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Children in char (shoal) areas in Raipura and Narsingdi sadar upazilas are being deprived of education facilities as their parents send them to work for earning livelihood to maintain their families.
   Extreme poverty forces most of the parents in the char areas under 12 unions to send their children to work to manage expenditures for their families.
   Besides, many parents do not want their children to go to schools as they are unaware of the importance of education.
   According to a survey conducted by Mothers Development Society, a Narsingdi-based non-government organiation working for education of char children, about 12.000 children aged below 14 years in the char areas under eights unions of Raipura and four unions of Narsingdi sadar upazilas of the district are engaged in different types of odd jobs.
   The children even cannot complete the primary level of education although the government has made primary education compulsory.
   Child daughters are mostly the victims of this indifference as their parents are of the belief that there is no need to educate the female children.
   ‘What is the use of educating female children? We think of their marriage,’ said a man living at Jitrampur in sadar upazila.
   Female children mainly help parents in household works and work in fields as cattle keepers.
   Seven-year-old girl Salma, who rears goats at Char Madhua under Raipura upazila, does not know the name of her upaziIa and district.
   Every morning she goes to the field for grazing goats and returns home in the afternoon.
   Her father Siraj Ullah is a fisherman and mother Kulsum Begum works in the field as a labourer seasonally.
   Salma’s elder brother, Shahin, 12, works at a local power loom in the town.
   ‘I had a dream to receive education but poverty stood in the way of realising the dream,’ said Nazma, 10, of Char Aralia of Raipura upazila, who had been admitted to a school but later stopped going there.
   However, my younger brother goes to madrassah,’ said Nazma.
   A worker of the NGO, MDS, said that they were trying their best to ensure education for all char children.
   ‘The parents should feel the importance of educating their children,’ he said, adding, ‘We should create awareness in this regard.’
   The district education office sources said they were taking various programmes to motivate the parents for sending their children to schools.

Activists of the ruling Awami League allegedly barred a local BNP lawmaker from distributing relief materials among the cyclone Aila-hit people at Mehendiganj upazila in Barisal Wednesday morning.
   The AL men also in an attack injured 15 workers of the local BNP and ransacked house of a leader of the party.
   Mezbahuddin Farhad, BNP lawmaker for the Mehendiganj-Hizla constituency, at a press conference at the party’s Barisal office Wednesday afternoon alleged that he along with some party leaders reached Mehendiganj launch ghat at about 11:00am to distribute relief aid among the Aila-affected people there.
   AL activists, led by Mehendiganj upazila unit president Maheb Hossain, swooped on the BNP activists leaving at least 15 of them including Sanjida, Babu and Prince severely injured. Later, the attackers ransacked the house of Abul Kasem Shikdar, treasurer of the BNP upazila unit.
   Mezbahuddin came back from the area abandoning the relief distribution programme.

A court in Barisal on Thursday sent 20 leaders and activists of the Awami League and its front organisations to jail in the case for killing Bangladesh Chattra League activist Palash.
   Court sources said BCL activist Riazuddin Palash was killed in a factional clash led by upazila AL president Maheb Hossain and his rival secretary Kamaluddin Khan on Aril 21,2009 at Mehendiganj upazila headquarters.
   The victim’s maternal uncle filed a case accusing 21 leaders and activities of the AL and its front organisations, including upazila AL secretary Kamaluddin.
   The 21 accused appeared before the High Court with a prayer for bail.
   The High Court granted bail to Kamaluddin and ordered 20 others to surrender before the district court.
   Accordingly, the 20 accused including upazila AL  publicity secretary and local municipal commissioner Nawab Hossain Bepari, upazila Sechchwasebak League convener Abdul Jabbar Kanon and upazila Jubo League convener Saiful Islam, surrendered before the court and prayed for bail.
   Shahidullah, district and sessions judge of Barisal, rejected their bail prayer and ordered to send them to jail fixing June 10, 2009 as the next date for hearing in the case.

The police rescued three minor boys from the traffickers at Kaorakandi ferry ghat under Shibchar upazila in Madaripur on Thursday.
   The boys were Nahid, son of Khorshed Alam, Shakil and Shamim, sons of Yunus of Kamrangir Char, Dhaka.
   The police said the boys were crying at the ferry ghat. When asked, they said that a man had brought them there from their village at Kamrangir Char to take them to Jessore.
   The suspected trafficker could not be traced, the police said.
   The boys aged between five and eight are now in safe custody at Shibchar thana.

The 25-day debate competition that started at the Islamic University in Kushtia on May 3 concluded on Wednesday.
   The Islamic University Debating Society organised the competition.
   The IU pro-vice chancellor, professor Kamal Uddin, addressed the concluding session of the debate competition as chief guest while the IU treasurer professor M Shahajan Ali and the general secretary of Bangladesh Astronomical Society FR Sarker spoke at the function as special guests.
   The IUDS moderator, Rabeya Begum, chaired the concluding session held
   at the Shah Azizur Rahaman Auditorium in the morning.
   Screening of a documentary based on the country’s liberation war ‘Stop Genocide,’ the unfinished task of noted film maker Zahir Raihan, followed the discussion.

Robbers shot dead a man and looted cash and valuables from his house at village Nakibpur in Monoharganj in Comilla early Wednesday.
   The deceased was identified as Amirul Islam, 35, son of Moniruzzman.
   The police and witnesses said some 12 to 15 armed robbers attacked the house of Amirul and opened fire on him as he identified one of the robbers.
   Amirul was taken to the upazila health complex where physicians declared him dead.