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People still marooned in places in the south and south-west inundated by water surges whipped up by cyclone Aila on Monday were passing their days half-fed and even unfed as relief operations were yet to begin in remote areas.
   The marooned people are also faced with acute shortage of drinking water as tube wells are still under water.
   Local government representatives and residents in the affected areas said the people who remained marooned in many areas were moved to safe places such as cyclone shelters, educational institutions or high land.
   ‘We have lost everything. Our houses along with all our belongings were washed away. We came to the shelter empty-handed, with nothing but what we had on at the time when Aila crossed though the coastline,’ said Ayub Ali Gazi, of Koyra, who took shelter under the open sky on an embankment along the River Shakbaria.
   ‘We are yet to get any help but some flattened rice and two bottles of water what we received on Tuesday,’ he said.
   ‘We need food, at least a makeshift shelter and a few clothes,’ said Mizanur Rahman of Jorsing as tears rolled down his cheek.
   The Sutarkhali union council chairman, Bidhu Narayan Sardar, of Dacope in Khulna, said about 9,000 families in his union alone lost their houses to the tidal surges and they were living on embankment and in other shelters. They need food, water, medicine and polythene to build makeshift shelters on an emergency basis, he said.
   The relief given by the government and non-governmental organisations in his union was far less than the requirement, he said, adding no relief goods could be reached to the people marooned in remote villages.
   The Khulna deputy commissioner, NM Zeaul Alam, told New Age they had started emergency relief works and distributed 145 tonnes of rice, 11 tonnes of flattened rice, 1 tonne of molasses, 2,100 cans each containing 10 litres of water, and Tk 80,000 in cash among the affected people.
   The control room set up by the district administration for disaster management said 42,919 houses completely and 4,0134 were partly damaged. Thirty-five people died as tidal surges inundated the district. Three hundred and two domestic animals and 3,820 poultry birds were washed away.
   Two hundred and thirty-four educational institutions and religious infrastructures were damaged.
   Death toll from inundation and storm rose to 150, according to an unofficial count. The control room in the disaster management ministry could confirm the death of 115 people till 9:00pm Wednesday.
   The control room said 33,44,309 people had been affected by the storm and tidal surges. The ministry on Wednesday allocated 10,000 more tonnes of rice and Tk 1 crore in cash for relief operations.
   Military and civilian relief workers struggled to reach food, fresh water and shelters to the regions worst affected by surges and high winds, the control room said.
   Air force helicopters carried relief goods and water purification plant to Shyamnagar in Satkhira, Barguna district headquarters, Kuakata, Patuakhali district headquarters, Dhal Char and Daulatkhan in Bhola in five sorties, said an ISPR release.
   The release said the military continued its rescue and relief operation in some remote areas in Patuakhali, Satkhira, Khulna and Bagerhat. The army medical teams were providing health services and distributing water purifying tablets among the affected people.
   Non-governmental organisation BRAC has approved Tk 1 crore from its own fund for primary relief activities and the organisation has already started distributing pure drinking water, water purifying tablets, rice flakes and molasses in affected areas, said a release.
   The Bangladesh Red Crescent Society has distributed Tk 3,60,000 in cash, 16,000 plastic sheets, 16,000 saris, 16,000 lungis, 800 cans, 800 tents, 1,60,000 water purifying tablets, and 80,000 packets of oral rehydration salt among the affected people.
   Reports from Patuakhali said people in areas where dams breached are still marooned in the district headquarters, Kalapara and Dashmina.
   Barguna district headquarters, Patharghata and Amtali are still inundated and people could not return home from the shelters. Relief operations began on a very limited scale.
   Five fishing trawlers which had gone to the deep sea from Barguna before storm warning was issued are yet to return to the shore. Relatives of the 58 crew on board the trawlers were wailing at the Alipur shore, said Mannan Majhi, member of the Trawler Crew Association at Alipur.
   Reports from Barisal said boro, aman, aus and seed beds on 86,981 hectares of land had been inundated in the Barisal division. Seasonal crops and vegetables cultivated on 26,019 hectares of land also went under water in the division.
   ‘It will take some more time to asses the agricultural damage. The damage will increase manifold if it rains and water remains stagnant,’ said Sudhir Ranjan Shil, deputy director of the Department of Agricultural Extension in Barisal.
   In Patuakhali, at least 49 educational institutions were completely and 128 institutions partially damaged, said the district education and the district primary education office.
   Students are attending classes under the open sky in some areas and academic activies were suspended in areas where schools were under water.
   Md Zakir Hossain, a student of Class V of the Madhabpura Government Primary School at Kalapara, said the school had suspended all their classes as the school ground was under water.
   The Patuakhali deputy commissioner, Md Riaz Ahmed, said he had received a list of schools fully or partly damaged, which had been forwarded to the education ministry for necessary steps.

Water surges whipped up by cyclone Aila that crossed over Sagar Island into India’s coastline on May 25 damaged the infrastructure of Sundarban before the mangrove forest could fully recover from the damage caused by cyclone Sidr, which ripped Bangladesh’s south on November 15, 2007.
   The forest, shared with India, is home to 425 species of trees and herbs and 246 species of animals, including the Royal Bengal Tiger.
   Officials of the Sundarban west division said saline water had entered all the eight big and 14 small sweet water ponds, 20 jetties were damaged, partly or fully, and about 50 per cent of the wood seized by the forest department were washed away.
   They said a number of furniture and a few objects were damaged in camps and stations of the division. The division has nine stations and 35 camps.
   The officials said water surges had also washed away wood seized earlier and damaged the jetty of the Kotka rest house, barracks at Dublar Char and the Shapla camp. They said the water surge had weakened most of the camps.
   The officials, however, said they were yet to receive reports on losses of trees and wildlife.
   Sources in the forest department said Sidr had damaged the flora and fauna on about 30,000 hectares of land fully and on about 80,000 hectares partially, damaged 60 forest department jetties fully and 12 partially, blew over about 127 structures and ruined a pontoon at Neel Kamal fully.
   The department lost 55 vessels to the Sidr and the wireless system broke down fully when Sidr hit the forest. Saline water entered all the sweet water ponds.
   The forest was recovering from the Sidr damage, all the jetties and structures were repaired, the ponds were freed of saline water and the damaged vessels were fixed, they said, but the wireless system was yet to be restored.
   A division official on Wednesday said they were carrying out an assessment to establish the extent of losses.
   He said the damage caused by water surges on May 15 would be an additional burden before Sundarban could recover from the damage caused by Sidr.
   He said they were working to desalinate the sweet water pond on an emergency basis as they are the sources of drinking water for wildlife, inhabitants of the forest and the forest department people.

The home ministry’s probe committee on the February 25-26 rebellion and killings at the Bangladesh Rifles headquarters in Dhaka could not ascertain the real cause and motive for the carnage and suggested further investigations to identify the plotters.
   Describing the background of the bloody mutiny, the committee led by retired secretary Anis-uz Zaman Khan, said the grievances the BDR soldiers had harboured against their commanding officers from the army were the immediate reason for the rebellion and hinted that the players behind the scenes might have pulled strings capitalising on the discontent to destabilise the country in a planned way.
   The government on Wednesday made public the probe report at a press briefing at the home affairs ministry.
   Home minister Sahara Khatun, state minister Tanjim Ahmed Sohel Taj, home secretary Abdus Sobhan Sikder and BDR director general major general Mainul Islam, among others, were present, at the briefing.
   ‘The committee has identified the soldiers’ grievances and their demand for increased allowances as the primary reason for the mutiny…Besides, Dal Bhat Programme, punishments meted out to jawans, irregularities in running the BDR shops and schools and officers’ luxurious living fuelled the discontent,’ Anis-uz Zaman said, adding that discontent among the BDR soldiers over their commanding officers coming from the army had been latent for long.
   The committee has recommended striking a balance in the facilities for the military, paramilitary and law enforcement agencies. It also suggested revision of the service tenure of the members of the BDR in line with that of the army.
   When asked about the next step to identify the masterminds of the carnage, Sahara Khatun said, a case was lodged in connection with the incidents and that the Criminal Investigation Department was investigating it. ‘We will be able to identify the plotters and perpetrators once the CID submits the charge sheet,’ she added.
   The probe found that a group of BDR soldiers had met with a number of politicians before the mutiny to raise their demands that included 100 per cent ration, increase in border allowance, recruitment of cadre officers for the BDR, revision of its pay structure in keeping with that of the army and sending BDR soldiers to the UN peacekeeping missions. As the BDR members did not get the response they had expected from the politicians, they hold a number of secret meetings and planned to hold the BDR chief hostage along with some other commanders, according to the findings.
   The grievances were not that serious and some forces might have capitalised on the situation and instigated the gory killings to break the chain of command and make the border force inoperative, according to the report.
   The committee recorded statements of 107 people including ministers, lawmakers, chiefs of the armed forces, former directors general of the BDR, chiefs of intelligence agencies and BDR soldiers.
   The inquiry found that BDR’s deputy assistant director Touhid, DADs Habib, Jalil, Nasir, Rahim, subedar major Gofran, nayek subedar Manoranjan, habilder assistant Moniruzzaman, sepoys Selim Reza, Tareq, Ayub, Kajol, Sahabuddin, Moinuddin, Rezaul, Rubel, Habib, Muhith, Nizam, Sahadat and Obayed, lance nayek assistants Saidur and Lutfar, lance nayek Zakaria, and others were involved in planning and carrying out the carnage.
   The probe found that former lawmaker of Bangladesh Nationalist Party Nasiruddin Ahmed Pintu helped a good number of BDR rebels flee to Keraniganj by engine boats. Some overenthusiastic locals provided the fleeing soldiers with clothes, drinking water and food and former ward commissioner of BNP Suraiya Begum, her two sons, local gangsters Masud, Leather Liton [son of Torab Ali, a local leader of Awami League] and others were involved in such activities, Anis-uz Zaman said quoting the report.
   The report recommended quick and exemplary punishment of the perpetrators under the Army Act.
   Earlier on May 21, the 12-member committee submitted its 309-page report to the home affairs minister citing grievances of the BDR soldiers against their commanders deputed from the army as a probable cause for the rebellion.
   The committee, however, did not mention anywhere in the report any militant links to the BDR incidents.
   About the commerce minister’s statement that militants had links to the carnage, the head of the probe body said, it was the minister’s personal view. ‘The committee in its primary findings has not found any militant links.’
   Seventy-four people, including 57 army officers, a retired army personnel, wives of two army officers, 9 BDR soldiers, four civilians, an army soldier and a police constable, were killed in the ‘mutiny and carnage,’ according to the report, which mentioned that most army officials were killed by 11:00am and 52 of them were killed in and around the Darbar hall.
   The probe found that subebar major Md Nurul Islam was killed as he opposed the mutiny. The committee suggested that the BDR members who were killed while protesting against the mutiny should duly be honoured and their families be properly compensated.
   The report also recommended formation of a national crisis management committee to tackle such issues in future and to immediately raise a counter intelligence force with members from the armed forces to prevent recurrence of such incidents.
   The committee suggested reorganisation of the Bangladesh Rifles, formation of a central intelligence coordination committee and relocation of businesses for the intelligence agencies as long-term measures.
   Strongly criticising the role of the media during and after the rebellion, the committee called for formulation of a ‘code of conduct’ for the print and electronic media during national security crisis.
   It said the electronic media on many occasions had tarnished the image of the army and at times projected many negative aspects in news and talk shows without knowing the whole matter.
   The committee which included the law secretary, BDR director general, representatives of the Prime Minister’s Office, cabinet division, army, navy and air force, police, home ministry and the judge advocate general, recommended updating of the laws of the Bangladesh Rifles and other paramilitary forces.
   It its 23-point recommendations, the probe body asked the government not to involve any armed forces or law enforcement agencies in any programme like Operation Dal Bhat. It said the government should take immediate measures to address the demands of the military, paramilitary and law enforcement agencies.
   The home secretary said the government had started taking measures in keeping with the recommendations.
   As the committee lacked tools and techniques to interrogate the suspects and unearth the truth, none of the people brought before the committee provided any crucial information or proof, according to the report.

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party chairperson, Khaleda Zia, on Wednesday said the report of the investigation on the rebellion and killing in the Bangladesh Rifles headquarters prepared by the government was unacceptable.
   ‘They [government] have published only the portion of the report of their choice. It is unacceptable,’ she said during a programme in her office at Gulshan. ‘The government has put a lid on the report prepared by the army.’
   The report prepared by the army must be published, she said.
   The programme was organised to launch the party’s bulletin, Dhaner Shish (paddy sheaf).
   Anisuzzaman Khan, who headed the government committee, made public the report at the home ministry Wednesday afternoon.

The High Court on Wednesday stayed for three months the operation of the third notice issued by the government on May 24 asking the leader of the opposition, Khaleda Zia, to vacate her house in the Dhaka cantonment.
   The High Court bench of Justice Syed Refaat Ahmed and Justice Moyeenul Islam Chowdhury also asked the government to explain in three weeks why the notice would not be declared illegal.
   The court passed the orders after hearing a writ petition filed by former prime minister Khaleda, also the Bangladesh Nationalist Party chairperson.
   Coming out of the court, Khaleda’s counsels TH Khan and Moudud Ahmed told reporters justice was finally done to Khaleda Zia.
   ‘We are happy that Khaleda Zia obtained interim relief at last. We had to move court seeking justice as three benches felt embarrassed and another expressed its inability to hear the petition,’ said TH Khan.
   Moudud, also a former law minister, said, ‘She [Khaleda] can now live in the house without any government interference.’
   ‘It is not a writ petition for Khaleda Zia alone as the government has made it a major political issue,’ he said.
   Asked whether the government would file an appeal with the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court seeking the High Court orders to be halted, the attorney general, Mahbubey Alam, told reporters his office would make a decision after consultation with the government on the matter.
   ‘The court passed the orders considering that the matter involved the question of interpretation of the constitution,’ he said.
   Khaleda filed the writ petition on May 3 challenging the notice issued by the Directorate of Military Land and Cantonments on April 20 asking her to vacate the house (6, Moinul Road in Dhaka cantonment) within 15 days.
   The directorate issued the notice after the cabinet on April 8 decided to cancel Khaleda’s leasehold of the house allotted to her after her husband, president Ziaur Rahman, was killed in a military putsch on May 30, 1981.
   The cabinet came up with the decision after the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, had told the parliament in the first week of April that she would ask the opposition leader to vacate the house, claiming that the cantonment authorities had allotted it to Khaleda in violation of laws.
   Khaleda filed a supplementary petition on May 17, challenging the second notice, served 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.
   Khaleda replied to the second notice on May 10, asking the directorate to recall the notice as it was ‘illegal.’
   The directorate issued the third notice on May 24, asking her to hand over the house, in which the Zia family has been living since the 1970s, to the military estates officer by June 30 and Khaleda filed a supplementary petition on Monday challenging the third notice.
   The chief justice, MM Ruhul Amin, on May 11 referred the writ petition to the fifth bench as three High Court benches had felt embarrassed and another had expressed its inability to hear the petition.
   The fifth bench, however, on May 12 deferred the hearing in the petition till May 18 as Khaleda’s counsels sought time for the hearing saying they needed to file a supplementary petition challenging the second notice issued on May 7.
   On May 18, the court adjourned the hearing till May 25 and asked the government not to harass Khaleda regarding the house till May 25 as the attorney general sought time for the hearing.
   The hearing in the petition began on Tuesday as Khaleda’s counsels took another adjournment of the hearing on Monday saying they needed to file another supplementary petition challenging the third notice issued on Sunday.
   During hearing in the petition, TH Khan told the court the allotment of the house to Khaleda by the president on July 8, 1981 was legal.
   The fourth amendment to the constitution, made in 1974 by the Awami League government, empowered the president and any person authorised by him to allot any property to any person, and the presidential system, introduced by that amendment, had been in operation till 1991, he argued.
   The government has thus violated the law by issuing three notices to Khaleda, he said.
   According to the law, if any person or authority finds anything wrong in the documents related to property, the person or authority has to go to proper court to seek redress, the counsel contended.
   Without following the legal procedures stipulated in the constitution and the Transfer of Properties Act, the government issued the notices with a mala fide intention of harassing the leader of the opposition, he said.
   He also argued the repeated issuance of notices proved the government had failed to go by the law.
   Mahbubey Alam, opposing the petition, argued the allotment was illegal as it was made in violation of the law.
   According to the Army Act, no property of the armed forces and the cantonment can be allotted to any civilian, he contended, adding the allotment of the house on 165 kathas of land was against the interest of the cantonment authorities and the armed forces.
   Opposing the attorney general’s contention, TH Khan argued any property of the government institutions belonged to the state and the president could allot any of such property to any person.
   He also cited Article 56(4) of the constitution, as amended by the fourth amendment in 1974 and valid till 1991 when the twelfth amendment to the constitution was made reintroducing the parliamentary form of government.
   The article stipulates the validity of any order, instrument or contract made, attested or authenticated by the president ‘shall not be questioned in any court on the ground that it is not duly made or executed.’

A parliamentary panel on Wednesday suggested revival of the Dhaka-Kolkata passenger shipping service to further enhance people-to-people contact between Bangladesh and India, and promote eco-tourism.
   ‘We have asked the government to look into the prospects of reopening the decades-old river route,’ Noor-e-Alam Chowdhury, the chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on the ministry of shipping said after a meeting of the panel at the Jatiya Sangsad.
   The shipping minister, Afsarul Ameen, who attended the meting among others, appreciated the proposal.
   ‘The proposal is good. We will actively consider it,’ the minister told New Age adding that there should be more discussions since the matter involved cooperation of India.
   Passenger vessel service between Dhaka and Kolkata was terminated sometime during the Pakistan era, he said but could not spell out exactly in which year it was stopped.
   Since Bangladesh and India has a river protocol in place for transportation of goods, it would not be difficult for the two next door neighbours to reopen the river route between Dhaka and Kolkata, said the chairman of the committee.
   Dhaka and Kolkata has now daily passenger transport service by air and road, and four train services a week.
   There is no passenger service on river routes.
   ‘We have a few vessels made during the British Raj and they are still in service. These vessels could carry tourists across the border,’ Noor-e-Alam said.
   He said that passengers could enjoy the beauty of Sundarban while passing through the world’s largest mangrove forest.
   Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority looks after the ageing passenger vessels that included Lepcha, Masud, Ostrich and Turn.
   Once the BIWTA was equipped with a fleet of 16 such vessels, but they were ruined over the past years due to lack of proper maintenance, according to officials at the shipping ministry.
   The meeting, attended by the members of the committee, also suggested operation of the proposed cross-boundary passenger service on public-private partnership for making it commercially viable.
   The meeting also asked the authorities concerned to make Mongla port, the country’s second maritime port, operational ridding it of the present stalemate.
   The committee chairman held the previous Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led alliance government for making the port inoperative.
   The government should immediately take measures so that public sector imports are handled at the Mongla Port, suggested the meeting.
   It also observed that a total of 2,300 acres of land, leased out for development of the area, remained unused. The meeting asked the Port Authority to report on the latest state of the land.

A suicide attack flattened a police building in Pakistan’s city of Lahore on Wednesday, killing 24 people in a bomb that the government branded revenge for an offensive against the Taliban.
   The blast — the third deadly attack to rock the country’s liberal cultural capital in as many months — points to a widening net of Islamist violence which has killed more than 1,800 people across Pakistan in less than two years.
   Three attackers opened fire and threw a grenade before a van packed with explosives blew up outside an emergency response building beside the provincial headquarters of Pakistan’s premier intelligence agency, investigators said.
   Authorities said more than 300 people were wounded.
   ‘I heard firing and then a huge blast,’ said one policeman who staggered out of the rubble, saying that there were 30-35 policemen trapped inside.
   ‘The wall collapsed on me. I was trapped in the wreckage and fell unconscious,’ said an elderly man, speaking to reporters from his hospital bed.
   Rescue workers ferried out the injured on their backs, stumbling over the debris, while people tried to dig out bloodied bodies buried deep in rubble.
   The blast damaged buildings in the security nerve centre of Lahore, two months after a deadly assault on a police academy near the eastern city claimed by the Taliban.
   ‘The initial investigation shows that the attackers first fired at the police and security pickets at the corner of the building and then an explosives-laden Toyota van blew up,’ said Lahore police chief Pervaiz Rathore.
   ‘The terrorists also threw hand grenades but they could not penetrate the building,’ said Rathore.
   A top security official said after nightfall that 24 people died, including 13 policemen, civilians and security officers.
   The Inter-Services Intelligence building was partly damaged and an intelligence officer was killed in the blast, one security official said.
   There was no immediate claim of responsibility but a senior investigator said the attack was the likely handiwork of al-Qaeda linked Taliban militants operating from Pakistan’s wild Waziristan, which borders Afghanistan.
   One of the attackers was shot dead by security guards as he approached the building, and two others perished in the explosion, the investigator said.
   ‘Enemies of Pakistan who want to destabilise the country are coming here after their defeat in Swat,’ the interior minister, Rehman Malik, told reporters, linking the attack to the military’s offensive against the Taliban.
   ‘There is a war and this is a war for our survival,’ he added.
   The president, Asif Ali Zardari, accused militants of ‘trying to create panic among the people through such acts of barbarism’, said a spokesman.
   Anne Patterson, the US ambassador to Pakistan, condemned the bombing.

The High Court on Wednesday ordered the home secretary and two police officers to appear in the court on June 3 to explain why they should not be prosecuted on contempt of court charge for barring former BNP state minister Iqbal Hasan Mahmood Tuku from going abroad violating its order.
   The High Court bench of Justice Tariq ul Hakim and Justice M Azizul Haque ordered home secretary Abdus Sobhan Sikder, special superintendent of police (immigration) at Zia International Airport Aurangzeb Mahbub and officer-in-charge (immigration) Azizur Rahman Chowdhury to appear in the court.
   The court also asked inspector general of police Nur Mohammad, additional inspector general of police Javed Patwary, director general immigration and passport and special branch sub-inspector Niazul to explain in a week why contempt of court proceedings should not be drawn against them.
   The court passed the orders after hearing a petition filed by Tuku on Tuesday for drawing contempt of court proceedings against the seven for offloading him from the aircraft just before it took off for Singapore on May 24 despite having court clearance.
   The same bench on May 11, after hearing a writ petition filed by Tuku, ordered the government not to disturb or stop him from going abroad for his checkup and thereafter re-enter Bangladesh for a period of six months.
   The court had also asked the government to explain its move to prevent Tuku from flying to Singapore on May 2. The rule is yet to be heard.
   Jailed for nine years for amassing illegal wealth and hiding assets in the wealth statement submitted to the Anti-Corruption Commission, Tuku is now on bail.
   In his petition, Tuku stated that he was offloaded from the aircraft on May 24 when he was going to Singapore for treatment.
   He mentioned that Azizur Rahman Chowdhury, officer-in-charge (immigration), told him that he could not go abroad despite the High Court’s clearance as the immigration officials had instruction from higher authorities.

The arrested former director general of the National Security Intelligence, retired Brigadier General Abdur Rahim, on Wednesday made his confessional statement before the court in connection with the biggest-ever arms and ammunition haul on April 2, 2004.
   The metropolitan magistrate, Osman Gani, recorded the statement under Section 164 from 3:15pm to 5:15pm in which the former NSI chief implicated a foreign embassy and a foreign business organization in the incident.
   Court sources said Rahim made the confessional statement in an evasive manner and claimed to know nothing of the incident before the recovery of arms and ammunition.
   Court sources quoted him as saying that he had received the news of the seizure of a huge consignment of arms and ammunitions from the then state minister for home affairs, Lutfuzzaman Babar, over cellular phone.
   Rahim quoted Babar as saying that NSI officials were involved in the incident. He also said he was on the Daudkandi Bridge on his way back to Dhaka from Comilla when he received the phone call from Babar.
   Court sources quoted the retired general as saying that before the incident he had visited Dubai, along with his wife, at the expense of the Aga Rahman Yousuf Group in order to become the local agent of a private TV channel, the QTV, and the ARY Group.
    According to court sources, the former NSI chief did not mention the names of another arrested former DG of NSI, retired Major General Rezakul Haider Chowdhury, former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia’s elder son Tareque Rahman and the Hawa Bhaban in his statement
   Meanwhile, the Criminal Investigation Department on Wednesday afternoon brought to Chittagong the former deputy director of the NSI, retired Major Mohammed Liakat, who was arrested from Dhaka.
   The CID produced him before the court of additional chief metropolitan magistrate M Ashaduzzaman with a prayer for a five-day remand to interrogate him in connection with the arms and ammunition haul. The court, however, sent Liakat to jail, fixing Wednesday as the date for hearing the petition.
   The CID arrested Rahim at his DOHS house and Rezakul at his Dhanmondi residence in Dhaka on May 16 after hearing the confessional statement of a former director of the NSI, retired Wing Commander Shahabuddin Ahmed.
   They were produced in the court of Chittagong’s metropolitan magistrate Mahbubur Rahman on May 18 and the court granted the police a three-day remand for interrogating them.
   The CID, on completion of three-day remand, produced them before the court of metropolitan magistrate Osman Gani and the court granted the police a fresh six-day remand for intensive interrogation at the TFI cell in Dhaka on May 20. Rahim was sent to Dhaka for interrogation at the TFI cell on the following day and made his confessional statement before the court on completion of the six-day remand. Rezakul, however, is yet to be sent to the TFI cell.
   The CID arrested Shahabuddin from the capital on May 2 following the confessional statement of Akbar Hossain, a field officer of the NSI, who implicated his former boss in the incident.
   Shahabuddin on May 15 made a confessional statement under Section 164 before the court of Chittagong metropolitan magistrate Abu Hannan on completion of the three-day remand in Chittagong and six-day remand at the TFI cell.
   The police recovered a total of 4,930 sophisticated firearms of different types, 27,020 grenades, 840 rocket launchers, 300 accessories of rocket launchers, 2,000 grenade-launching tubes, 6,392 magazines and 11,40,520 bullets while being they were being loaded onto 10 trucks from two engine boats at the CUFL jetty on April 2, 2004.
   The case, filed with the Karnaphuli police station in this connection, got a new life following the confessional statements of the two prime accused, Hafizuddin and Deen Mohammed, recorded under Section 164 on March 2.

Bangladesh Nationalist Party on Wednesday said Awami League lawmaker Shahjahan Khan, convener of a parliamentary subcommittee, should seek an ‘apology’ for spreading ‘canards’ against Tarique Rahman, senior joint secretary general of BNP.
   ‘The so-called subcommittee convener Shahjahan Khan has launched a hate campaign against Tarique Rahman in an attempt to harm his reputation,’ opposition chief whip Zainul Abdin Farroque said at a briefing referring to a recent statement of Shahjahan Khan.
   Shahjahan Khan is the convener of a subcommittee of the ‘all-party’ parliamentary probe committee formed to investigate corruption charges against former speaker Jamiruddin Sircar. He on Sunday alleged that the parliament secretariat had to meet the fuel cost for a government vehicle used by Tarique Rahman for a political tour of Naogaon on June 1, 2006.
   The opposition chief whip said the caretaker government had tried to ‘tarnish the image’ of the family of late president Ziaur Rahman and his son Tarique Rahman during its two years’ rule. ‘The so-called subcommittee and Shahjahan Khan are carrying on the campaign.’
   He said the ‘so-called’ parliamentary committee and sub-committees were supposedly formed to investigate the alleged corruption of former speaker Jamiruddin Sircar. ‘Now they have made Tarique Rahman a target of their campaign.’
   Denying Shahjahan Khan’s charge against Tarique, Zainul Abdin claimed the question of Tarique’s using a vehicle of the parliament and taking fuel did not arise as he was not a member of the eighth parliament.
   ‘The parliament secretariat’s transport pool authorities have already said that Tarique never took a car or fuel from the parliament,’ he said.
   ‘Tarique has registered a protest through his lawyer against the charge,’ Zainul Abdin said.
   He said the BNP was giving continuous support to the government for making the parliament effective. ‘But Shahjahan Khan and the likes are trying to return to a one-party rule.’
   BNP lawmakers Barkat Ullah Bulu, Abul Khair Bhuiyan, Ashrafuddin Nizam, Abdul Momin Talukder, Nazim Uddin Ahmed, Lutfor Rahman, Shamme Sher, Syeda Ashifa Ashrafi Papiya, Nilufar Yasmin Nilu and Rasheda Begum Hira were present at the briefing held at the meeting room of the leader of the opposition in the parliament complex.

Iajuddin Ahmed had been found mentally sick in examinations about six months before he quit presidency, according to his psychiatrist, retired colonel M Nurul Azim.
   ‘I had examined him in the United Hospital and found him to be mentally sick about six months before he quiet presidency,’ Azim told New Age Wednesday evening.
   ‘It was in the second half of 2008. The hospital called me to see a VIP patient. After entering the cabin, I saw it was the president. I diagnosed his disease and prescribed some medicines,’ the physician said.
   ‘His brain shrank as he had suffered a massive cardiac attack earlier. He was also suffering from diabetes, hypertension, dementia, Parkinson’s disease and hallucination,’ said Azim.
   He claimed he had not known whether Iajuddin was mentally sick before the diagnosis.
   A medical board formed for Iajuddin stopped administering the medicine Azim had prescribed, said the physician. He said he was not a member on the medical board.
   The physician said Iajuddin’s family had contacted him a few days after his leaving presidency on February 13. ‘I again found him suffering from Charles Bonnet Syndrome.’
   Charles Bonnet Syndrome, characterised by the presence of complex visual hallucinations, occurs frequently in elderly and visually handicapped people, he said.
   ‘I do not understand why the board stopped administering the medicines at the time. He is getting same medicines now and is gradually recovering,’ Azim said.
   Contacted Wednesday evening, Brigadier General Dr M Abdul Alim, who was the personal physician of Iajuddin, did not brush aside Azim’s statement.
   Professor Anwara Begum, wife of Iajuddin Ahmed, on Tuesday first disclosed in public that he had been physically and mentally sick.
   Iajuddin Ahmed is undergoing treatment under Dr Nurul Azim as he has been ‘physically and mentally sick for two months,’ she said in a statement.
   In a recent television programme, Iajuddin said the declaration of the state of emergency and his subsequent resignation from the post of the chief adviser on January 11, 2007 was the result of ‘Allah’s will.’
   When asked whether he was under pressure and anything [written] was placed before him for the declaration of the state of emergency when the chiefs of the three services (army, air force and navy) visited him in Bangabhaban before the proclamation of emergency, Iajuddin simply replied, ‘I agreed with them.’
   When asked about the detention of politicians, including Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia, without any warrant of arrest, and the cases filed against them by the Anti-Corruption Commission, he said, ‘Nothing that happened was unknown to me.’
   Iajuddin Ahmed, a soil scientist and former teacher in Dhaka University, took oath as Bangladesh’s 18th president on September 6, 2002.
   He had virtually been steered by the military-controlled administration since the proclamation of a state of emergency on January 11, 2007 till the assumption of office of a new government on January 6, 2009.

A parliamentary watchdog Wednesday assigned a panel to investigate alleged irregularities by an adviser of the interim administration, the chairman of the committee said.
   The parliamentary standing committee on the ministry of shipping asked the panel to look into the allegation of awarding a container handling contract at the Chittagong port to an inexperienced firm in a hasty move by former shipping adviser Major General (retd) MA Matin, said the chairman of the committee Noor-e-Alam Chowdhury.
   It is reported that Matin had awarded the contract to Essak Brothers’ to handle containers at the Chittagong port breaching the standard practice.
   The adviser had allegedly signed the contract papers on his final day in office.
   The parliamentary committee asked its four-member probe committee, headed by ruling Awami League lawmaker Shah Alam, to investigate the alleged irregularities and report back in a month.
   Shamsul Haque Chowdhury, Nazrul Islam and Mostafa Kamal Pasha are the members of the committee.

Twelve bureaucrats have been transferred and given new postings in the latest reshuffle at the secretary-level of the new government.
   Power Division secretary Nasiruddin Ahmed has been made member of the Planning Commission, while additional secretary of health and family welfare ministry M Abul Kalam Azad made acting secretary of Power Division, said a handout.
   It said chairman of Board of Investment M Kamaluddin Ahmed and chairman of Land Reforms Board M Monirul Islam and member of Privatisation Commission M Abdus Sabur, member of Land Reforms Board Aftab Hasan have been transferred to establishment ministry as officers on special duty.
   Acting secretaries of Planning Commission Abdur Razzak and Begum Mridula Bhattacharya have been made acting chairman of Land Reforms Board and acting secretary of Privatisation Commission respectively.
   Begum Zishan Ara Arafunnesa, MDS (additional secretary), BPATC in Savar, has been made member of Land Reforms Board while Mesbah-ul-Alam of establishment ministry replaced Zishan Ara at BPATC.
   Meanwhile, Apurba Kumar Biswas of establishment ministry has been appointed chairman of Rajshahi Development Authority while Zafar Ahmed Khan, commissioner of Sylhet Division, has been made DG of environment department.

The just-formulated plan of action of the National Food Policy has underlined the necessity of the enactment of laws for regulating food markets and also suggested extending effective price support to farmers during the post-harvest seasons.
   The action plan, aimed at attaining national food security, has put agricultural extension and research at the forefront of the key areas of government intervention, and recommended development and dissemination of demand-driven crop and non-crop new technologies as well as extension of pro-poor services.
   It has laid emphasis on improving public sector food stock management, enhancing storage facilities and effective operation of open market sales, but ignored the issue of food rationing for the targeted groups as a means of channelling officially procured food to where it is most needed.
   The action plan, valid for the 2008-2015 period, has identified 26 strategic areas of intervention and priorities of action, vesting the major responsibility of attaining the targets on the government’s ministries and agencies.
   The action plan, a joint initiative by the government and development partners, has stressed the importance of continued political commitment to food security and poverty reduction by effectively implementing the National Food Policy 2006. Its goal is ‘to ensure dependable, sustained food security for all people of the country at all times’.
   The Food Policy Action Plan, set to be launched at a function in the city today, is focussed on three core objectives: ‘Adequate and stable supply of safe and nutritious food’; ‘Increased purchasing power and access to food of the people’; and ‘Adequate nutrition for all individuals, especially women and children’.
   ‘It identifies the responsible actors [government and non-government] and suggests a set of policy targets and indicators for monitoring progress,’ noted Molla Wahiduzzaman, secretary of the food and disaster management ministry.
   The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, in collaboration with the European Commission and USAID, supported the Food Planning and Monitoring Unit of the food ministry to prepare the action plan which is meant to materialise the provisions of the National Food Policy 2006.
   The major issues that the action plan has emphasised include efficient use and management of water resources, supply and sustainable use of agricultural inputs, agricultural diversification, agriculture credit and insurance, disaster management, improving coverage and effectiveness of emergency distribution programmes, coverage of vulnerable and disadvantaged groups, income generation for women and the disabled and the setting up of agro-based industries.

The communications minister, Syed Abul Hossain, Wednesday said a decision had been taken to hand over the responsibilities of operations, maintenance and toll collection of the Bangabandhu Bridge to the Bangladesh Army from June 1.
   The communications minister informed the journalists about the decision after presiding over the 94th board meeting of Bangladesh Bridges Authority in its conference room in the city.
   Abul Hossain said the BBA would sign an agreement within a month with the Bangladesh Army to run the bridge for next five years.
   Replying to a question, he said irregularities had been found in running the bridge by the present foreign company.
   He said, ‘The government decided to hand over the responsibilities of the bridge to the Bangladesh Army for providing better services to people.’

The Cabinet will decide next week whether to continue tax holiday for new industrial units and provide the people concerned the opportunity to whiten black money in the 2009-2010 budget, which issues will be placed in the Parliament on June 11.
   Finance ministry sources informed New Age that the two critical issues — new pay scale for pubic servants and continuation of the pre-shipment inspection for imports — would also be resolved by the Cabinet in its next meeting on Monday.
   The finance ministry, responsible for tailoring the national budget for discussion in and approval by the Parliament, will send the proposals to the Cabinet Division so that the Cabinet can take decisions for incorporating them in the budget document.
   In view of the sensitivity of the four critical issues and the frantic lobbying and counter-lobbying, the finance minister, Abul Maal Abdul Muhith, preferred ‘getting formal decisions from the Cabinet’ to avoid controversies. ‘Decisions [on contentious issues] will ultimately be taken by the Cabinet,’ he had said earlier.
   ‘We are preparing proposals detailing the issues of tax holiday, budgetary provision for legalising untaxed money, and continuation of the PSI [pre-shipment inspection] system,’ said a senior official of the National Board of Revenue. A finance ministry official said they would also send another proposal on implementation of the government servants’ new pay scale to the Cabinet.
   The interim government had decided not to renew the contract with the PSI companies following allegations of corruption in inspection. The finance minister has already said the government might have to continue it until a new system is introduced.
   Sources said the government has not yet reached a consensus on the four sensitive issues as the next fiscal year’s budget is scheduled to be announced on June 11.
   Besides, the Public Private Partnership budget has not yet been finalised by the finance ministry because most of the ministries sent their project proposals yesterday [Tuesday]. The finance ministry has decided to allocate Tk 2,000 crore to the PPP budget.
   The tax holiday provision for vulnerable industries will be continued until 2011 to enable them to survive in the competitive global market, as per last fiscal year’s budget announcement. AMA Muhith last week repeated his objections to renewal of the tax holiday but a parliamentary standing committee suggested that it should be continued.
   Muhith was opposed to tax holiday because in his opinion it was being misused by most of the industries concerned.
   ‘Now the Cabinet will decide on the issue and the industries already enjoying tax holiday will continue to do so until the time set earlier [2011],’ he said.
   The FBCCI on March 23, in a pre-budget meeting, suggested that the government ought to permit whitening of black money to increase the country’s revenue earning as well as to set the wheels of the economy rolling at a faster pace.

North Korea said Wednesday it was abandoning the truce that ended the Korean war and warned it could launch a military attack on the South, two days after testing an atomic bomb for the second time.
   The announcement came amid reports the secretive North, which outraged the international community with its bomb test Monday, was restarting work to produce more weapons-grade plutonium.
   Defying global condemnation, the regime of Kim Jong-Il said it could no longer guarantee the safety of US and South Korean ships off its west coast and that the Korean peninsula was veering back towards a state of war.
   The North’s anger was provoked by the South’s decision to join a US-led international security initiative, established after the September 11 attacks to stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction.
   ‘Those who have provoked us will face unimaginable merciless punishment,’ said the military statement on the official Korean Central News Agency, blaming Washington and Seoul for the latest turn of events.
   The PSI, which now groups 95 nations, provides for the stopping of vessels to ensure they are not carrying weapons of mass destruction or the components to make them. The South announced it was joining on Tuesday.
   ‘Any tiny hostile acts against our republic, including the stopping and searching of our peaceful vessels... will face an immediate and strong military strike in response,’ the North Korean statement said.
   It said its military would ‘no longer be bound’ by the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean war — in which the United States fought on the side of the South — because Washington had drawn its ‘puppet’ Seoul into the PSI.
   With no binding ceasefire, it said, ‘the Korean peninsula will go back to a state of war.’
   It also said the North ‘will not guarantee the legal status’ of five South Korean islands near the disputed inter-Korean border in the Yellow Sea, which was the scene of bloody naval clashes in 1999 and 2002.
   Analysts played down the likelihood of a full-scale conflict between North and South Korea but said clashes near the sea border were possible.
   South Korea’s defence ministry said no reinforcements were being sent to the region.
   The North has taken a harder line with the international community in recent months — firing a long-range rocket in April, launching five short-range missiles on Monday and Tuesday and conducting its second nuclear test Monday.
   Analysts say Kim Jong-Il, 67, is likely carrying out the shows of strength to reassert his control in the impoverished state. He reportedly had a stroke in August, which has renewed questions about who might succeed him.
   Almost six years of six-nation talks have failed to persuade the North to abandon its nuclear programmes in exchange for energy aid, diplomatic benefits and security guarantees.
   The international community, including the North’s main ally China, strongly condemned its latest nuclear test.
   But diplomats at the UN Security Council said they would need time to agree on a new resolution against the North.
   The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said the Council should ‘speak out toughly’ but the aim should be to get the North back to the six-party talks, which group the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States.

A Briton who claims to have been tortured in Bangladesh with the complicity of MI5 intelligence agents intends to take legal action against the Home Office, a newspaper reported Wednesday.
   Jamil Rahman says he faced repeated beatings by Bangladeshi agents over more than two years to which British MI5 officers turned a blind eye, the Guardian reported.
   Intelligence agents from Britain have been accused of collusion in torture of British nationals in many countries including Pakistan and Egypt, and human rights group Amnesty International wants an independent probe into such claims.
   The police said in March they would investigate claims that MI5 was complicit in the torture of former Guantanamo Bay detainee Binyam Mohamed in Pakistan.
   In the latest allegations, Rahman said he was arrested in 2005 by the police in Bangladesh, where he settled after marrying a Bangladeshi woman. He suspects two Europeans were present when he was detained, directing local officers.
   Over three weeks of interrogation, he agreed to make taped confessions to terrorist offences, including that he was the mastermind behind the July 2005 suicide bombings in London, which killed 52 people.
   He was then questioned by two MI5 agents called Liam and Andrew and told them the confessions were false, the paper said. Shortly after, they left the room and he was beaten and told his wife would be raped.
   After his release, he was frequently summoned for fresh interrogations by MI5 and Bangladeshi officials over the next two years, it was reported.
   The Guardian said lawyers for Rahman, who now lives in Britain, claim to have evidence including eyewitness testimony and medical information.
   A spokeswoman for the Home Office confirmed Rahman’s lawyers had written to home secretary Jacqui Smith and the government would respond ‘in due course’.
   ‘The government unreservedly condemns the use of torture as a matter of fundamental principle
   and works hard with its international partners to eradicate this abhorrent practice worldwide,’ she said.
   ‘The security and intelligence agencies do not participate in, solicit, encourage or condone the use of torture or inhumane or degrading treatment.
   ‘For reasons both ethical and legal, their policy is not to carry out any action which they know would result in torture or inhuman or degrading treatment.’
   The Guardian said Smith was being accused of complicity in assault, unlawful arrest, false imprisonment and human rights breaches.

The government is mulling a reduction in fuel price again, said the state minister for energy, Shamsul Haque Tuku, on Wednesday.
   ‘The thought came following a policy of the caretaker government on adjusting fuel price in line with the international market,’ he told reporters.
   Discussion is going on whether the price cut will be included in the next budget, he added.
   The allocation for power in the next budget is ‘just right’, said the state minister.
   Tuku was speaking after a meeting with the US ambassador, James F Moriarty.
   He said the ambassador expressed his country’s interest in supporting Bangladesh’s energy sector.
   ‘He spoke of assistance in mining activities after the national coal policy is finalised.’
   ‘We also sought US assistance in renewable energy, including hydro-electricity, windmills, solar power and kitchen waste,’ said Tuku.
   The ambassador said US electricity companies would be persuaded to work in Bangladesh.
   Asked if there was any reaction on the US side on the agreement with Russia on setting up a nuclear power station, the state minister said, ‘The topic came up in the meeting but there was no negative comment from the US.’

The prime minister, Manmohan Singh, on Wednesday named 38 new ministers, including 14 of the cabinet rank, as he brought key allies into the government after his resounding general election victory.
   No portfolios had yet been allotted to the new ministers.
   Singh named three lawmakers from the southern DMK party and one from the National Conference party in his cabinet, boosting the stability of the coalition.
   The DMK had refused to join the government after differences with Singh’s Congress party over ministerial posts and had offered its 18 lawmakers as outside support to the coalition in parliament.

Slain Tiger supremo V Prabhakaran’s wife and teenage son had fled last year to Tamil Nadu from where they were to fly to Singapore and then to an undisclosed location, a key aide of the rebel chief said amid speculation that the entire family had been wiped out in the conflict.
   ‘When intelligence agents interrogated a close aide of Prabhakaran, he had said that, last year, Prabhakaran’s wife (Mathivathani) and younger son (13-year-old) Balachan-dran had escaped by boat to Tamil Nadu, where they were to meet with an LTTE cadre who was to arrange for them to fly to Singapore, from there to an unknown destination,’ the ‘Bottomline’ newspaper reported.
   The newspaper did not reveal the name of Prabhakaran’s aide in its report while noting that there were rumours that the LTTE chief’s wife, younger son and daughter Duwarka too had been killed during the final battles. However, an officer from the battlefront said they had not recovered any bodies of children, it said.
   ‘Prabhakaran’s daughter, Duwarka, who was said to be studying in Ireland, during the height of the final battle, hadn’t returned to Sri Lanka, but had been in touch with her father via phone,’ it said quoting ‘a credible source’ from Norway.