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No relief materials reached many remote areas in the south and south-west left battered by tidal surges whipped up by cyclone Aila even three days after the inundation in which thousands of people were marooned without food and drinking water.
   The unofficial death toll rose to 178. The disaster management ministry on Thursday confirmed the death of 147 people.
   The disaster management minister, Abdur Razzak, said the government had already distributed Tk 2.23 crore and allocated Tk 30 crore more for relief operations in 76 upazilas of the 15 districts affected by tidal surges and associated storm.
   Fourteen thousand tonnes of food have been distributed among the affected and 5,000 more tonnes have been allocated for distribution, he said.
   Reports reaching from Bhola said no relief materials had reached the remote chars such as Daulatkhan, Lalmohan, Charfasson, Monpura and the district headquarters till Wednesday afternoon. Some relief materials were dropped from air force helicopters at Dhal Char three days after the incident.
   People at Char Kukri Mukri, Dhal Char and Char Patila, some 80km off the Charfassion headquarters, have still been marooned. They are left with no water to drink.
   Fazilat Begum of Dakshin Syedpur at Daulatkhan took shelter in a nearby school during the inundation, but she found no food there. She tried to return home along with her four children, but could not find her house as it was washed away.
   She could collect half a kilogram of flattened rice till Wednesday and, along with her one-year-old son, Nayan, tried to live on that small amount of food.
   The Charfasson upazila nirbahi officer, Mostafa Kamal, said relief materials could not be reached to remote areas for adverse weather. ‘A small amount of relief materials could be dropped off helicopter at Dhal Char on Wednesday amid rough weather,’ he said.
   The New Age correspondent in Khulna said people who took shelter in schools, colleges and on high land were facing severe scarcity of food and drinking water as relief goods reached there were inadequate. Relief workers found it tough to reach remote areas as road communications have completely broken down.
   People in 23 villages of Paikgachha and three villages of Koyra were yet to get any relief materials even on Thursday. They were going without food and drinking water, said Pradip Mahalder, the president of the Agriculture and Environment Conservation Committee.
   Villagers said diarrhoea had broken out in different places of the upazila while sources in Koyra health complex said they had treated more than 50 people suffering from the disease.
   Local government representatives of Sutarkhali, Kamarkhola and Tildanga at Dacope said people in the areas were yet get any relief materials.
   The upazila administration said the Mongla Port authorities had reached 200 tonnes of drinking water in barges and distributed it among the affected.
   The Koyra upazila nirbahi officer, MM Arif Pasha, said relief operation had so far been inadequate in remote areas as it became very difficult to reach there. He said the administration was trying to reach the places at the earliest.
   At least 176 villages in seven upazilas in Patuakhali were still under water, reports the correspondent in the district.
   Water cannot recede as the Water Development Board sluice gates have been captured by some local influential people and ruling party leaders to stop water from being flushed out for fish farming, local people said.
   The residents requested the influential people to open the sluice gates so that water could recede into the canals or rivers, but their requests went unheeded, they said.
   Patuakhali Water Development Board executive engineer Md Zahirul Islam told New Age he had received a number of such allegations. ‘All the sluice gates will be opened in two to three days.’
   People of Nijhum Dwip, Naler Char, Chairman Bazar, Boyar Char, Caring Char, Patar Char, Mujib Bazar, Batan Khali Bazar and Char Nongolia at Hatiya were still marooned. They were passing their days half-fed, and even unfed, as relief operations were yet to begin in the areas, reports the correspondent in Noakhali.
   Eighty per cent of the homesteads in the areas have been damaged by the tidal surges. The people marooned in the places are also facing acute shortage of drinking water as the tube wells went under saline water. About 7,000 families lost their houses and were passing their days on embankment along the River Meghna under the open sky.
   Amena Khatun of Naler Char said they were yet to get any help but some flattened rice and a bottle of water.
   The Noakhali deputy commissioner in-charge, Dipak Chakraborty, said the district administration had allocated 50 tonnes of rice and Tk 1.5 lakh in cash for the people marooned at Hatiya.

‘Cyclone Aila has washed away our house. I lost my books and other educational materials. My father is not rich and it is not possible for my father to buy me a new set of books,’ said Md Mizanur Rahman, a student of the Kalagachia College at Galachipa in Patuakhali.
   ‘If I do not receive any financial support, I will not be able to take the forthcoming HSC examinations,’ he said.
   ‘In the morning on Tuesday, after Aila had crossed the coastline into India Monday evening inundating many coastal areas in Bangladesh, I went to the district town to inquire about textbooks and other educational materials,’ said Md Azizul Haque, a student of the Dhankhali Degree College at Kalapara. ‘I found the shops to have increased the prices and I failed to buy a set of books.’
   A large number of students in the district lost their books and other educational materials as tidal surges whipped up by cyclone Aila washed away their houses. Many of them said it would be difficult for them buy new sets of books and other materials required for their studies.
   ‘I am afraid my son and daughter will not be able to go to school again. Everything of our family has been washed away. The house has collapsed. The pieces of furniture have been destroyed. And I am yet to get any financial help from either the government or non-governmental organsiations,’ said Md Majibur Rahman, a resident of Birpasha at Bauphal.
   A large number of students and their guardians said the shops had increased the prices of books to make some money cashing in on the situation.
   ‘Primary textbooks are available on the market, but for prices higher than what are set by the government. But the books are not for sale and are meant for free distribution,’ said Md Abdur Rashid Miah, the guardian of a primary student.
   A shop owner said they had bought the books from school headmasters. ‘When the students lose or mutilate their books and they need new sets, their guardians come to us looking for the books. Show owners realise excess money for books on such occasions,’ he said.
   The Book Sellers Syndicate of Patuakhali president, Md Jahangir Alam, and the secretary, Shuresh Hawlader, said they were not charging high from buyers, brushing aside the allegations.
   Md Shahabuddin Ahmed, the headmaster of Bhuria BS High School, said a half of the students of the school had lost their books and other educational materials and they stopped attending the classes after the summer vacation. The school has no fund to give away to students to buy books, he said.
   The deputy commissioner, Md Riaz Ahmed, said he was informed of the matter. The district administration will in a week launch drives in the markets against such illegal business.

Two students of the Tejgaon Polytechnic Institute were killed in a ‘shootout’ with the Rapid Action Battalion at Manik Mia Avenue near Asad Gate in the capital early Thursday.
   The deceased were Mohsin Sheikh, 23, a fourth-year student of electrical engineering department, and Mohammad Ali Jinnah, 22, a third-year student of mechanical engineering department.
   Hearing the news, a group of fellow students went to the morgue of Dhaka Medical College and Hospital and identified their bodies in the morning.
   They told newsmen that they had rushed to the DMCH and identified the bodies after watching the news of their deaths on television.
   They claimed that the slain students had no criminal records and that they all were hanging out together till 9:30pm on Wednesday.
   Farhad Sheikh, elder brother of Mohsin, told newsmen, ‘I returned from Dubai 20 days ago after six years. I have come to Dhaka to meet him but I find him dead on my return.’ Farhad is an expatriate working in Dubai.
   Assistant superintendent of RAB-2 Talebur Rahman told New Age, ‘The incident took place as RAB troopers were conducting a search in vehicles at a checkpoint near Asad Gate at around 12:30am.’
   ‘As the RAB men asked them to halt, they fired on them forcing the RAB men to retaliate triggering the shootout. Soon after the exchange of fire, the RAB personnel found two dead bodies lying on the roadside. After searching the bodies, they found two revolvers and bullets,’ the officer said.
   The Mohammadpur police recovered the bodies and sent them to the DMCH.
   Two teachers of the institute told New Age, ‘As far as we know, they were not involved in any criminal activities.’
   Extra-judicial killings in Bangladesh have drawn widespread criticism in recent years from national and international rights organisations.
   LGRD minister Syed Ashraful Islam told reporters on May 5 that there would be no more extra-judicial killings.
   He said the government would no longer allow the law enforcers to kill anybody in ‘crossfire’.
   ‘Rule of law is a must for a democratic country and for that no extra-judicial killings by the law enforcers will be allowed,’ Ashraful said, adding that the ‘crossfire’ and extra-judicial killings were not related to the general law and the law should be allowed to take its own course.
   Earlier, on February 4, at the Human Rights Council in Geneva, foreign minister Dipu Moni said that the government would show ‘zero tolerance’ towards extra-judicial killings, torture and death in custody.

The government has decided to assign female officials at its 12 labour consulates for protecting the rights of female workers as the country has witnessed a growth of female jobseekers abroad in recent years.
   Officials of the expatriates’ welfare and overseas employment ministry told New Age on Wednesday that the government had already started the process of recruiting these officials.
   ‘We have decided to appoint female welfare officials to ensure safe migration as well as protect their safety and right at workplaces,’ said an official.
   Elias Ahmed, secretary in-charge of the expatriates’ welfare and overseas employment ministry, told New Age on the sideline of a discussion on female migration that the government had decided to utilise its existing shelter homes as welfare assistance centres for female migrant workers.
   ‘So far we have such a shelter centre in Bangladesh consulate in Jeddah and we will open more centres within months in our prospective markets for female workers,’ he said.
   The top official of the ministry said because of the growing demand for female workers abroad the government wanted to give special attention to country’s women labour force abroad.
   A high official of the ministry told this correspondent that considering the cases of the Philippines and Sri Lanka, the government had decided to appoint welfare officials in the labour destination countries.
   He said that the officials would be appointed at those 12 labour consulates of Bangladesh missions abroad in phases.
   Elias told at the discussion that the country’s female overseas jobseekers did not witness any adverse impact of the ongoing global recession on their prospects.
   The International Organization for Migration and UN Development Fund for Women jointly organised the discussion styled ‘The Global Economic Crisis: Its Impact on the Overseas Employment Sector in Bangladesh’ at Sheraton hotel.
   He said compared to the corresponding first fourth months of 2008, there was a 12.9 per cent growth in Bangladesh’s female job market in 2009 with a figure of 7,421. In 2008, some 20,842 female jobseekers went abroad with jobs while the figure was 19,094 in 2007.
   The government in 2002 had lifted ban on overseas employment for female workers to allow them to work in some particular sectors including care-giving, medical care and garments industry.
   The ban on female workers abroad was first imposed in 1976 in the wake of allegation of exploitation. It was relaxed in 1988 and re-imposed again in 1997 as the situation did not improve.

The law, justice and parliamentary affairs ministry has sought Tk 10 crore for logistic supports in connection with the trial of war crimes committed during the war of independence in 1971.
   ‘We have sent a proposal to the finance ministry seeking a block allocation of Tk 10 crore to meet the expenses for war crimes trial… We are going set up a tribunal, separate offices for the investigation agency and prosecutors and appoint office staff for which we need the fund,’ the law minister, Shafique Ahmed, told reporters at the weekly briefing in his office on Thursday.
   An inter-ministerial meeting at the finance ministry on May 25 approved the fund in the next budget for war crimes trial and decided to set up a tribunal in the old building of the Supreme Court to this end.
   The law minister said the authorities found the old Supreme Court building, which now houses the Law Commission, might not have enough room for the tribunal.
   ‘We are now looking for alternative options to set up the tribunal… We are also thinking about some government buildings on Abdul Gani Road where we can set up the tribunal,’ Shafique said.
   He said the institution of the investigation agency and appointments of prosecutors would be completed by June 30.
   The law minister said Bangladesh missions abroad had been asked through the foreign affairs ministry to counter any propaganda against the trial of people who committed crimes against humanity.
   ‘They [Bangladesh missions] will explain that the move is not to harass anybody on political considerations, but to bring the people who committed crimes against humanity in 1971 to justice,’ he said.
   He said the government was taking time to initiate the trial as the International Crimes (Tribunal) Act 1973 might need to be amended on some technical points in keeping with international standards.
   ‘There should not be any doubt about war crimes trial after the government has moved to allocate fund for the job… The confusion created by some quarters among the people about whether the government would be able to conduct the trial should now go,’ the law minister said.
   The law ministry has, meanwhile, sent a copy of the International Crimes (Tribunal) Act 1973 to the Law Commission seeking its opinion for the required changes in the law and to establish whether charges could be brought against any individual.
   The parliament on January 29 approved unanimously, in the absence of the opposition lawmakers, a resolution seeking speedy prosecution of the 1971 war criminals.

The monthly inflation rate showed an upward trend in April ‘09 for the first time in the last three months, due largely to price-hike of both food and non-food items.
   According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, the monthly inflation rate in April went up to 5.36 per cent after it was declining since January and reached at 5.04 per cent in March, mainly because of the falling prices of food items.
   However, food prices rose by 4.80 per cent while that of non-food items went up to 6.53 per cent as inflation swung up again in April.
   Although economists and experts termed the present upward swing of inflation ‘a seasonal phenomenon’, they are apprehending further price-hikes in the coming months after announcement of the national budget.
   Price-hike of essentials after announcements of budgets is a regular phenomenon in our country, said the Bangladesh Bank’s former chief economist, Mostafa K Mujeri.
   A senior BBS official said the hike in the prices of summer vegetables and imported edible oil has contributed to the latest upward swing of the inflation rate.
   The cost of clothing, healthcare and education has gone up in recent weeks, he added.
   People, especially the poor and fixed-income groups, will face hardship if the inflation rate keeps rising further.

Bombs tore through the Pakistan city of Peshawar killing ten people Thursday, after the Taliban claimed a deadly attack in Lahore and threatened further mayhem to avenge an offensive.
   Three explosions wounded more than 100 people in Peshawar, as fears grew of mounting militant revenge for a punishing, month-long military assault against Islamist extremists across three northwest districts.
   In the first attacks, devices planted in two motorcycles exploded in quick succession in crowded market places, sending smoke spewing into the air and gutting dozens of shops, said senior police investigator Shafqat Malik.
   ‘Eight people were killed and a 100 injured — 10 of them seriously. People are still bringing the wounded and we’ve declared an emergency,’ doctor Alamgir Shinwari said from the main government hospital in Peshawar.
   Running gun battles then broke out between the police and insurgents in the northwest’s biggest city, with two suspects shot dead and two arrested, provincial police chief Malik Mohammad Navid told reporters.
   Flames ripped through the bazaar and charred cars lay flattened in the city, which lies on the fringes of lawless tribal areas where Washington says al-Qaeda and Taliban militants are holed up, plotting attacks on the West.
   Shortly afterwards, a suicide bomber rammed a car packed with explosives into a police checkpoint on the outskirts of Peshawar, killing two policeman and injuring 15 people including civilians, officials said.
   A fourth bomb blast and gunfire was heard near a hospital in the city of Dera Ismail Khan, about 300 kilometres south of Peshawar, the police said, but there was no immediate word on casualties.
   A spokesman for Pakistan’s most wanted man, Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud, earlier warned of more ‘massive attacks’ in retaliation for Islamabad’s ties with Washington and its northwest offensive against militants.
   The warning followed Wednesday’s gun, grenade and bomb attack in Lahore, the third deadly assault to rock Pakistan’s cultural capital in three months.
   About 300 people were wounded when a van packed with nearly 100 kilograms of explosives levelled a police building and damaged the provincial headquarters of the Inter-Services Intelligence.
   ‘We claim responsibility for the Lahore suicide attack. It is revenge for the Swat military operation,’ Hakimullah Mehsud said from an unknown location.
   Baitullah Mehsud commands Tehreek-e-Taliban and is Pakistan’s most wanted militant, with a five-million-dollar reward posted by the United States.
   ‘If the government — at the behest of America — launches more operations against us, more government installations will be targeted,’ Hakimullah Mehsud, who is a commander and deputy to Baitullah Mehsud, said.
   ‘I appeal to them (citizens of Pakistan) to vacate their cities as there will be more such massive attacks, more dangerous than this and we will target government buildings and places,’ Mehsud added.
   He also claimed responsibility for an assault on a police academy near Lahore on March 30, one of an increasing number of Islamist attacks which have killed more than 1,900 people across Pakistan in less than two years.
   Security forces have been locked in battle with Taliban militants in the northwestern Swat valley — an offensive which the authorities say has killed more than 1,200 extremists and sent 2.4 million people fleeing.
   The army said four soldiers were killed Thursday, bringing to 80 the number of military personnel declared dead in the month-long offensive.
   Analysts said that the real cost of the operation might have only just begun, warning that the Taliban would make good on further threats of violence.
   ‘The militants want to weaken the state, demoralise the nation and get publicity by attacking security forces,’ defence analyst Talat Masood said.
   Thursday’s attacks in Peshawar follow a car bomb that exploded outside a cinema in the city on Friday, killing 10 people. On May 16, another car bomb exploded outside a Peshawar ice cream shop as a bus of children with special needs was passing, killing 11 people.
   In and around Lahore, Pakistan rounded up about a dozen suspects in connection with the bomb attack for questioning, a security official said.

The military has sought more funds in the upcoming budget for modernisation of the services as, it says, lower than expected allocation has kept the forces outmoded in term of military hardware.
   ‘The military cannot procure modern equipment for want of money,’ the chief of the parliamentary standing committee on the ministry of defence, Idris Ali, said Thursday after a meeting at the Jatiya Sangsad.
   The military gave a presentation before the committee at the meeting in which they pointed out that the hardware the forces were using dated back to the 1980s.
   The military-backed interim administration had approved over 6.4 per cent of the Taka 999.66 billion budget for the 2008-09 fiscal year for defence, compared to 5.9 per cent allocation for health sector, 6.1 per cent for transport and communications and 5.6 per cent for public order and security.
   The Awami League-led government will place the budget for 2009-01 fiscal year on June 11 and the parliament is expected to pass it sometime in late July.
   At Thursday’s meeting, the committee suggested that the Bangladesh Machine Tools Factory and Ordnance Factory should be upgraded.
   ‘It would help reduce dependence on import of arms and weapons,’ said the chairman.
   The meeting attended by the members of the committee – Mujibul Haq, Nurul Mazid Mahmud Humayun, Md Rafiqul Islam and Manjur Kader Koraisy – also emphasised formulation of a national defence policy.
   It asked the ministry and the Armed Forces Division to present the draft defence policy before the next meeting to be held towards the end of June.
   The draft was prepared during the Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led alliance government incorporating suggestions made by the parliamentary standing committee.
   ‘There should be a reflection of the people’s expectations in the defence policy,’ said the committee chairman adding that the military affairs were being handled on an ad-hoc basis in the absence of a policy in the last 38 years.
   Idris Ali, also a former defence secretary, said that there should be a guideline for implementation of the policy. ‘We need a defence policy before everything.’
   The meeting also asked the government to take immediate measures to settle the disputes with India and Myanmar over maritime boundary.
   Foreign secretary Touhid Hossain, who attended the meeting, said that a process for negotiations had started to settle the disputes.
   The committee observed that the Bangladesh Navy lacked necessary equipment to gather information on the country’s maritime boundary. It suggested procurement of an oceanic hydrographical survey vessel for gathering necessary maritime data for the naval force.
   ‘It would cost between Tk 80 and 100 crore,’ the committee chairman said.
   Bangladesh Navy is scheduled to present its functions and strength at the committee’s next meeting.
   Army chief General Moeen U Ahmed, naval chief Rear Admiral ZU Ahmed, air force chief Air Marshal Shah Md Ziaur Rahman and senior officials of the ministry attended the meeting.

Nepal’s new prime minister said Wednesday that his predecessor’s attempt to sack the army chief was a mistake and the general remained in the post, in an interview with the BBC.
   Madhav Kumar Nepal, a moderate leftist, was sworn in as premier on Monday, three weeks after Maoist chief Prachanda stepped down after just eight months in the job following a failed bid to fire General Rookmangud Katawal.
   ‘Our party had dubbed the previous government’s decision wrong. So there is no question of endorsing it. Obviously, it is clear that army chief Rookmangud Katawal will continue in office,’ Nepal told the BBC’s Nepali service.
   Asked if he would accept or overturn the decision of the previous government regarding the sacking, the prime minister said: ‘We will correct the mistake.’
   Nepal said that a formal decision regarding the army chief’s future would be taken as soon as his cabinet was finalised.
   ‘This will be resolved after the cabinet takes its full shape. We will wind up the issue on the basis of the consensus of the parties,’ he said.
   The Maoist government fired the army chief on May 3 for refusing to integrate 19,000 former Maoist rebel soldiers into the regular army as stipulated by the peace accord that ended a decade-long civil war in 2006.
   But the president, Ram Baran Yadav, a member of the main opposition party, told the head of the army — traditionally a bastion of Nepal’s elite and the former monarchy — to stay put.
   Prachanda, who came to power in elections last year, condemned the intervention as ‘unconstitutional and undemocratic’ and resigned.
   The new prime minister has now appealed on the Maoists to join the government, saying their participation was needed to protect the peace process.

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party on Thursday called for sending a technical expert team to the Tipaimukh project site, instead of dispatching a parliamentary group, for field studies to assess its possible impacts on Bangladesh.
   The BNP also vowed to mobilise people across the country should the government fail to persuade India to cancel the project which, the party believed, could be a ‘death trap’ for Bangladesh.
   Implementation of the project on the upstream of the River Meghna by India could result in desertification of the north-eastern region of Bangladesh, the party said.
   Party vice-chairman, M Hafizuddin Ahmed, also former minister for water resources, at a briefing at his Gulshan house said, ‘A field trip by an all-party parliamentary committee will produce nothing. Rather such visit will give legitimacy to an anti-people project. A team of technical experts should be sent there.’
   ‘If the government ignores the gravity of the problem, people will surely protest against the project and BNP will be by their side,’ he said.
   Hafiz said since the formation of the joint river commission in 1972, Bangladesh had been opposing India’s plan to construct dam on the River Barak and raised objection to the project but India was yet provide Bangladesh with information and data of the project.
   ‘At every meeting of the joint river commission, excepting those held during the Awami League regimes, Bangladesh strongly opposed such project. In the 14th meeting of the commission it was decided that a technical team from Bangladesh will visit the site but no initiative was made in this regard till date. In the last two meetings of the commission in Delhi and Dhaka, the Indian water resources minister had assured us that they would not withdraw water from upstream Meghna but now they are implementing the project keeping Bangladesh in the dark,’ he said.
   ‘India constructed the Farakka barrage back in 1960s, but waited until there was a government in Bangladesh they deemed “friendly” to them to commission the project,’ Hafiz said in an oblique reference to the post-independence government of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. ‘Now when a “friendly” government is again in power here, they [India] have initiated the Tipaimukh project,’ he said.
   ‘Tipaimukh project is a “national crisis” and there should be no politicking with the issue,’ he said.
   ‘We cannot rest assured by what the ministers are saying as India has always kept Bangladesh in the dark over the issue. Since the government [of Sheikh Hasina] assumed office, they [ministers] have talked much about regional initiatives on different other issues such as tackling violence, but did not utter a single word on water-sharing,’ he said.
    When asked about the present osition of the ‘reformist’ group in the BNP, Hafiz said, ‘Nothing called reformists exist [in the party] now. It is a thing of the past.’
   He also condemned the government’s move to evict BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia from the house ‘she has been given by the state’.
   Hafiz sharply criticised the parliamentary inquiry committee for accusing the party’s joint-secretary general Tarique Rahman of using vehicles and fuel from the parliament secretariat. ‘On the following day, the office concerned said they had no such records,’ he said.

A parliamentary panel investigating the alleged corruption by the speaker and MPs of the eighth parliament on Thursday revealed that the chief whip, Abdus Shahid, had misappropriated money from the Parliament Members’ Club, said a member of the panel.
   Shahid, an Awami League lawmaker who was the chief whip of the opposition of the eighth parliament, took Tk 1,00,000 from the fund, said Shahjahan Khan, the chief of a subcommittee probing alleged corruption at the Jatiya Sangsad secretariat, after a meeting.
   He said the chief whip, Khandaker Delwar Hossain, who was also the chairman of the club, took Tk 18,00,000, and the club’s secretary, Syed Wahidul Alam, also a BNP whip of the eight parliament, took Tk 4,00,000.
   Other lawmakers and parliament secretariat officials also misappropriated money from the club’s fund. The sums of stolen money ranged from Tk 25,000 to Tk 1,00,000.
   The total withdrawal of money from the Parliament Member’s Club was Tk 64,00,000 against its deposits of around Tk 68,00,000 during the five-year rule of the four-party alliance government.
   When asked about the BNP’s statement that had censured the sub-committee for disclosing payment of the party’s joint secretary general’s travel bill by the parliament secretary, the sub-committee’s head, Shahjahan Khan, said that what he had told the press was based on evidence.
   ‘We have evidence to prove our statements. And we take up the challenge thrown by the chief whip of the opposition, Zoynal Abdin Farruk,’ he added.
   The sub-committee had begun further scrutiny of the parliamentary transport logbook to find out more anomalies, he said.
   The subcommittee is soon expected to submit its report to the main committee, which was formed on March 19 to investigate alleged corruption by the former speaker, Jamiruddin Sircar. The all-party committee had included an MP of the BNP, but he decided not to attend any meeting.

At least 17 persons were killed and 20 injured in separate road accidents in Sirajganj and Rangpur on Thursday.
   The people killed in Sirajganj were Anwar, 30, Lebu, 45, Nazmul, 46, Babu, 30, Sanoar Hossain, 33, Reza, 40, Habibur Rahman Tarasi, 50, Shahjahan Ali, 40, Shahidul Islam, 35, Seema Khatun, 4, Abid, 2, and Khairun Nahar, 35, all residents of Taras and the district headquarters.
   Hafeza Begum, 50, and her grandson Nazim, 07, residents of Chengmari-Abirerpar of Mithapukur, died in the accident in Rangpur.
   The correspondent in Sirajganj, quoting the police, said 15 people were killed when a Natore-bound bus collided with a truck at Panchila, to the west of the Bangabandhu Jamuna Bridge, of Ullapara Upazila, at about 5:00pm and fell into a roadside ditch.
   Thirteen passengers, including the bus driver and his assistant, died on the spot. The other two died later in hospital. Twenty two were injured in the accident.
   The highway police recovered the bodies and sent the injured to Sirajganj General Hospital. Five of them are reported to be in a critical condition.
   The communication on the highway had been suspended for about an hour.
   The truck driver and his assistant managed to get away.
   The Sirajganj deputy commissioner, Humayun Kabir, and the additional police super, Khandker Faridul Islam, visited the spot.
   A case was filed with the police station in this connection.
   Our New Age correspondent from Rangpur said Hafeza and her grandson were run over by a truck on the Rangpur–Dhaka Highway at Mithapukur at about 10:30pm Wednesday when they were crossing the road. Both of them died on the spot.
   A case was filed with the police station in this connection.

The police in Bangladesh have arrested fugitive Abdur Rouf Merchant, also known as Daud Merchant, convicted of the murder of Indian music magnate Gulshan Kumar, officials said Thursday.
   Merchant, who was serving his sentence in an Indian jail since 2002, was reported absconding by the Indian police after being released on furlough in April to visit his family in Mumbra, a small town about 40km from Mumbai.
   Bangladesh’s Detective Branch police picked Merchant up on Tuesday night from the residence of a man named Kamal Miah at Mourail in Brahmanbaria.
   Brahmanbaria police super Mukhlesur Rahman told reporters, quoting Detective Branch officials, that Merchant had recently arrived in the district after illegally crossing the border at Akhaura.
   He had also procured a Bangladeshi passport in order to pass himself off as a local, said Rahman.
   The police also arrested Kamal Miah for sheltering Merchant.
   Kamal’s wife Ferdousi told the news agency Merchant came to stay at their house three to four days ago. ‘He introduced himself as ‘Mujaheed’ and said he was a motor parts dealer,’ she said.
   Ferdousi also said her husband came to know him through another man named Billal Miah.
   She claimed they did not know the man they called ‘Mujaheed’ was in fact a wanted criminal.
   From the call list of Merchant’s mobile phone, the police suspect that he also has contacts with notorious underground mafia don Daud Ibrahim.
   Gulshan Kumar, renowned owner of Indian music company T-series, was shot dead on the streets of Mumbai on August 12, 1997, believed to have been murdered by contract after refusing to pay extortion money to gangsters.

Students with better scores in the Secondary School Certificate and its equivalent examinations under the ten boards of the country will face tough competition to get seats in the well-known colleges.
   Only a dozen or some more colleges in the capital have traditionally attracted the top scorers in SSC and equivalent exams.
   According to the SSC exam results published on Tuesday, 62,307 students scored GPA-5, but there are less than 15,000 seats in the reputable colleges. Like the previous years, most of the GPA-5 achievers are expected to rush to Dhaka for a seat in these colleges. About 50,000 GPA-5 achievers will have to go for second-choice colleges.
   A total of 7,50,538 students under the ten education boards came out successful this year. Students with scores of GPA-4 and above but below GPA-5 fear they will not be admitted to colleges of the first rank.
   As most of the students rush for places in reputed colleges, more than 700 colleges cannot enrol even the minimum number of students which is 33 according to the government’s rules, said sources in the education ministry.
   ‘Students usually try to get admitted to only a dozen renowned colleges in the capital,’ said Mainuddin Khandakar, joint secretary (college) of the ministry
   ‘We have decided to introduce higher secondary courses in some colleges from this year to meet the demand of seats. The admission system, however, will remain unchanged,’ he said.
   According to statistics available with the Bangladesh Bureau of Educational Information and Statistics, about 3,150 government, non-government and private colleges have more than 4.8 lakh seats on offer for higher secondary courses.
   According to admission guidelines set by the education ministry, students will be enrolled in both government and non-government colleges on the basis of their results in the Secondary School Certificate or equivalent exams.
   Notre Dame College, Dhaka College, Viqarunnisa Noon School and College, Ideal School and College, Holy Cross School and College, Residential Model School and College, Dhaka City College, Dhaka Commerce College, BAF Shahin College, Rajuk Uttara Model College and Motijheel Model College are some of the coveted colleges in the capital.

As Jonaki, a 6-month-old baby girl, kept on screaming and grimacing in pain, caused by severe burn injuries, it was a heartrending shock for other patients and staff at the Burn and Surgery Unit of the Dhaka Medical College Hospital.
   Everybody wondered how cruel one could be to throw acid on such an innocent and helpless infant.
   Jonaki, daughter of a poor blacksmith, Mohammad Ali, and Morzina Begum, of Sharifpur in Bramhanbaria district, and her 18-month old brother Arman, sustained brutal burn injuries when their step mother splashed acid on them over a family feud early on Saturday.
   Mother of the victims, Morzina Begum told New Age, ‘Asma, the first wife of my husband and her brother Ujjal hurled acid targeting me, but they missed me as I
   was out of the room and alas, my two minor children became their victims.’
   ‘Hearing the screams of my children, I hurriedly rushed to my room and found the bed sheet and their dress burning. I immediately doused the flame and saw Asma and Uzzal fleeing the scene,’ she added.
   Jonaki and Arman were immediately taken to the Bramhanbaria Sadar Hospital where the physicians advised to take them to Dhaka for better treatment.
   The poor parents brought Jonaki to Dhaka on Monday and returned on the same day without treatment as they didn’t have enough money for their treatment. They returned to Dhaka on Tuesday after borrowing money from their neighbours.
   Mohammad Ali said he had married Asma of the same village six years ago and they had have a five-year old boy Ramzan. At one stage, Ali said, Asma’s influential father borrowed Tk. 30,000 from him. ‘And when I demanded the money back they assaulted me and confined my wife and son.’
   ‘After one-and-a-half years I divorced Asma and married Morzina. But Asma’s influential father along with others forced me to take Asma back,’ he said, adding that after two months Asma forced him to
   give her Tk. 50,000 and transfer a piece of land in her name. When he refused they started to harass his second wife, Ali said.
   The poor parents have sought financial support from the well-to-do people to continue treatment of their innocent girl.
   The project director of the Burn and Surgery Unit of Dhaka Medical College Hospital told New Age, ‘More than 7 per cent of her body has been badly burnt due to acid attack and we would have to perform a number of critical operations for her treatment.’
   The police super of Brahmanbaria, Mokhlesur Rahman, told New Age, ‘Mother of the victim had filed a case against Asma, his father Siraj Mia and two brothers Dulal and Ujjal. We hope we will be able to arrest them very soon,’he added.
   The officer-in-charge of Ashuganj police station Abu Zafar said, ‘The suspects had run away after the incident but we are conducting raids at different places to arrest them. Several teams have been deployed to nab them.’
   Meanwhile, a number of social, cultural and political organisations, including Bangladesh Mahila Parishad, condemned this brutal acid attack on the two little children and demanded immediate arrest and exemplary punishment of the accused.

The education ministry on Thursday revoked the decision on choosing the senior of two students for admission to higher secondary courses in case they hold equal grades in the Secondary School Certificate exams.
   ‘The seniority of an admission-seeker will no longer be considered a criterion for the eligibility for college admission. In a meeting with the education minister, we have reached a consensus to cancel the criterion put in place in 2006 to choose the senior of the students having equal SSC exams grades,’ said an education board chairman who attended the meeting.
   The admission rules introduced in 2006 stipulate that if the number of applicants having equal grade point average becomes higher than the number of seats available in a college, the candidates who are senior to others according to their dates of birth should get preference for admission.
   When asked about the way to select the candidate having the same grade point average, the board chairman said, ‘The colleges will now ask for the raw scores [mark-based transcripts] of the admission-seekers and top-scorers will be given preference,’ he said. ‘Such raw scores will remain secret and the colleges will be supplied with the scores only for admission.’
   The education minister, Nurul Islam Nahid, along with chairmen of eight education boards and the education secretary, held the meeting in the ministry to revoke the earlier decision on age count for admission.
   Since the introduction of the age criterion, there has been pressure of guardians, principals of some renowned colleges and educationists to scrap the provision.
   The High Court on July 31, 2006 issued a rule on the government to explain the legality of the provision for admission of older students instead of younger ones when grades are equal.
   A High Court bench of Justice Syed Dastagir Husain and Justice Mamnun Rahman asked the government to reply to the rule in a week, but it is still pending.
   The government in 2004 cancelled admission tests for higher secondary courses to stop corruption and nepotism and asked the colleges to take students based on their grades obtained in SSC exams. But the grading system does not help the college authorities to know the subject-wise marks the admission seekers have obtained.
   The number of GPA 5 achievers in the SSC and equivalent examinations under the 10 education boards this year is 62,307, but the number of the total seats in renowned colleges is less than the figure, leaving students to face a tough competition.
   ‘We will hold another meeting with the principals of renowned colleges in Dhaka on June 2 to set the admission date,’ said Main Uddin Khandakar, the joint secretary (college) of the education ministry.

A British newspaper Thursday described photographs showing alleged abuse including rapes at the notorious Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq, which the US president, Barack Obama, does not want to release.
   The pictures show US soldiers raping detainees, sexual assaults on prisoners with objects including a truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube, and a female prisoner forcibly having her breasts exposed, the Daily Telegraph said.
   They relate to 400 cases of alleged abuse at Abu Ghraib and six other prisons between 2001 and 2005, the newspaper said.
   It added that the details had come from Major General Antonio Taguba, an ex-army officer who published a 2004 report into Abu Ghraib.
   Earlier this month, Obama said he was opposed to the release of the photographs, saying they could cause a backlash against US troops serving overseas.
   The move came the month after his administration agreed to release hundreds of pictures from US-run prisons in Iraq and elsewhere in response to a long-running lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union.
   The ACLU has accused the Obama administration of adopting ‘the stonewalling tactics and opaque policies of the Bush administration’,
   Previously released photographs showing abuse of inmates at Abu Ghraib provoked global condemnation when they were published in 2004, the year after Obama’s predecessor George W Bush ordered US troops into Iraq to overthrow its ruler Saddam Hussein.