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Seven people died of diarrhoea in the Dhaka city and Jossore in the past seven days till 5:00pm on Friday as waterborne diseases spread in many parts of the country because of contaminated water and hot and humid weather, according to the health control room.
   According to the health directorate’s control room, six died of diarrhoea in the capital city and one in Jossore in past week while 9,457 contracted the diseases in the country in past week.
   At least 15 people died of diarrhoea and 65,926 contracted the disease in the country since January, sources in the control room said.
   The director general of health services, Shah Munir, told New Age on Friday that diarrhoea and other waterborne diseases spread rapidly in the country, especially in the capital, owning mainly to contaminated water and hot and humid weather.
   The number of patients suffering from waterborne and viral diseases also increased at private and public hospitals in the city for lack of safe drinking water and fresh air and because of fluctuating temperature, hospital sources said.
   Mostly children contracted the diseases like diarrhoea, typhoid and hepatitis while the elderly people had symptoms of high fever, running nose, vomiting and loose motion, they said.
   Dr Azaharul Islam Khan, head of long stay unit at the International Centre of Diarrhoeal Diseases Research, Bangladesh, said the patients were mainly from poor families and most of them were children who came to the hospital with symptoms of vomiting and dehydration.
   Low-income people having less access to pure drinking water and hygienic atmosphere are getting affected by the diseases, he said, adding that 471 patients are now undergoing treatment at the hospital.
   He advised that people should drink enough pure drinking water and take Paracetamol if they suffer from fever. ‘If fever does not abate within two or three days, they should go to doctors’, said the doctor.
   Our Patuakhali Correspondent adds: Diarrhoeal diseases have broken out in the district.
   The Patuakhali General Hospital with its 10-bed diarrhoea unit found it tough to treat the increased number of diarrhoeal patients in the past weeks. The patients are taking treatment on the floor of the hospital, sources said.
   Mizanur Rahman, a resident medical officer of the hospital, said they received at least 15 such patients every day.
   Humayun Kabir, Patuakhali civil surgeon, attributed the outspread of the water-borne diseases in the district to scarcity of pure drinking and rise in temperature.

At least nine labourers were injured in a clash among dock labourers at the Mongla port in Bagerhat Friday evening.
   Of the injured, those who were admitted to the Mongla Upazila Health Complex and local clinics are Akhter Sardar, Shariful Islam, Julfikar Ali, Moin Uddin, Abul Kalam Azad, Anwar Sardar and Abdul Kalam.
   The Dock Sramik Sangha general secretary, Shahabuddin Ahmed, said a section of labourers attacked the procession of their labourers at the upazila headquarters at around 7:00pm when at least four were injured.
   Meanwhile, the Stevedore Union Enterprise director, SM Mostak Vitu, said at least five of their labourers were injured when the dock labourers attacked them.

Different left-leaning political parties on Friday demanded immediate withdrawal of US forces from Iraq.
   The political parties organised protest rallies in Muktangan and brought out processions to mark the 6th anniversary of the Iraq invasion by the United States.
   The US forces invaded Iraq levelling false allegation against the country saying it owned chemical weapons, said the Bangladesher Samajtantrik Dal convener, Khalequzzaman, at the rally. But their motive was to capture the oil fields.
   BSD leader Bazlur Rashid Firoj called on the international community to support the resistance put up by the Iraqi people against the aggression.
   Ganasanghati Andolan also held a protest rally and brought out a procession in the same venue.
   The organisation’s coordinator Zonayed Saki said the US forces must be defeated in Iraq. The imperialist America was trying to capture the natural resources of the poor countries, he said. The party’s central leaders Taslim Akhter and Ainul Haque also spoke at the rally.
   The Jaity Mukti Council secretary, Foizul Hakim Lala, said America was trying to create unrest in the countries of South Asia.
   He criticised the involvement of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the inquiry of the BDR rebellion. The rally was addressed, among others, by central leader Ujjwal Balo.
   The Democratic Revoluti-onary Party and the Garment Workers’ Unity Forum also held a rally and brought out a procession protesting at the US aggression of Iraq.
   The DRP organising secretary, Babul Biswas, said the day could not be far when the US army would retreat from Iraq.
   He demanded withdrawal of the false case filed against the DRP general secretary and Garment Workers’ Unity Forum president, Mushreafa Mishu, by a garment factory owner in Gazipur.
   The Democratic Unity against Imperialism also held a protest rally in Muktangan, where its leader, Jahangir Hossain, and others spoke.

Six persons were injured and two rooms of a house burnt as a group of Awami League activists allegedly attacked a BNP leader’s house in village Sammankathi under Kachua upazila in Bagerhat district on Friday.
   The injured persons, who were admitted to Kachua upazila health complex, are Maghia union BNP general secretary Babul Sheikh, his father Abdul Jalil Sheikh, brothers Obaidul Sheikh, Mohit Sheikh and Mostofa Sheikh and brother-in-law Nantu Sheikh.
   According to the victims and police, a group of seven to eight AL men attacked Babul’s family and set fire to his house on Friday at around noon, and the male inmates sustained serious wounds when they tried to resist the assailants.
   The nearby villagers, hearing their screams, gathered around the house, but the attackers managed to flee the scene.
   Kachua thana’s officer-in-charge, Md Masudul Alam, said the police were sent to the spot to inspect the scene of crime, and action would be taken against the culprits. He, however, said that no one has been arrested in connection with the incident so far.
   Kachua thana’s Awami League unit’s convener, Radha Raman Shikdar, told New Age that he had heard of the attack and had been investigating it.

Dalit rights activists on Friday demanded special allocation for providing housing to the Dalits in the upcoming budget in line with the Poverty Reduction Scheme Paper to solve the housing problem of this deprived group.
   The demand was made at a seminar, jointly organised by Bangladesh Dalit and Excluded Rights Movement and Bangladesh Dalit Human Rights, on ‘the housing problems of Dalits and the budget’ at the National Press Club.
   ‘Around 50 to 60 thousand Dalit people of 15 thousand families are living in 27 slum-colonies in the city, while the city corporation runs only nine buildings for them where they live in miserable conditions,’ Majharul Islam said in the keynote paper.
   Narrating the miseries of the Dalits, who are mostly sweepers by profession belonging to the lowest rung of the social ladder, BDREM president Babulal Sarder said, ‘As we are landless, the authorities use to evict us quite often in the name of rehabilitation and urban modernisation.’
   ‘The authorities provide us with little or no civic amenities and living conditions are precarious in our colonies. We want the government to make a special allocation in the next budget to provide us with permanent housing with proper living facilities according to the PRSP,’ he said.
   Speakers at the seminar echoed him demanding implementation of the PRSP and also establishment of a Dalit cell at the housing and public works department and allocation of loans on easy terms.
   They also urged the authorities not to evict the sweepers from their colonies until permanent housing for them was ensured.
   HK Arefin, a teacher of anthropology at Dhaka University, said, ‘Four Dalit families are living in a single room at the colonies. There is no greater violation of human rights than this.’
   ‘Dalits even do not have opportunity to rent others’ houses to live in as people generally avoid them due to communal and caste discrimination. The situation needed to be changed,’ Dhaka University’s geography teacher Nurul Islam Nayem said.
   ‘The government should ensure proper housing for the Dalits. They do not want sympathy, it is their constitutional right,’ ALRD executive director Shamsul Huda, who presided over the seminar, said.
   Nagarik Udyog chief executive Zakir Hussain and Dalit Women Forum convener Moni Rani Das also addressed the seminar.

Politicians and labour leaders on Friday called on the government to take steps to immediately reopen the Basic Apparels factory.
   The management closed the factory on March 2 when the workers started rallying to push for their demands, the leaders said.
   The National Garment Workers’ Federation observed a token hunger strike in Muktangan in Dhaka demanding reopening of the factory.
   Eighteen hundred workers of the factory are suffering because of the closure of the factory, the federation’s general secretary Amirul Haque Amin said at the rally.
   Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal president Hasanul Haq Inu, Workers Party politburo member Fazle Hossain Badsha, Communist Party of Bangladesh leader Ruhin Hossain Prince, Jatiya Sramik League general secretary Roy Ramesh Chandra, Sramik Karmachari Oikya Parishad coordinator Wazedul Islam Khan, Bangladesh Jatiya Sramik Jote president Shirin Akhter, labour leader Touhidur Raham and Quamrul Ahsan also spoke on the occasion.
   The federation president, Sahida Sarker, chaired the rally and more than a hundred workers of the Basic Apparels joined the programme.

The Police recovered the body of a man at Baro Kejaura village in Chhatak upazila on Thursday morning.
   The deceased was identified as Kaptan Mia, 48, of Lakkhipasha village in the upazila.
   The police said Kaptan went to the house of his son-in-law Jalaluddin at neighbouring Kejaura village on Wednesday night. He went missing the same night while returning home. Local people found the body in the morning and informed police.
   Later, the police recovered the body that bore stab injury marks at 8am and sent it to hospital morgue for autopsy.
   The reason behind the murder could not be known. A case was filed.

The home minister, Sahara Khatun, on Friday refused to make comments on the government’s violation of a High Court order by preventing Jamaat-e-Islami leader Abdur Razzaq from leaving the country.
   When asked about the incident and the petition filed with the High Court by Razzaq, also a Supreme Court lawyer, for drawing contempt-of-court proceedings against the government, the home minister told New Age, ‘I will not make comments on the issue.’
   Home secretary Abdus Sobhan Sikder, who was made principal respondent in the petition, said that he was not aware of the incident of preventing Razzaq from going abroad.
   ‘I read about the petition in newspapers, but I have no details about the alleged incident.’ Razzaq on Thursday filed the petition for drawing contempt proceedings against the government after he was refused permission to fly out of the country though he had High Court’s clearance.
   The High Court bench of Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain and Justice Quamrul Islam Siddiqui fixed March 23 for order on the issue.
   Immigration authorities turned Razzaq and wife away from Zia International Airport late Wednesday when they tried to board a flight to Singapore.
   According to the petition, Razzaq’s wife was supposed to visit a hospital in Singapore for treatment.
   A day after Razzak was prevented from leaving the country, the High Court, upon a writ petition filed by him on March 8, had directed the government to allow him to go to Malaysia to visit his daughter there and to return home.
   Razzaq had challenged the legality of the government action of debarring him from going abroad.

The government on Friday released eight prisoners from the district jail on the occasion of Independence and National Day.
   Deputy commissioner Mohammad Ahsan Habib released them from the jail gate at about 11:30 am.
   After being released, they pledged not to get involve in any kind of illegal or criminal activities in future.

Sub-inspector Ziaur Rahman of Shailkupa police station sustained stab injuries while overpowering a ‘wanted criminal’ at Bhatoi Bazar on Friday evening.
   The alleged criminal, Tatar Ali, also received bullet wounds during the encounter and was undergoing treatment at Jhenidah sadar hospital under police guard. SI Ziaur Rahman has also been admitted to the same hospital.
   Tatar Ali, son of Montu Ali of Putimari village under Shailkupa upazila, had been wanted by police on charge of various crimes, the police said.
   Officer-in-charge Hasan Hafizur Rahman of Shailkupa police station said that on information, the police led by SI Ziaur Rahman raided the Batoi Bazar in search of Tatar. When the police caught Tatar, he stabbed the SI in the face in a desperate bid to flee. After seeing this, a constable pulled out his gun and shot Tatar in the leg to overpower him.
   Both Tatar and SI Zia were taken to Jhenidah sadar hospital.

The number of tax-related cases filed with the High Court outnumbers the settled ones, leaving the national board of revenue unable to realise the revenue worth about Tk 6,551 crore, which is equal to about one per cent of the country’s gross domestic product.
   ‘The number of cases filed with the High Court is higher than the number of cases settled,’ said former attorney general, Mahmudul Islam while discussing the tax-related legal disputes at the NBR on Friday.
   This is one of the main reasons behind so many cases pending at the three special benches of the High Court, he said.
   He identified scarcity of expert lawyers on the government side and non- availability of proper documents from the NBR officials in time as the reasons behind the logjam.
   The NBR chairman, Abdul Mazid told the discussion that it had become a habit of the taxpayers to go to the High Court to challenge the tax assessment by the revenue board.
   The lengthy court settlement appears to be beneficial to them, he said.
   The number of pending cases with the High Court stands at 15,372 with the custom-related cases at 12,769. Most of the custom-related cases are linked with the infamous Pre Shipment Inspection companies, he added.
   Income tax-related pending cases are 1580 while 2033 are Value Added Tax cases.
   The NBR chairman said they would simplify the tax assessment procedure in the coming fiscal to reduce the number of taxpayers going to the High Court.
   ‘Changes will be brought in the tax assessment rules and regulations in the next budget,’ he said.
   Besides, Mazid emphasized better assessment by the taxmen so that the taxpayers could not take advantages of the legal procedure.
   A 5-day training course for the taxmen and law officials will begin in the capital on March 29 for better understanding of the tax-related issues, he added.

Rights activists, energy experts and political leaders at a meeting on Saturday said that the current power crisis was ‘artificially created’ by not providing sufficient gas to the power plants with an aim to hand over offshore blocks to international oil companies and also to go for open-pit mining at Barapukuria coalfield.
   They said the power and energy ministry was still involved in ‘conspiracies’ in order to serve the interest of a vested quarter in the same way it had acted in the past ignoring the interest of the people.
   ‘The power plants are not given gas supply properly as part of the conspiracy to hand over gas and coalfields to foreign companies in the name of exploration work,’ alleged professor Shamsul Alam of Chittagong University of Engineering and Technology at the meeting organised to exchange views on the ‘anti-people activities of the power and energy ministry, which is responsible for power and gas crisis’, at Mukti Bhaban in Dhaka.
   The National Committee to Protect Oil, Gas, Mineral Resources, Power and Port organised the meeting.
   Shamsul Alam said that power generation could be increased by around 500MW ‘if the power plants get adequate gas supply.’ He called for proper maintenance of the power units so that they were not shut frequently.
   The national committee member secretary professor Anu Muhammad said that the power and energy ministry was conspiring to hand over some of the offshore blocks to two international oil companies keeping gas exports open. ‘The ministry is not supplying gas to power plants to make us believe there is gas crisis, so that the blocks can be easily handed over to the companies in the name of gas exploration,’ he said.
   He alleged that a ‘conspiracy’ was also going on to acquire the lands of the people living in Barapukuria coalfield areas and resettle them elsewhere so that an open-pit mine could be operated there.
   He said that subsidence in the coalfield area could be stopped by filling the vacuum created by coal extraction with sand and the issue of compensation to the local people could be settled by amending the agreement with the company that was extracting coal.
   The committee convener Sheikh Shahidullah observed that although the Awami League government had so far done some good work, it appointed a ‘controversial’ person like Tawfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury as the adviser to the prime minister. ‘Imperialist multinational companies are trying to achieve their goals riding on the government with the help of their lobbyist,’ he said.
   Former Supreme Court judge Golam Rabbani, former state minister for power Anwarul Kabir Talukder, Nur Mohammad, poet Abu Bakar Siddique and engineer Fazle Elahi spoke on the occasion. Communist Party of Bangladesh president Manjurul Ahsan Khan, general secretary Mujahidul Islam Selim and leader Ruhin Hossain Prince, Workers Party of Bangladesh general secretary Bimal Biswas and Workers Party of Bangladesh (reconstituted) leader, Haider Akbar Khan Rono were present at the meeting, among others.
   Speakers at the meeting also demanded immediate removal of Tawfiq-e-Elahi from the government and his trial for his misdeeds in energy sector as a secretary during the previous Awami League government.
   They also demanded for making public and placing in the parliament the model production sharing contract for offshore blocks and scrapping the gas export provision from the model.

The Criminal Investigation Department will produce two former Chittagong Urea Fertiliser Limited officials in court on completion of a three-day remand today.
   Moniruzzaman Chowdhury, the investigation officer in the case, said they were yet to elicit any fresh bits of information from two officials in connection with the sensational 10 trucks of arms haul case in the three days of their remand.
   The department arrested former CUFL managing director Mohsin Uddin Talukder, and former general manager (administration) Enamul Huq on Match 11 after getting leads to their involvement with the unloading of arms and ammunition.
   The investigation officer, also an assistant superintendent, earlier sought them to be remanded for five days for interrogation. The court, however, on Tuesday granted a remand for three days.
   The police seized 4,930 types of firearms, 27,020 hand grenades, 840 rockets, 300 rocket launchers, 2,000 launching grenade tubes, 6392 magazines and 11,40,520 rounds of ammunition during loading from two trawlers into 10 trucks at the CUFL jetty on April 2, 2004.
   The case, filed with the Karnaphuli police in the connection, got a fresh start on a court order for reinvestigation and statement of two prime accused in the case, Hafizur Rahman and Deen Mohammed, recorded on March 2.

An unbiased and uninterrupted investigation into the February 25 carnage at the Bangladesh Rifles headquarters in Dhaka is a must for identifying the perpetrators as well as for preventing a repeat tragedy for the greater interests of national and regional security, speakers at a roundtable said Saturday.
   ‘We should not deviate from the objectives of the investigation into the BDR massacre as it is a major blow to our national security,’ said the president of Bangladesh Institute of Peace and Security Studies, ANM Muniruzzaman, while presiding over the roundtable titled ‘BDR mutiny: security implications for Bangladesh and the region’ in Dhaka.
   ‘We are falling [prey] to the consequences of cheap statements. Consequences of the statements made by public figures, including ministers and Dhaka Metropolitan Police commissioner [about the investigation], could be grave,’ he warned.
   English daily The Bangladesh Today and Bangladesh Institute of Peace and Security Studies jointly organised the discussion.
   Abul Hasan Chowdhury, former state minister for foreign affairs in Awami League’s 1996-2000 government, said committees formed for probing the incident should be allowed to conduct unbiased and uninterrupted investigations.
   He also said the people concerned, both local and foreign, should stop making ‘irresponsible utterances’ about the BDR incident.
   Bangladesh Today editor Mahmud-ur Rahman Choudhury, also a retired army colonel, in his paper criticised quarters concerned, including commerce minister Faruk Khan, for using ‘bogeys’ like ‘militants’, ‘conspiracies’, ‘threat to democracy’ and ‘civil war’ over the incident.
   Voice of America Dhaka correspondent Amir Khashru said ‘bogeys’ could have dire consequences on economy, manpower export and peacekeeping forces working in the UN systems.
   Bangladesh Kalyan Party chairman Muhammad Ibrahim, also a retired major general, questioned whether the present probe committees, formed for BDR incident, could take the statement of a ‘state minister’, if it felt necessary.
   Khaled Iqbal Chowdhury, a BIPSS research associate, said in a keynote paper that the BDR massacre was the ‘result of a blanket security and intelligence failure’ that made national security vulnerable.
   He said, ‘Militant groups, human traffickers, smugglers of illicit goods, including drugs and small arms, may capitalise on the situation as the BDR killings created scope for “inbound and outbound infiltration” through the borders.’
   ZRM Ashraf Uddin, principal of Manarat Dhaka International College, warned that the BDR incident was part of a bigger game.
   Former BDR director general Mohammad Anwar Hossain asked why the army was not allowed to enter the BDR headquarters at the early stage of the incident. ‘Army knows the techniques to deal with such situation.’
   Former ambassador Harun ur Rashid stressed the need for developing an effective ‘crisis management system’ for the country.
   Former director general of BDR Rezaqul Haider, a retired major general, said the BDR incident was a planned massacre and that it should not be considered as the outcome of a conflict between the BDR and the army.
   The speakers stressed the need for finding out the untraced BDR men and the huge arms and explosives that went missing after the incident.
   Representatives of several foreign missions, including Ingebjorg Stofring, ambassador of Norway and Per Erik Hylland, senior vice-president of Telenor Asia Limited, attended the discussion.

The annual general meeting of Dhaka Union of Journalists will be held on April 25.
   This was decided at a meeting of the executive committee of the DUJ at the union office at National Press Club with DUJ president Shah Alamgir in the chair.
   The meeting expressed anguish over the incident of pushing down DUJ general secretary Omar Faruq from a Mega City bus recently, said a press release.
   DUJ leaders demanded that the bus service authorities make arrangements for necessary treatment of seriously injured Omar Faruq in compensation. Otherwise, strong programmes would be taken, they said.
   At the beginning, the meeting showed respect to the slain army officers by observing one-minute silence.
   DUJ leaders Zahirul Haque, Abul Quashem, Shaban Mahmud, Noor-e-Jannat Akhter Sheema, Barun Kumar Nayan, Gazi Zahirul Islam, Mofizul Islam, Rafiq Ahmed, Salimullah Selim, Kamal Chowdhury, Manjusree Biswas, Zahirul Islam and Satyen Biswas, among others, attended.

The leaders of the Democratic Left Alliance, a combine of left leaning political parties, on Saturday called on the government to address the power, water and gas crises in Dhaka.
   The combine leaders at a protest rally in Muktangan said the city dwellers had been suffering much because of frequent load shedding and insufficient water and gas supply.
   The Awami League pledged to solve the problems of the city dwellers in its election manifesto, but now it failed to take steps to solve them, they said.
   The alliance coordinator, Badrul Alam, demanded immediate withdrawal of the ‘false’ cases filed against labour leader Mushrefa Mishu and Abdur Razzak.
   Chaired by Badrul Alam, the rally was addressed, among others, by its leaders Tipu Biswas, Abdus Salam, Saiful Huq, Razekuzzman Ratan and Babul Biswas.

A trader was killed over a previous enmity in Sirajganj early Saturday.
   The deceased was Noor Hossain, 26, a resident of Ajugara-Jamtala at Belkuchi.
   The police said they had found Noor Hossain dead in a shop at about 9:00am.
   The police said they suspected the man had been strangled.

Rights activists, social workers and teachers on Saturday demanded abolition of all kinds of discrimination against the Dalits, a socially excluded and deprived community.
   They came up with the demand at a human chain formed in front of the National Museum at Shahbagh.
   Bangladesh Dalit and Excluded Rights Movement and Bangladesh Dalit Human Rights formed the human chain marking International Day for Elimination of Racial Discrimination.
   ‘The deprived communities are dubbed untouchable by the so-called civilised societies of the world. A strong movement should be launched immediately to eliminate all kinds of discrimination against these communities,’ Zakir Hussain, executive director of BDHR, said at the programme.
   The citizens called on the government to enact a law banning treatment of marginal groups as ‘untouchables’ and to establish a separate ministry for the marginal communities in order to ensure their constitutional rights.
   BDHR president Babulal Sarder said, ‘We are discriminated against in every sector of the society in the name of caste, origin and profession though the constitution preserves our rights of equality. We want implementation of our constitutional rights.’
   Speakers also demanded quota for the children of Dalits at every educational institution, special allocation for permanent housing on the government lands and improvement of living conditions in the Dalit colonies.
   Dhaka University professor Mesbah Kamal, BDHR president B Solomon, social worker Rezwanul Islam, and BDERM treasurer Mukul Shikdar, alos spoke.

A woman fell off a
   roof and died in Barisal Friday night. The dece-
   ased was Afroza Akter Mitu, 26.
   Afroza was daughter of Abdul Baki of Toothpara in Khulna and wife of Tafi Md Sadi, a Grameenphone employee, of Karnakati in Barisal.
   The police and hospital sources said the injured Afroza was admitted to Barisal Sher-e-Bangla Medical College Hosptial Friday evening in a
   critical condition after she had fallen off the roof of her house on the College Road in the city.
   Afroza died in the hospital after about an hour of her admission.
   The police sent the
   body for a post-mortem examination. A case was filed.
   Afroza’s uncle Md Sumon claimed she had regularly been tortured by her husband for dowry.
   He claimed the incident to be a killing.