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The Sri Lankan government on Monday declared an end to its decades-old conflict with the Tamil Tigers, after routing the remnants of the rebel army and killing its leader Velupillai Prabhakaran.
   The army said its commandos overran the last sliver of Tiger territory, killing the last 300 fighters and decimating the rebel leadership. It said Prabhakaran and two deputies were shot dead trying to flee in a van and ambulance.
   ‘We have successfully ended the war,’ the island’s powerful defence secretary, Gotabhaya Rajapakse, told the president Monday in a nationally televised ceremony.
   Army chief Lieutenant General Sarath Fonseka also declared an end to all combat operations.
   ‘Now the entire country is declared rid of terrorism,’ Fonseka said, adding the ‘dead bodies of terrorists are scattered over the last ditch.’
   The statements marked the end of one of Asia’s oldest and most brutal ethnic conflicts which left more than 70,000 dead from pitched battles, suicide attacks, bomb strikes and assassinations.
   The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam emerged in the 1970s, with all-out war breaking out in the early 1980s as they pursued their struggle for an independent Tamil homeland on the Sinhalese-majority island.
   Officials said all rebel leaders were killed in a final showdown on a lagoon and jungle peninsula on the northeast coast.
   Prabhakaran and his two deputies had tried to flee advancing troops in an ambulance and another van but were ambushed by commandos, a senior defence ministry official said.
   ‘He was killed with two others inside the vehicle,’ the official said. The bodies were recovered and were undergoing DNA and forensic tests, defence sources said.
   State television and the office of Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapakse confirmed the news.
   The defence ministry said troops also killed Prabhakaran’s deputies — Sea Tiger leader Colonel Soosai and LTTE intelligence chief Pottu Amman.
   Also killed were the rebel leader’s 24-year-old son and potential heir Charles Anthony, the group’s political wing leader B Nadesan, and the head of the LTTE’s defunct peace secretariat, S Pulideevan.
   The pro-rebel Tamilnet web site said the LTTE leadership had told the Red Cross and United Nations they had stopped fighting and wanted to give themselves up, but that ‘initial reports indicate a determined massacre by the Sri Lanka Army.’
   In a dramatic announcement, the Tamil guerrillas had acknowledged Sunday that their battle for an independent ethnic homeland had reached its ‘bitter end.’
   The separatist rebels were once one of the world’s most feared guerrilla armies, and ran a de facto mini-state spanning a third of the island before the government began a major offensive two years ago.
   Rajapakse will open a new session of parliament Tuesday with an address that will officially mark the end of the war.
   The capital Colombo, which has been frequently hit by Tiger suicide attacks over the past quarter century, saw street celebrations — with residents setting off firecrackers and waving flags.
   Victory euphoria also gripped Sri Lanka’s stock exchange, with the main index jumping 6.45 per cent.
   Authorities had been determined to capture, kill or recover Prabhakaran’s body amid fears his escape could have led to an attempt to rebuild the LTTE and usher in a new cycle of violence.
   The Sri Lankan government’s moment of triumph has also come at the cost of thousands of innocent lives lost in indiscriminate shelling, according to the United Nations. The UN’s rights body now wants a war crimes probe.
   The International Committee of the Red Cross, the only neutral organisation that has been allowed to work in the war zone, has for its part described ‘an unimaginable humanitarian catastrophe.’
   The European Union on Monday also called for an independent enquiry into alleged human rights violations, saying it was ‘appalled by the loss of innocent civilian lives as a result of the conflict and by the high numbers of casualties, including children.’
   The estimated 2,50,000 people displaced by the war are being moved into state-run ‘welfare villages’ — camps ringed by barbed wire and another source of international alarm.
   Rights workers, aid groups and journalists are also being denied free access to the north.

The cabinet on Monday decided in principle to increase salaries and benefits of the police on a priority basis but sent back a finance ministry proposal for increasing the judicial and other allowances for the judicial officers.
   The decisions were taken at the weekly meeting of the cabinet, held at cabinet division at the secretariat.
   The meeting sent back the finance ministry proposal saying the issue would be settled later in line with the recommendations of the Pay Commission and the next budget, the prime minister’s press secretary Abul Kalam Azad told newsmen.
   ‘Initially the pay structure and risk allowance for the police would be increased and their accommodation problems would be resolved,’ a minister told New Age quoting prime minister Sheikh Hasina as saying.
   The assurance came when the state minister for home affairs, Tanjim Ahmed Sohel Taj, raised the issue during discussion on the agenda of judicial and other allowances for the judicial officers.
   The finance ministry placed the proposal for implementation of the Judicial Service Pay Commission report submitted on July 24, 2007.
   The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court on May 13 ordered the government to implement the report in two months reprimanding the government for procrastination in the implementation of the report.
   The report recommended 80 per cent of the basic pay as judicial allowance, 60 per cent as house rent for metropolitan cities and 50 per cent for other stations for the judicial service officers. It recommended 100 per cent increase of the salary for the judges.
   It also recommended increasing the judges’ outfit allowance to Tk 5,000 from the existing Tk 3,500 and medical allowance to Tk 1,000 from the existing Tk 500.
   The immediate past interim government in 2008 increased the outfit allowance for the judges in accordance with the recommendation. None of the other recommendations, however, has yet been implemented.
   The cabinet approved the Bangladesh-Bhutan trade pact on post-facto basis, Azad said.
   While approving the Bangladesh-Bhutan trade agreement, Sheikh Hasina said people had no reason to worry about the impact of global recession on the economy, saying that her government had adopted homespun measures for making the economy vibrant, Azad said.
   ‘The main need of the people is availability of food, and if food security can be ensured, crisis like economic recession would have no major impact on the economy,’ Hasina was quoted by her press secretary to have said.
   About the trade agreement, he said it was signed in 1980 followed by a trade protocol signed with Bhutan in 1984. The agreement was renewed in 2003.
   The cabinet, however, sent back the Financial Reporting Bill 2001 and asked the finance ministry to present it in the next meeting with details after further review.
   The cabinet dissolved a national committee formed in 2005 to investigate the reasons for top-dying disease of Sundari trees in Sundarban mangrove forests, Azad said adding that a 20-member committee failed to submit its report.
   About the demands of the police forces, the government will fulfil the demands of the police forces in three phases. In the first phase, the government would increase their salaries and risk allowance and solve their accommodation problems and upgrade the officers-in-charge as class one officers, the minister said.
   In the second phase, the government would recruit 30,000 people in the police department in three phases – 10,000 per year – and they would be equipped with modern weapons, said the meeting sources.
   The sources said, some members of the cabinet had tried to raise the issue of the army’s investigation report on the February 25-26 rebellion at the Bangladesh Rifles headquarters but the prime minister stopped them saying that it could be discussed later.
   The meeting adopted a condolence resolution on the death of eminent nuclear scientist M Wazed Miah, also the husband of the prime minister, and the cabinet members observed a one-minute silence to pay respect to the late nuclear scientist, said Azad. The cabinet members also offered special prayers seeking eternal peace of the departed soul. A proposal was made in the meeting for setting up a National Bigyan Bhaban after Wazed Miah, he said.

Law enforcers on Monday arrested 617 more Bangladesh Rifles soldiers in 11 districts in connection with rebellion at their battalion and sector headquarters on the second day of the February 25-26 mutiny at the border guards’ Dhaka headquarters.
   Of them, 106 soldiers were arrested at Teknaf in Cox’s Bazar, 93 in Rajshahi, 78 in Khagrachhari, 72 in Netrakona, 49 in Mymen-singh, 44 in Jamalpur, 54 in Naogaon, 43 in Moulvi-bazar, 30 in Chapainawab-ganj, 25 in Thakurgaon and 23 in Sunamganj.
   In Teknaf, the BDR members were arrested at the sector headquarters of 42 Rifles Battalion in the morning.
   In Rajshahi, a joint team of the police and the Rapid Action Battalion arrested 65 rebellion suspects at 37 Rifles Battalion and 28 at sector sadar.
   In Khagrachhari, the police arrested 78 suspected BDR members at two different sectors in a sedition case.
   In Jamalpur, the police arrested the suspected rebels from the sector headquarters of 6 Riffles Battalion in the morning in a sedition case.
   All the soldiers were produced in the respective courts from where they were sent to the jail on Monday.
   So far, a total of 1,665 soldiers have been arrested in 35 sedition cases in 30 districts.
   In Dhaka, seven more soldiers made their confessional statements in the chief metropolitan magistrate court on Monday.
   The soldiers were sepoy Ziaul Haque, sepoy Rashidul Islam, sepoy Rabiul Karim, sepoy Shahjahan, sepoy Atiar Rahman, sepoy Abdur Rahman and sepoy Saifuddin.
   After recording their statements, the soldiers were sent to Dhaka Central Jail in the evening.
   The Criminal Investiga-tion Department of police, assigned to investigate the BDR carnage case, produced 47 other soldiers in the CMM court on Monday afternoon.
   The CID sought seven-day remand for deputy assistant director Touhidul Alam – the main suspect, and 10-day for 46 others after producing them in the court of metropolitan magistrate Muminul Hasan.
   After hearing, the court remanded Touhidul Alam in police custody for three days and others, including two other main suspects – sepoy Ramzan and sepoy Muhit – for five days.
   Earlier, Touhid was remanded in custody for eight days for two times while Ramzan and Muhit were remanded in custody.
   With the latest, a total of 195 people are now on remand in the CID police custody.
   Meanwhile, the Dhaka sessions judge, ANM Bashir Ullah, rejected the bail petition submitted for a BDR sepoy Abdullah Al Mamun. The petition was submitted to the court on May 12.
   Emdadul Haque Lal, the lawyer for Mamun, said he would move to the High Court with the petition.
   The lawmen have so far arrested 1,386 people, mostly soldiers, in connection with the case filed with New Market police station and 85 of them, including three civilians, made their confessional statements in the court.

The home ministry’s probe committee on the February 25-26 rebellion and carnage at the Bangladesh Rifles’ headquarters has not yet submitted its findings to the government although its fourth deadline expired on May 12.
   The chairman of the committee claimed that they had completed the probe report last week, and sought a date for submitting it to the government.
   Replying to a query, home affairs minister Sahara Khatun on Monday said the government would not allow the committee further time for submitting the report.
   ‘The committee is taking its time to type the report which has already been completed...We will not extend the deadline further,’ the minister said.
   She expected that the committee would submit the report within a day or two.
   ‘We have sought time and date for submitting the findings on the BDR rebellion to the government…The report will be competed tonight [May 12],’ the head of the probe committee, Anis-uz-Zaman, told New Age last Tuesday.
   The committee was given 30 working days as it missed the deadline for the third time on March 29.
   The investigation committee, which was reconstituted on March 2, replacing home affairs minister Sahara Khatun with retired secretary Anis-uz-Zaman as its chief, was initially given seven days to complete the task. The deadline was extended by seven days in response to an application of the probe body.
   On expiry of the timeline, the government on March 23 allowed the committee four more working days to submit the report.
   The 11-member committee, comprising the law secretary, additional secretary to the home ministry, director general of the BDR, representatives from the cabinet division, the armed forces, the Prime Minister’s Office and the police, was asked to report within a week after the bloody mutiny that left 75 persons, including 57 army officials, dead and many injured.
   The court of inquiry formed by the army to probe the rebellion has already submitted its report to the army chief, while a team of the Criminal Investigation Department is still conducting investigations into the BDR carnage.

The High Court on Monday adjourned till May 25 the hearing of the writ petition filed by BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia, challenging two notices issued by the government asking her to vacate the house in Dhaka Cantonment.
   The High Court bench of Justice Syed Refaat Ahmed and Justice Moyeenul Islam Chowdhury, however, asked the government not to harass Khaleda, the leader of the opposition, over this matter till May 25.
   The court also asked Khaleda’s counsels to inform the court if the government harasses her in any manner to force her to leave the house.
   Khaleda filed a writ petition on May 3, challenging the notice issued by the Directorate of Military Land and Cantonment on April 20, asking her to vacate the house in 15 days.
   She filed a supplementary petition on Sunday, challenging the second notice issued by the directorate on May 7 asking her to explain in 15 days why she would not be directed to return the house to the military estates officer.
   ‘All respondents to the writ petitions are directed to guard jointly the petitioner so that she may not be disturbed in the meantime,’ said the court in its order to adjourn the hearing of the writ petitions.
   ‘The petitioner’s fundamental rights guaranteed in Articles 27 [equality before law], 31 [right to protection of law] and 42 [right to property] of the constitution must be ensured,’ ordered the court.
   After the court order, attorney-general Mahbubey Alam told reporters, ‘The government can take action legally with regard to the cantonment house after May 22 when the deadline to reply to the May 7 notice will expire.’
   When the petitions came up for hearing, the attorney-general sought adjournment of the hearing till May 22, saying that the supplementary petition filed by Khaleda was premature as the deadline to reply to the notice will expire on May 22.
   But Khaleda’s counsel TH Khan argued that the petitions were not premature as the government on April 8 finalised its decision to cancel the allotment of the house, and the petitions challenged the decision.
   Khaleda’s other counsel, former law minister Moudud Ahmed, argued that the government on May 3 took time from the court for the hearing, but it issued the second notice on May 7, which amounts to ‘fraud on the court’.
   ‘We have information that Khaleda Zia might be evicted from the house at any time,’ he said.
   Replying to the court’s query, the attorney-general said the government had committed no fraud on the court as it had issued the second notice in order to further clarify the first notice.
   ‘The government has not yet threatened Khaleda Zia with eviction,’ he said. ‘She has just been notified to explain why she would not be asked to hand over the house to the military estate officer.’

The Human Rights Watch on Monday said the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence and the Rapid Action Battalion should be disbanded for serious violations of human rights including ‘crossfire killings’, ‘custodial killings’, torture and arbitrary arrests.
   It suggested the setting up of an independent commission to assess the performance of the two agencies, identify the officers found guilty of grave human rights violations and recommend their dismissal.
   It also suggested the framing of an action plan to transform the two organisations into agencies that operate within the law, with full respect for human rights and international norms.
   It also said the DGFI’s operations should be strictly limited to lawful military intelligence activities, and in no circumstances should it have the power to detain, or engage in surveillance of, the political opposition and critics of the government.
   The HRW, a New York-based independent organisation working to ensure human rights, made the demands in its latest report — Ignoring Executions and Torture: Impunity for Bangladesh’s Security Forces — published simultaneously in New York and London on Monday.
   ‘Disband RAB, which has since its inception based its operating culture on practices such as extrajudicial killings,’ fulminated the HRW in its 80-page report. ‘Disband the DGFI, which has too long depended on illegal practices such as arbitrary detention and torture.’
   ‘The very forces tasked with upholding the law and providing security to the public have become notorious for breaking the law in the gravest manner without ever facing any consequences,’ said Brad Adams, director of the Human Rights Watch in Asia, while publicising the report. ‘Forces such as RAB and the military intelligence agency DGFI have become symbols of abuse and impunity.’
   The victims and their family members, receiving constant threats and undergoing harassment and even physical abuse, have often been forced to abandon their efforts to seek justice, and the suspected perpetrators have continued to serve in the security forces, read the report.
   They [security agency officials] tell their victims that anyone who attempts to hold them accountable will have to pay a high price and that, in any case, the efforts will be fruitless.
   ‘If you are a soldier, a member of the Rapid Action Battalion or the intelligence services, or a police officer, you can get away with murder in Bangladesh,’ said Brad Adams. ‘But those who kill or torture should be behind bars with other violent criminals.’
   The Bangladesh government should take urgent action to end impunity for perpetrators of human rights abuses and to establish the rule of law, said the HRW.
   ‘As a party to the UN human rights conventions, Bangladesh is obliged to ensure that all violations — past and future — are investigated, and that those responsible are brought to justice,’ said Brad Adams.
   Successive governments have promised but failed to ensure that law-enforcement officials and soldiers responsible for abuses are brought to justice, he added.
   The military, RAB and the police were responsible for over 1,000 murders over the past five years, said the report.
   Many of these deaths, often described as ‘crossfire killings’, were actually the result of extrajudicial execution of people in custody.
   The situation is partially the result of an outdated legal framework under which law enforcers and members of the armed forces are shielded from prosecution.
   The government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina declared that the officials who engage in unlawful ‘killing’ and ‘torture’ would be punished. ‘There are, however, no indications that the authorities have initiated any serious investigations into past abuses or into credible allegations that several suspects in the February 2009 rebellion and massacre at the headquarters of the Bangladesh Rifles, the country’s border security forces, have been tortured and killed while in custody,’ said the HRW.
   The HRW also suggested amendment of the archaic laws that shield security officials from prosecution. It also recommended a witness protection programme, and prosecution of, or disciplinary action against, anyone who tries to stop or hinder a criminal investigation.
   The Human Rights Watch report is available at: http: //www.hrw.org/node/83149

The Criminal Investigation Department here on Monday began questioning the two arrested former directors-general of the National Security Intelligence in a bid to find new leads in the ongoing probe into the sensational 10 truck-load arms haul case, said sources close to the investigators.
   Investigators attach great importance to the interrogation of the two arrested ex-DGs, Major General (retd) Rezzakul Haider Chowdhury and Brigadier General (retd) Abdur Rahim, from whom they expect to get more information on the involvement of foreign actors, including the embassy of a South Asian country and the Dubai-based business firm ARY (Aga Rahman Yusuf) Group owned by a Pakistani national and allegedly financed by an intelligence agency. This vital information was obtained from the arrested former director of the NSI, Shahabuddin Ahmed.
   During questioning the investigators were also trying to dig out the link of Brig Gen Abdur Rahim with the ARY Group that allegedly financed the arms consignment brought to CUFL’s jetty from a Chinese port for supplying to the ULFA, the north-eastern Indian insurgent group, the sources added.
   The investigators continued questioning Major Gen Rezzakul Haider separately to extract clues about his involvement with the arms deal and connection with ULFA’s military wing’s chief, Paresh Barua.
   After the seizure of ten truck-loads of arms and ammunition, Rezzakul Haider, then director of the DGFI, accompanied by the then home secretary Omar Faruk, also came to Chittagong to conduct an enquiry.
   Rezzakul, before being posted as director of the DGFI in Dhaka, worked as commanding officer of the Chittagong unit of the DGFI.
   The two arrested DGs continued to dodge the questions and mostly remained tight-lipped, sources added.
   The investigation officer of the case, CID’s ASP Moniruzzaman, said, ‘We haven’t progressed much as we could not extract any significant information from the two ex-DGs.’
   Public prosecutor Kamal Uddin Ahmed told New Age that both the arrested ex-DGs might be taken to the taskforce interrogation cell in Dhaka after being taken into fresh remand if CID investigators here failed to get any leads from them.
   ‘Some intensive questioning is needed to get leads from these two who know everything about the involvement of the foreign embassy and the big shots at home and abroad,’ said the PP. ‘The statements of the two DGs will be very helpful for netting the bigwigs of the then BNP-Jamaat government who were involved in the arms deal and misused the state mechanism.’
   ‘The investigators must identify everyone who was involved in order to bring them to book. This is essential for preventing a similar incident in the future,’ he added.
   The two ex-DGs were arrested from their Dhaka homes at Dhanmondi and DOHS on Friday night and placed under three days of remand for interrogation by CID investigators after they were produced at a court here on Sunday afternoon.
   Police seized 10 truck-loads of arms and ammunition from the CUFL’s jetty on 1 April, 2004.
   The case got a new start after the court ordered the launching of a fresh investigation after recording the confessional statements of the two prime accused, Hafizur Rahman and Deen Mohammad.

The House Committee on Monday resented the ‘abuse’ of the parliament secretariat sticker pasted on windshields of vehicles use by the lawmakers to get special treatment while travelling, officials said.
   In order to prevent the abuse, the committee at a meeting Monday discussed the idea of replacement of the old sticker with a new one, to be used only by the members of parliament, said chief whip Abdus Shahid, chairman of the committee.
   ‘It has been seen that relatives of many lawmakers, or people having good links with them, are using the sticker,’ he told reporters after the meeting.
   Attaching a sticker with the emblem of Jatiya Sangsad to the windscreens of their vehicles is a privilege enjoyed by the lawmakers meant for a hassle-free travel in the country as it signifies that the MP should get priority.
   But it has been noticed that people close to the lawmakers are using the cars with the sticker and taking advantage of the privileges which they are not entitled to, said Shahid. ‘It must be stopped.’
   The chief whip said that he would seek opinion of the lawmakers to stop abuse of the sticker.
   On allocation of office rooms for all lawmakers, Shahid said that the parliament secretariat was trying to get the rooms ready before the budget session commences on June 4.
   The United Nations Development Programme in Dhaka is learnt to have assured the parliament secretariat of equipping the offices with computers under a new project for strengthening parliamentary democracy.
   Speaker Abdul Hamid had announced earlier that the lawmakers would be provided with fully equipped offices in Dhaka.

Five members of a single family were killed by a landslide that occurred on Monday morning at the Lakhai tea garden in Kalighat union of Srimangal upazila in Moulvibazar.
   The decedents are Sufia Begum, 42, her sons Sumon, 14, and Sujon, 12, daughter Parvin, 24, and son-in-law Shamim Miah, 30.
   The landslide, which presumably occurred due to heavy rainfall very early in the morning at about 4:00am, buried Sufia’s house, making it impossible for any of the inmates to escape death.
   At around 6:00am, Union Parishad member Sitaram Hazra, along with the people of the neighbourhood, succeeded in recovering the bodies after three to four hours of frantic digging, said the locals.
   Srimangal thana police said that the dead bodies of the unfortunate victims were handed over to their relatives.
   Sufia’s brother Abul Hasem said that she had shifted to Lakhai tea garden from Mohajerbad after her husband’s death and started cultivating lemons.
   There were three hills and a chhara (small waterfall) around her house. When the chhara was swollen by the rainfall it began to erode the hill’s soil, which caused the landslide, said Hashem.
   The local people claimed the landslide was a result of nothing but the unplanned and indiscriminate digging of hills by traders who sell earth to developers and others.
   The bodies were handed over to the next of kin without any autopsy because of the relatives’ objections, said Srimangal police.

The Sri Lankan government said Velupillai Prabhakaran was the leader of one of the world’s most ruthless organisations and was comparable to Pol Pot or Osama bin Laden. But according to his supporters he was an indefatigable fighter for Tamil rights.
   For three decades, Prabhakaran, 54, who had a fascination with Napoleon Bonaparte and Alexander the Great, eluded death, assassination attempts and capture as he single-mindedly pursued the goal of a homeland for the minority Tamils, reports guardian.co.uk.
   The youngest of four children, Prabhakaran was born on 26 November 1954 in the northern coastal town of Velvettithurai, on the Jaffna peninsula. An average student, he said in an interview that he was fascinated by Napoleon and Alexander the Great. He was also influenced by the lives of two Indian leaders, Subhash Chandra Bose and Bhagat Singh, who fought for independence from Britain.
   He became politically active as a teenager, radicalised by what he saw as discrimination by the Sinhalese majority against Tamils in politics, employment and education. In the early 1970s, Prabhakaran founded the Tamil Tigers, and in 1975 he was accused of being responsible for the murder of the mayor of Jaffna, the first of many assassinations for which he is blamed.
   In 1983, he launched a guerrilla war, setting the stage for one of Asia’s longest conflicts.
   The Tigers ran their own law courts, police force and Tamil Eelam banks and even their own time zone — half an hour behind the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo.
   But after the breakdown of numerous truces and outside attempts by Norway to broker a political settlement, an all-out army offensive this year has wiped out the Tigers as a fighting force.
   The Sri Lankan military says its troops have killed the man they have been hunting for so long; that they shot him dead as he was trying to escape in an ambulance.
   In previous rounds of fighting, Prabhakaran, who carried a cyanide capsule around his neck, reportedly told his bodyguards to kill him and burn his body beyond recognition rather than allow his capture.
   Although demonised by the Sri Lankan authorities, Prabhakaran became the symbol of militant Tamil nationalism, appearing on posters, calendars, watches and the placards waved by his supporters around the world, even if they had misgivings about some of the Tigers’ tactics — the government accused the rebels of using civilians as human shields and shooting fleeing civilians as the rebels were cornered in their last refuge in north-eastern Sri Lanka.
   Prabhakaran’s supporters point out that at one stage he was willing to set aside the military struggle and fight for his goals through political means. In a rare press conference in 2002, when he shed his familiar green fatigues, the short and stout guerrilla leader said he wanted a negotiated political settlement and rejected the label of terrorist organisation, claiming that the Tigers were a liberation movement.
   Still he looked distinctly uncomfortable when asked about the assassination of the former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, who was blown up by a female LTTE suicide bomber in 1991, describing it as a ‘tragic incident’.
   Because of such actions, the Tigers found it hard to shake off their reputation for brazen terrorism.
   His death should bring the military conflict to a close for now, but Tamil demands — backed by a vocal diaspora — for better treatment from the Sinhalese are unlikely to be silenced.

The High Court on Monday granted bail to former ministers Anwar Hossain Manju and M Morshed Khan, in separate corruption cases in which they were convicted in absentia during the military-backed interim regime.
   Both Manju and Morshed landed in jail this month after their surrendering to the court.
   The High Court bench of Justice MA Wahhab Miah and Justice M Marzi-ul-Huq passed the orders after hearing separate petitions filed by the two politicians.
   ‘The bails will remain valid until the disposal of their appeals pending with the High Court against their conviction awarded by trial courts,’ Rafique-ul Huq, the counsel for the two politicians told reporters.
   Manju, also the Jatiya Party faction chairman, landed in jail on May 6 after he surrendered in the Special Judge’s Court 9 of Dhaka, chaired by justice AK Arifur Rahman.
   Manju was the first of the 12 runaway convicts, including 10 high-profile politicians, who were asked by the High Court on May 3 to surrender in the trial courts concerned in two weeks. The court followed the order passed by the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court on April 23 in a similar case involving fugitive convicts’ bail.
   Tried in absence, Manju was jailed for 32 years in four cases, including bribery and amassing illegal wealth.
   Former foreign minister M Morshed Khan was sent to jail on May 10 after he surrendered in the Special Judge’s Court-9 of Dhaka, presided over by judge Sirajul Islam.
   The court on August 4, 2008 sentenced Morshed, also an adviser to the BNP chairperson, to 13 years’ rigorous imprisonment for amassing illegal wealth and concealing information of some of his assets from his wealth statement he had submitted to the Anti-Corruption Commission.
   Morshed is the third convict who was sent to jail after a special High Court bench, on May 3, asked fugitive convicts to surrender in the trial courts concerned in two weeks.

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party chairperson, Khaleda Zia, has approved the new convening committees for its political districts but withheld a decision on the Dhaka city unit.
   The party standing committee finalised the convening committees for 74 political districts, out of 75, Sunday night.
   The party is expected to announce the convening committees anytime this week.
   ‘The standing committee approved the convening committees of all district and city units under six divisions, except the Dhaka city unit,’ BNP standing committee member Khandakar Mosharraf Hossain said Monday.
   The new convening committees with one convener and a few joint conveners, except the Dhaka city unit, will be announced by this week after the standing committee approves the terms and conditions of the new committees, he said.
   The standing committee approved 74 district and city units following a series of meetings till Sunday midnight.
   When asked about the convening committee for the party’s Dhaka city unit, Khandakar Mosharraf said the matter was yet to come to the table for discussion.
   Party insiders hinted that chairperson Khaleda Zia would take some time before announcing the convening committee [or committees] for the Dhaka city unit as BNP joint secretary general Mirza Abbas and Dhaka city mayor Sadek Hossain Khoka were the two major contenders for the post of the convener of the city unit. The chairperson’s adviser ASM Hannan Shah is also an aspirant.
   In early 2008, BNP secretary general Khandaker Delwar Hossain dissolved the Dhaka city unit headed by Sadek Hossain Khoka when the chairperson was in prison.
   The party will dissolve the present committees of the district units while announcing the new convening committees, Khandakar Mosharraf said on Sunday.
   The convener and joint conveners will form a 51-member committee for each district through election.
   The new district convening committees will be tasked with organising council sessions in the district, upazila and union level units to form new committees at the grassroots level through elections.
   The district convening committees will dissolve the upazila committees as soon as possible and hold council sessions to form regular upazila committees.
   Similarly, the upazila committees will dissolve the union committees, form convening committees and new committees through elections.
   The party is expected to hold its national council session after district council sessions are completed.
   The last national council of the party was held in 1993.

Former Maoist rebels announced Monday they would block a parliament vote to elect a new prime minister, a tactic that could prolong Nepal’s political crisis.
   Narayan Kaji Shrestha, deputy leader of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), said the party would not allow parliament to function unless their demands are met.
   The Maoists want the president to sack the army chief — an order issued by the previous Maoist-led government of Pushpa Kamal Dahal, which the president overturned, leading Dahal to resign May 4 and the collapse of his coalition.
   An alliance of 22 political parties filed an application in parliament on Sunday claiming they have enough support to form a new coalition government, and called for a parliamentary vote to elect veteran communist leader Madhav Kumar Nepal as prime minister.
   A date for the vote has not been set.

Three Bangladeshi labourers and an Indian worker were killed in Singapore on Monday when a lorry carrying them collided with a trailer, police and hospital sources said.
   The police said the three male Bangladeshi workers were ‘pronounced dead on the scene’ of the accident. The fourth fatality was an Indian worker who died in hospital after suffering injuries from the collision, a hospital staff member said.
   Thousands of foreign labourers work in Singapore’s construction industry, many of them from Bangladesh, India and China.

Several hundred workers of lightering vessels and jetty warehouses in the Chittagong port went on a wildcat strike on Monday, bringing cargo handling and transportation to a halt, port and trade circles sources said.
   The workers handling cargo at Majirghat-based warehouses and the coaster ships engaged in lightering cargo from mother vessels at the outer anchorage started the strike at about 8:00am, demanding increase in charges and wages, they added.
   The Chittagong Port Authority secretary, Forhad Uddin, said the workers’ strike caused disruption in cargo transportation in the inland routes and lightering from the mother vessels.
   ‘But it did not affect our port operation,’ he added, saying cargo handling inside the port jetties continued as usual.
   The Chittagong Chamber of Commerce and Industry president, MA Latif MP, who is also chairman of the Port Users Forum, in a statement issued to the press expressed concern over the workers’ strike.
   He termed the strike a self-destructive move taken to hamper the peaceful labour environment.
   He said that the workers had begun the strike without issuing any prior notice or holding any discussion about their demands.
   Consequently, the trade of the country was affec-ted while the mother vessels remained idle at the outer anchorage, he added.
   The coaster ship and warehouse workers union president, Abdul Kadir, said the workers had begun the strike as they were paid very low.
   ‘We are deprived and started the strike to realise our rights,’ he added.