Daud Ibrahim harboured his accomplices whose aim was to operate the Indian terrorist network from here, the sources said adding that the businessmen were under intelligence surveillance.
   Daud Merchant came to Bangladesh with a ‘mission’ to form a terror group loyal to Daud Ibrahim, Dhaka Metropolitan Police commissioner AKM Shahidul Haque on Saturday said at a press briefing at the DB office.
   Zahid, wanted by the Mumbai police for murder, has been staying in Bangladesh illegally for eight years and was involved in usury here. He also possessed a Bangladeshi passport and registered as a voter and cast vote in the December 2008 national election, the sources said.
   Chhota Shakil, a fugitive terrorist wanted by the Indian police, used to send him money from Dubai.
   Daud Merchant, jailed for life by an Indian court for killing Mumbai’s music baron Gulshan Kumar, fled on March 23 while on parole and crossed into Bangladesh through Akhaura border in the first week of the April. He first took shelter at the capital’s Shekhertak house of Zahid and moved to South Murali village in Brahmanbaria where he stayed at the house of Kamal Mia, a tea-stall owner.
   The dreaded terrorist managed to have a Bangladeshi passport changing his name to Sheikh Abdur Rahman. He visited Agartala in India with the passport.

The parliamentary standing committee on education on Tuesday recommended that the singing of the national anthem should be made mandatory in all madrassahs
   ‘We have decided all the educational institutions, including madrassahs, should sing the national anthem. The salary will, otherwise, will be stopped. More than one committee members have came to know that there are some madrassahs where the national anthem is not sung,’ the committee chairman, Rashed Khan Menon, told New Age after the meeting held at Jatiya Sangsad Bhaban.
   ‘The portrait of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the father of the nation, will also need to be hung in all educational institutions,’ he said.
   All the members on the committee, including the education minister, Nurul Islam Nahid, attended the meeting.

The food and disaster management ministry on Tuesday sent four deputy secretaries to the coastal districts of Khulna, Satkhira, Bhola and Patuakhali for coordinating relief and rehabilitation work in the cyclone-stricken areas due to allegations of mismanagement by the local administrations.
   ‘There was lack of coordination in the relief and rehabilitation work in the cyclone-affected coastal areas…We have assigned four deputy secretaries to coordinate the relief and rehabilitation work in the coastal districts in a better manner,’ the food and disaster management minister, Abdur Razzaque, told reporters at a press conference.
   He said the all the four officials of the ministry would go to the remote districts on Tuesday.
   Cyclone Aila, accompanied by tidal surges, struck 11 districts on the bay, leaving a trail of destruction in eight upazilas including Shyamnagar, Ashashuni and Sharankhola. Over 34 lakh people have been affected and the death toll has risen to 179 so far, according to an official statement.
   Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at Monday’s weekly cabinet meeting ordered short-, mid- and long-term measures for rehabilitation of people in the cyclone-hit areas, said the food minister. She has
   also assigned three ministers along with an adviser to coordinate the relief and rehabilitation work
   in the worst-affected areas.
   Health minister AFM Ruhal Huq is responsible for coordinating relief work in Satkhira; state minister for religious affairs Md Shahjahan Miah for Patuakhali; the prime minister’s adviser Mashiur Rahman, along with Khulna City Corporation’s mayor Talukdar Abdul Khaleque, for Khulna; and state minister for LGRD and cooperatives Jahangir Kabir Nanak for Barisal.
   In addition to the ministers, the newly assigned deputy secretaries will oversee and coordinate the local administrations’ relief work, said Abdur Razzaque, adding that
   the officials concerned were now working sincerely.
   He said the government had allocated Tk 116 crore for reconstructing the embankments in the worst-affected areas.
   ‘The army has been given the charge of reconstructing the embankments in the worst-affected upazilas — Shyamnagar, Sharankhola and Ashashuni. One crore takas have been allocated for each upazila for relief on an emergency basis,’ he said, adding that the army would take technical assistance from the Water Development Board which is responsible for any development work on the rivers.
   The minister said the government has allocated Tk 17.55 crore for rebuilding houses. ‘Each of the cyclone victims is getting 20 kilograms of rice at a time so that the affected people don’t have to line up for food everyday…The support will continue until their rehabilitation,’ he mentioned.

Amid a paucity of competent teachers for recruitment as headmasters in nearly 5,000 non-government secondary and junior secondary schools across the country, the education ministry has relaxed the existing rules for their recruitment.
   ‘Nearly 5,000 schools, out of the 17,905 are functioning without headmasters for months and this is seriously hampering academic and other activities. The rules for recruiting headmasters and assistant headmasters have been relaxed a bit to meet up the crisis,’ education minister Nurul Islam Nahid told New Age on Tuesday.
   ‘From now on, a teacher having 12 years experience without any break can be recruited as headmaster of a secondary school [class VI to X]. But the existing rules issued by the ministry on October 24, 1995, require 15 years service as assistant teacher including three years as assistant headmasters for becoming eligible for appointment as headmaster,’ said the circular issued on Tuesday.
   ‘For the assistant headmasters of secondary schools, only 10 years service without break has been made mandatory instead of existing 12 years,’ said the circular signed by the education secretary, Syed Ataur Rahman.
   Instead of existing 12 years, a teacher having ten years of experience without break can be recruited as a headmaster at a junior-secondary school [Class Vi to VIII], it said.
   ‘The ministry has come to know that due to paucity of experienced teachers, a huge number of posts of headmaster and assistant headmaster remained vacant for months. The ministry has decided to relax the rules,’ said the circular which has been sent to all offices and schools concerned.
   Meanwhile, leaders of the association of non-government educational institutions welcomed the government decision and called for relaxing the recruitment of principals in non-government colleges.
   ‘There are many colleges which have also been running without principals for months. It is urgently required to issue a similar directive so that the colleges get similar benefits,’ said Mohammad Mazharul Hannan, president of the Bangladesh Principals’ Council.

The prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, has stressed the need for linking Bangladesh to the Asian Highway as she said the country did not want to remain isolated from the regional flow of development.
   She made the remarks when the visiting foreign minister of Thailand, Kasit Piromya, called on her at the Prime Minister’s Office Tuesday, when the two sides also discussed other issues of common interest, especially trade, business and investment.
   ‘Bangladesh’s inclusion into the Asian Highway is necessary for our country’s rapid development,’ she was quoted as saying by her press secretary Abul Kalam Azad.
   The country was late in getting onto the information superhighway passing through the seabed of the Bay of Bengal and now its joining in the caravan of nations along the road communications superhighway has also long been stuck up in dithering, especially over its routing issue.
   The prime minister also called for Thai investment in every development sector of Bangladesh.
   In reply, the Thai foreign minister expressed their interest in making investment in Bangladesh’s energy, food processing, agricultural, poultry, and fisheries sectors.
   Kasit Piromya also said Thailand could help Bangladesh by providing training facilities for poultry, food processing, and fisheries industries as his country had ‘vast and long experience in these sectors’.
   The prime minister and the Thai foreign minister expressed satisfaction over the return of democracy both in Bangladesh and Thailand after going through political crisis.
   Hasina said the people of Bangladesh were now advancing towards peace and prosperity following the Awami League-led alliance’s victory in the last free and fair parliamentary elections held on December 29.
   ‘Without true democracy people cannot establish their rights and a nation cannot achieve its cherished development,’ she told the Thai foreign minister.
   Kasit Piromya hailed the wise and visionary leadership of Hasina as prime minister and hoped for Bangladesh’s rapid and sustainable development during the tenure of the present government.
   He laid emphasis on much closer relationship between the ruling Awami League and Thailand’s ruling Democrat Party for further strengthening bilateral relations between Bangladesh and Thailand and for the sake of the two countries’ democracy.
   The Thai foreign minister expressed his deep shock at the death of over a hundred people in the cyclonic storm Aila and the death of noted nuclear scientist and Hasina’s husband MA Wazed Miah.
   Bangladesh’s foreign minister Dipu Moni, PMO secretary Mollah Waheeduzzaman and former ambassador Mohammad Ziauddin were present.

Bangladesh pushed Sri Lanka all the way for their four-wicket victory in the last warm-up match in Nottingham on Tuesday, ensuring that they have completed their preparation for the ICC World Twenty20 at least with some kind of confidence.
   Set a target of 152 runs, Sri Lanka needed to play 19.4 overs to get into the mark despite skipper Mahela Jayawardene scored 43 off 28 balls and their other top-order batsmen also contributed decently.
   Sakib al Hasan took two wickets for 18 runs in his four overs, but the other bowlers failed to earn enough respect that could turn an average score to a winning total. Mashrafee had two wickets in his belt while Rubel Hossian and Abdur Razzak were also among the wickets, but the Sri Lankans never gave an impression that they could slip-up the game away.
   It was the rather the Bangladesh batsmen, who almost made it a no contest when they lost five wickets for 75 runs half-way through their innings before Roqibul Hassan and Mushfiqur Rahim gave it some respectability with a 70-run stand in the sixth wicket.
   Mohammad Ashraful took his lessons from Australia’s decision to bat in the previous game, but the Bangladeshis failed to do it in the Australian way. Junaed Siddique was first to go for four dragging Farveez Maharoof on to his middle stump only in the fourth ball he was facing and three balls later it was the turn of Tamim Iqbal, who was run out for 14 off 10 balls.
   Kumar Sangakkara took two sharp catches in the seventh over bowled by uncapped pacer Isuru Udana to send back Ashraful (16 off 15 balls) and an in form Mahmuddulla Riyad.
   Sakib struck Nuwan Kulasekara for two fours in the first two deliveries he faced, but paid the price when he tried to do the same thing against Mendis and was out for 23 off 17 balls.
   It was an opportunity for Roqibul to show his utility in Twenty20 and he did not waste it. While Mushfique on the other side took the responsibility to keep the scoreboard ticking, Roqibul bought his time and took 27 balls to hit his first boundary.
   A few reverse swipe and some clever running made him Bangladesh’s top scorer in the end with 38 off 40 balls as Mushfique (34 off 28 balls) fell in the final over trying to hit his third sixes.
   Mashrafee bin Murtaza came in to strike two fours in the last over ensuring Bangladesh go past 150 runs.

Pakistan’s military said Tuesday it had rescued 80 students and staff snatched by Taliban gunmen, as fears grew of spiralling rebel attacks to avenge a military offensive in the northwest.
   Officials said 71 students and nine staff from an army-run college were rescued when militants moved them from North Waziristan to South Waziristan — lawless tribal zones on the Afghan border where al-Qaeda is known to be active.
   Sardar Abbas Rind, administrative chief in Bannu town where the students had been headed, said troops intercepted gunmen before dawn at a military check post 20 kilometres from the college.
   ‘There was an exchange of fire after which the militants fled. All students and teaching staff members were rescued,’ he said.
   But Javed Iqbal Paracha, principal of the targeted college, said a handful of students remained unaccounted for. It was unclear whether they were in Taliban hands or had escaped elsewhere in the region.
   Officials near the college, in the town of Razmak in North Waziristan, said the students were aged between 15 to 25.
   The students left their college on Monday after it closed for the summer and were in a convoy of about 30 vehicles when armed Taliban ambushed the convoy, Rind said.
   Details of the incident have been hazy and officials gave wildly divergent numbers of how many students went missing, ranging from 20 to 400.
   On Tuesday, gunmen in Peshawar stormed a factory owned by a senior minister of North West Frontier Province, kidnapping eight workers and killing a guard who resisted, the police said.
   No one claimed responsibility for the attack, but the factory’s chief executive Ghazanfar Bilor pointed the finger at the Taliban.
   Such incidents have fuelled fears of revenge attacks for a month-long Pakistan offensive against the Taliban in the northwest.
   ‘Whenever there is an army operation, such types of reactions are normal and we should be prepared for such retaliations in the future,’ said Ikram Sehgal, a security analyst and newspaper columnist.
   The military campaign, now in its sixth week, was launched when Taliban fighters advanced to within 100 kilometres of Islamabad, flouting a deal to put three million people under sharia law in exchange for peace.
   More than 80 people have been killed in bomb blasts across the country since the operation began on April 26.
   Pakistan’s military said Tuesday troops were fighting inside the Taliban stronghold of Charbagh, 20 kilometres from the Swat valley’s main town Mingora, which the government said it had won back over the weekend.

The High Court on Tuesday let off the home secretary, Abdus Sobhan Sikder, and six others from a contempt of court charge.
   Former state minister for power Iqbal Hasan Mahmood Tuku of BNP, now on bail in a corruption case, filed the contempt petition against seven officials, including the home secretary, as he was offloaded just before the aircraft took off for Singapore on May 24 despite having the court clearance.
   The HC bench Justice Tariq ul Hakim and Justice M Azizul Haque disposed of the contempt case against the officials following an ‘understanding’ between the lawyers of both the parties, court sources said.
   Tuku’s counsel Ajmalul mentioned informed the bench that his client had left for Singapore early Tuesday without any impediment by the immigration authorities at the Zia International Airport.
   On the other hand, attorney general Mahbubey Alam told the bench that there was a misunderstanding over the immigration clearance of Tuku going abroad. The matter was later resolved peacefully, he said.
   On May 27, the HC asked home secretary and two senior police officers to appear before it on June 3 to explain why proceedings should not be drawn against them for violating its order.
   Earlier, on May 11, the same bench directed the government not to disturb or stop Tuku from going abroad.

The European Commission has urged the government to make its position clear on the death penalty and extra-judicial killing, and to improve the conditions in the prisons of Bangladesh.
   The EC, at a joint meeting in Dhaka on Tuesday, also emphasised the importance of reinforcement and strengthening of key institutions such as the Anti-Corruption Commission and the National Human Rights Commission.
   The meeting was the fourth session of the EC-Bangladesh joint commission’s specialised sub-group on governance and human rights, co-chaired by Shahidul Haque, an additional secretary of the law ministry, and David Tirr, director general of EC’s external relations.
   The exchange of views also covered the rights of women and children, Rohingya refugees and implementation of the recommendations emerging from the Universal Periodic Review of Bangladesh in the UN Human Rights Council, said a press release issued by the EC in Dhaka.
   ‘The cultivation of human rights and good governance is an indispensable element in fostering stability, ending poverty and realising sustainable development in this country,’ David Tirr was quoted to have said.
   ‘We welcome the opportunity to reinforce our engagement on these issues and the substantial cooperation and support extended by the EC to ensure human rights and good governance,’ said Shahidul Haque.

The Chinese assistant foreign minister, Hu Zhengyue, said on Tuesday that his country was looking forward to expanding economic cooperation with the countries of the South Asian region.
   Briefing a group of journalists from South Asia at his office in Beijing, he said Kunming would be made as a base for linking China with the South Asian countries because of its proximity to the region.
   ‘Kunming is going to be a major communication hub for bridging China with South Asian nations,’ he said.
   The assistant foreign minister said fighting terrorism was a major issue for the region and hoped that people in the South Asian countries would work together for peace and stability.
   ‘China has obtained observer status in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation and has sent delegations to the last two summits… Chain’s basic policy towards South Asia is promoting peace and stability in the region,’ the junior Chinese minister said.
   The Chinese minister said China is going to stage a world exposition in Shanghai next year and hoped that all the South Asian countries would take part in it.
   He said the recent economic meltdown has been a big challenge for the whole world and close cooperation among the countries in the region would help overcome the challenges.