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Several thousand applications, including 2,432 in Dhaka, have been filed seeking withdrawal of cases across the country as the deadline for filing such applications expires today.
   The government in a home ministry notification issued on March 4 announced it would withdraw the cases filed with political motive of persecution and urged the people concerned to file appeals by April 15 seeking withdrawal of such cases. The deadline was, however, earlier extended twice.
   According to sources in the home ministry, several thousand applications have already been filed across the country seeking withdrawal of cases, including 2,432 in Dhaka, mostly by political leaders and activists.
   The charges brought in the cases, which have been sought to be withdrawn, include corruption, extortion, land grab, cheating and murder, the sources said.
   In Dhaka, the 2,432 cases, sought to be withdrawn, include the cases against high-profile politicians including the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, also the ruling Awami League president, the leader of the opposition in parliament, Khaleda Zia, also the Bangladesh Nationalist Party chairperson, and senior leaders of both the parties, the sources said.
   Of the 2,432 applications, the home ministry has so far referred about 1,800 to the metropolitan public prosecutor for primary scrutiny.
   The metropolitan public prosecutor, Abdullah Abu, has already recommended withdrawal of 12 cases against Hasina and a number of cases against Awami League leaders including Tofail Ahmed, Sajeda Chowdhury, Sheikh Fazlul Karim Selim and Hasina’s sister Sheikh Rehana, saying that the cases were filed with mala fide intention of political persecution.
   Former law minister Moudud Ahmed, also a BNP standing committee member, told New Age on Saturday the government was withdrawing the cases filed only against the ruling party leaders.
   A case against the prime minister has already been withdrawn and many cases against ruling party leaders have been recommended to be withdrawn while the applications filed by the opposition leaders are not being considered, he alleged.
   Abdullah Abu, however, brushed aside the allegation and said his office was examining the applications based on the filing serial of the applications.
   Mozammel Hossain, the judge in-charge of the special judge’s court 5, on May 17 acquitted Sheikh Hasina, her sister Sheikh Rehana and their cousin Sheikh Fazlul Karim Selim of the charges in the Tk 2.99 crore extortion case, filed by businessman Azam J Chowdhury in September 2007.
   The court passed the order after hearing a petition filed by the metropolitan public prosecutor seeking withdrawal of the three from prosecution in the case under Section 494 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
   This was the first case against Hasina, which was withdrawn by the government. The metropolitan public prosecutor has also recommended withdrawal of 11 other cases against Hasina.
   The cases include the ones filed by the BNP-led government during its 2001–2006 tenure for alleged corruption in the purchase of MiG-29 warplanes and frigate, in the construction of Bangabandhu Planetarium and for ‘illegal entry’ into the Dhaka cantonment area to visit the ailing writer Humayun Azad, who later died in Germany, in Combined Military Hospital.
   Khaleda Zia and her two sons, Tarique Rahman and Arafat Rahman filed applications on April 30 seeking withdrawal of all the 20 cases lodged against them during the military-controlled interim government.
   In the applications, the three said the cases filed against them were politically motivated and aimed at harassment and that the High Court had earlier stayed the proceedings of all the cases.
   Four corruptions cases against Khaleda, 11 against her eldest son Tarique and five others against the youngest son Arafat were filed during the two-year rule of the interim government, which detained about 200 politicians, including Hasina and Khaleda.
   The government on February 17 formed a committee to review the ‘politically motivated’ cases, especially the ones against politicians, during the BNP-led alliance government and the military-controlled interim administration’s rule.
   The committee headed by the state minister for law, justice and parliamentary affairs, Quamrul Islam, was asked to review the appeals seeking withdrawal of the cases.
   The persons who have filed petitions in Dhaka for withdrawal of cases include former law minister Moudud Ahmed, Khaleda’s younger brother Shamim Iskander, and Arafat’s brothers-in-law Mostakim Reza and Mostakin Reza.
   The Supreme Court Bar Association secretary, SM Rezaul Karim, meanwhile, filed two petitions with the ministries of law and home affairs seeking withdrawal of two cases lodged against renowned lawyers including, Kamal Hossain, Rokanuddin Mahmud, M Amirul Islam, Tania Amir, Khasruzzaman, Subrata Saha, Sheikh Awsafur Rahman and Subrata Chowdhury, for the vandalism that took place on the Supreme Court premises on November 30, 2006.
   The BNP-led government earlier set up a similar committee to review the politically-motivated cases and it withdrew 5,888 cases filed during the 1996–01 Awami League government against about 17,000 people, mostly political leaders and activists.

Abdul Rauf alias Daud Merchant, an Indian fugitive convict and nephew of dreaded underworld don Daud Ibrahim, came to Dhaka to expand their network to Bangladesh.
   Daud Merchant, who was jailed for life by an Indian court for killing Mumbai’s music baron Gulshan Kumar, fled in April this year while on parole and crossed illegally into Bangladesh through Akhaura border in the first week of May, he told police.
   At a press briefing at the headquarters of the detective branch on Saturday, Dhaka Metropolitan Police commissioner AKM Shahidul Haque said that during primary interrogation Merchant had confessed that he was sent to Bangladesh by Chhota Shakil, an accomplice of Dubai-based Daud Ibrahim, to establish contacts with local underworld and expand their network here.
   ‘We are verifying whether Daud Ibrahim had links to the smuggling of arms [seized in Chittagong in April 2004] and there if was any plot to kill prime minister Sheikh Hasina,’ the DMP commissioner said adding that the police seized Merchant’s mobile phone, checked the call records and found about 100 phone numbers of Bangladeshi people.
   The detected police, who arrested Rauf in Brahmanbaria on May 27, also detected that Merchant had regular contacts with Daud Ibrahim over phone before being arrested.
   Daud Merchant told newsmen that he had fled his country fearing he might be shot dead by Indian police under cover of an encounter.
   He denied he had links with Daud Ibrahim or was involved in the 1997 murder of Gulshan Kumar in Mumbai. He said he had been ‘falsely implicated’ in the case but conceded in the same breath that he was involved in the plot to kill Kumar.
   Replying to a question, he said that Muslims were being subjected to repression in different parts of the world, including India. If the repression continues, Mumbai incident [of November 2008] may be repeated, he said.
   The DMP commissioner said Merchant was arrested in front of Jhumur hotel and restaurant in Brahmanbaria town.
   ‘He first gave his name as ‘Samir Sheikh’ but divulged his identity in custody,’ Shahidul Haque said.
   The DMP commissioner said that the police had also arrested two of his accomplices – Zahid Sheikh alias Mujahid and Kamal Mia – at South Morail in Brahmanbaria following information provided by Merchant.
   Police have launched a hunt for other Bangladeshi associates of Merchant, who had been serving his sentence in Aurangabad prison in the Indian state of Maharashtra since 2002 but was reported absconding by the Indian police after being furloughed in April to visit his family in Mumbra, a small town about 40 km from Mumbai.
   The police on Saturday produced the three detainees in the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court seeking a 10-day remand for them but magistrate Saifur Rahman Siddique granted eight days for their interrogation in a case filed with Adabar police station under Foreigners Act.
   Detective Branch sources said Daud Merchant gave the police vital information in custody. He said that some of the accomplices of Daud Ibrahim were hiding in different parts of Bangladesh with an aim to establish their network here.
   Following his confession, the police were conducting raids in different parts of the capital and in Gazipur, Comilla, Akhaura and Keraniganj in search of Daud Ibrahim’s local accomplices, who, the police believed, had been hiding in the country for long.
   Assistant commissioner of the DB, Mohibul Haque told New Age, ‘We are investigating how Rauf [Merchant] managed to have a citizenship certificate from Brahmanbaria municipality and how did he get a Bangladeshi passport.’
   The dreaded Indian terrorist managed to have a Bangladeshi passport changing his name to Sheikh Abdur Rahman and had been staying at Kamal Mia’s house in South Murulia since he crossed into Bangladesh in April. He roamed freely in the area and visited India several times with the Bangladeshi passport.
   Also on his confession, the DB police recovered a Bangladeshi passport issued in the name of Abdur Rahim Sheikh and Indian citizen Zahid’s Bangladeshi passport in the name of Arif from a house in Shyamoli Housing at Shekhertek in Mohammadpur area of the city. Police also recovered an Indian driving licence issued in the name of Samir Sheikh Patel.
   After coming to Bangladesh, Merchant stayed at the Shyamoli house of Sheikh Zahid, a friend of his younger brother Imtiaz. Sheikh Zahid came to Bangladesh in 2001.
   On May 21, Merchant along with Zahid went to Brahmanbaria and stayed at Kamal’s house.

People in the south are still passing their days without food and drinking water as relief materials are either inadequate or not reaching all the people affected in the inundation caused by cyclone Aila.
   Bangladesh’s south were submerged with tidal surges whipped up as high as 13 feet by cyclone Aila which ripped through India on May 25.
   Some people in the south, however, alleged although the government and non-governmental agencies started reaching them relief materials, local government representatives, involved in the distribution in many cases, had indulged in irregularities.
   The government on Saturday confirmed the death of 12 more people, taking the official death toll to 167 from the tidal surge and storm associated with the cyclone.
   The offices of civil surgeons in the affected districts said more people had contracted diarrhoea, but no death was reported.
   People in three Koyra villages in Khulna said they were yet to get any relief goods after the cyclone, reports the correspondent in the district.
   ‘I did not receive any relief in four days. I am now in the upazila headquarters looking for some food and water,’ said Ayron Bibi, 43, a resident of a Koyra village, on Saturday.
   The Koyra upazila nirbahi officer, MM Arif Pasha, said they had supplied adequate relief through union councils. He said 1,050 tonnes of rice and 15 tonnes of flattened rice had been distributed till Saturday.
   Abdul Majid Sardar of village No 9 Sora of Gabura union in Shyamnagar said relief materials were yet to reach his village and Md Omar Faruk of Dumuria at Shyamnagar said they got only 400g of rice a day. Both of them accused local government representatives of indulging in nepotism in relief distribution.
   The Gabura union council chairman, Shafiul Azam Lenin, claimed there had been no nepotism in relief distribution in his union. He said 5kg of rice were given away to every affected family.
   Mongla upazila parishad vice-chairman Md Nur Alam said there only 60 tonnes of rice and Tk 2.1 lakh in cash were allocated for 1,07,980 affected people of 27,140 families and the amount was meagre.
   Reports from Patuakhali said diarrhoea situation in seven upazilas of the district had deteriorated. Seventy-four more patients were admitted to upazila health complexes, sources in the hospitals said.
   Attendants of the patients alleged the hospital employees were forcing them to buy intravenous saline from the market although saline was meant to be given free. The civil surgeon, Humayun Kabir, denied any shortage of intravenous saline and said he had not received any such complaints.
   The chief of army staff, General Moeen U Ahmed, meanwhile, visited Kalapara at noon and distributed relief materials among a few people at Nachnapara in the municipal area.

A large number of residents of Gabura, an island union surrounded by the Kholpetua and Kapatakshi rivers and Caudda Rasi canal at Shyamnagar in Satkhira, are leaving for neighbouring towns looking for job as they lost everything, their houses and belongings, to the inundation and associated storm caused by cyclone Aila on May 25.
   The union spanning 28.11 square kilometres, home to 37,651 people, is protected with high embankments. The embankments breached at at least 28 points when tidal surges whipped up as high as 13 feet by the cyclone fell over into the land, in which all the 15 villages were submerged.
   Only a few brick-built houses are now standing unharmed in the union, said the Gabura union council chairman, Shafiul Azam Lenin. The people who lost their houses are now living in makeshift shelters or on high land such as embankments.
   Most of the residents of the union are working people — fishermen, day labourers, guards in shrimp enclosures or wood collectors. Only a handful of the people are owners of shrimp enclosures, he said, adding that 5,000 residents had already left their homes for towns looking for jobs.
   The residents said they were faced with acute shortage of drinking water, food and shelter as no relief materials had reached them yet. There is no one in the area to them any job as both the rich have also become poor after the inundation.
   The council chairman said his union had been fully covered by sanitation and tidal surges destroyed the sanitation system.
   The residents of the area use pond water, even for drinking, said general practitioner GM Abdul Mannan of Dumuria. He said saline water entered the pond and fishes and carcases rotting over the days had made the pond water unusable.
   The people now started defecating in the open by their makeshift shelters as the latrines have all been washed away, he said, adding that many people are also leaving the village because of such a filthy environment.
   Five to six hundred people are now leaving the place on an average every day through the Gabura-Burigalini ferry route crossing the Kholpetua, said Billal Hossain, who collects toll at the jetty.
   ‘We are facing an acute shortage of food and drinking water and I am leaving the village with my wife and only child for the Shyamnagar upazila headquarters where my brother lives,’ said 35-year-old day-labourer Abdul Khaleque of Sora. He said he would head for Khulna or Satkhira where he might get a job.
   ‘The people are leaving the union for a short duration and they will come back,’ said the Shyamnagar upazila nirbahi officer, Dilip Kumar Banik.
   He claimed the people were leaving for shelters and the Gabura people would always go to towns looking for jobs as the union has not much cropland and not many shrimp enclosures to work with.

The law minister, Shafique Ahmed, on Saturday claimed the investigation of all the incidents of extrajudicial killing was going on.
   ‘Cases have been filed in connection with every incident of such killing and the investigations are going on,’ he said in reply to a question of the press at the National Press Club after attending the function of the Bangladesh Child Health Foundation lottery draw.
   Asked about the foreign minister’s comment in which she said the culture of extrajudicial killings could not be stopped overnight, Shafique said, ‘It is her [foreign minister] personal observation.’
   ‘Neither the government nor I support any extrajudicial killing,’ he said.
   The foreign minister, Dipu Moni, at a briefing at the ministry on Friday said, ‘We cannot change the culture of extrajudicial killing overnight as it has developed over a period of time.’
   She made the remark as she was asked whether the government had control over the law enforcement agencies which continued killing people in the ‘crossfire’ despite her commitment to show zero tolerance to extrajudicial killing at the review meeting on human rights in the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva on February 4.
   Although the Awami League in its election manifesto pledged to stop such killings, at least 28 people have so far been killed by law enforcers in the ‘crossfire’ since the government had assumed office on January 6.
   Asked about the continued killing of people in the so-called ‘crossfire’ incidents despite repeated promises by the government to stop such killings, the law minister, however, declined comments.
   ‘As such killings are being investigated, it is better not to make any comments right now,’ Shafique said.
   He also set aside the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s demand for a fresh investigation of the February 25-26 rebellion in the Bangladesh Rifles headquarters in Dhaka involving an all-party parliamentary committee.
   The BNP’s secretary general Khandaker Delwar Hossain made the demand at a briefing on Friday on the party’s official position regarding the national enquiry committee report.
   ‘It is not logical to demand a parliamentary committee to investigate the rebellion as it is being investigated by the Criminal Investigation Department,’ Shafique said.

The home minister, Sahara Khatun, on Saturday said no incident of extra judicial killings had taken place since the new government came to power.
   ‘As the present government is against extra judicial killings, no such incident would occur in future either,’ she told reporters after laying the corner stone of Bibirhat Fire Station at Fatikchari upazila headquarters.
   On her way to Fatikchari to inaugurate Bhojpur police station, she addressed a series of wayside workers’ rallies, organised by local units of Awami League and its front organisations.
   Addressing the rallies, she described militancy, terrorism, fundamentalism and extortion as problems and said the offenders would not be spared, even if they belonged to her party.

Pakistan’s military said Saturday troops had regained control of the main town in a key northwestern district from the Taliban, in what would be a significant milestone in a month-long offensive.
   The announcement came three days after the military vowed to wipe out the Taliban from Mingora, the administrative and commercial hub of the mountainous Swat valley, a region that has been torn apart by a two-year Taliban uprising.
   ‘Security forces control the city. The Mingora fight is finished,’ chief military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas said.
   ‘Mingora is now under full control of the army,’ the spokesman announced publicly at a news conference.
   ‘We were expecting an intense fight between security forces and militants in Mingora but it did not happen,’ Abbas said.
   He said the militants ‘showed stiff resistance in the beginning but fled the area after realising that it would be difficult for them to get out of Mingora if military completely outflanks them.’
   He said lower-ranking Taliban leaders had been killed but it was harder to get to the top leaders who had a network of hardcore militants around them.
   ‘We are trying to target the top leadership of militants and they are constantly being followed,’ he added.
   It is impossible to confirm independently information released by the army because the conflict area is a closed military zone.
   Abbas emphasised that while Mingora was cleared, the battle was far from over in the valley, where government forces are locked in a fight against Taliban guerrillas, and in the neighbouring districts of Buner and Lower Dir.
   ‘We’re only talking about Mingora. Much more fight in Swat is left,’ the military spokesman said. But without laying claim to Mingora, the largest town in the district, the military would be unable to claim victory in Swat.
   Taliban extremists determined to enforce their harsh brand of Islamic law had for weeks patrolled the streets of the town, but a Taliban spokesman said recently that fighters were withdrawing to prevent civilian deaths.
   The military said 25 militants, including two commanders, were killed and three arrested over the last 24 hours in Pakistan’s determined offensive, concentrated in the northwest in a bid to eliminate Islamist fighters.
   Pakistan has said that around 15,000 soldiers are fighting up to 2,000 Taliban fighters in Swat.
   Cushioned in the hills, 160 kilometres northwest of Pakistan’s national capital Islamabad, Mingora once bustled with activity, filled with local merchants and tourists who came to relax in the scenic mountains.
   Residents trapped in Mingora have complained of no electricity, scarce food and water and gunfire reverberating through the sand-bagged streets.
   The military said Saturday that 21 doctors had reached Mingora in a bid to re-open a hospital, that gas was in the process of being restored and repair work had begun on restoring electricity, which would take at least two weeks.
   The prime minister, Yousuf Raza Gilani, said his government had a comprehensive policy for the relief and rehabilitation of those displaced by the conflict, estimated by UN officials at 2.4 million people this month.
   ‘We will take full care of displaced people, who have sacrificed for our future,’ Gilani said while addressing a ceremony in Islamabad.
   Pakistan has called for one billion dollars to help the uprooted civilians rebuild their lives. Observers say it will cost the cash-strapped country far more in reconstruction and filling the vacuum after military operations.
   Pakistan’s latest offensive was unleashed under US pressure after armed Taliban advanced to within 100 kilometres of Islamabad in April, sparking US warnings that they posed a threat to the existence of the country.
   The military spokesman said Saturday that 1,217 militants and 81 soldiers had been killed since the air and ground operation began on April 26.
   The military has released next to no information on civilian casualties, but many of the displaced tell of innocent relatives being killed in the offensive.
   Pakistan has slapped a 600,000-dollar price on the head of a firebrand Swat Taliban commander Maulana Fazlullah, wanted dead or alive, for masterminding the nearly two-year uprising in the valley to enforce sharia law.
   Fazlullah led thousands of supporters, a mixture of hardcore ideologues and disenfranchised young men, in a brutal campaign that beheaded opponents, burned scores of schools and fought against government troops since November 2007.

The Prime Minister’s Office is learnt to have decided to extend by a month the deadline for receiving lists of ‘educated unemployed’ youths at the Thana and Upazila levels across the country.
   Upon advice from prime minister Sheikh Hasina, her special assistant Mahabubul Alam Hanif, had issued letters to the presidents and general secretaries of the ruling Awami League’s Thana and Upazila units asking them to send the lists of the ‘educated unemployed’ youths by May 30.
   The deadline is now expected to be extended up to June 30, it was learnt.
   In the letter, Hanif had asked the ruling party’s local leaders to give Curriculum Vitae of the ‘educated unemployed’ youths, mentioning their political identity.
   When contacted on Saturday, Hanif told New Age that he had started receiving the lists from the party’s grassroots units across the country, but most of the Upazila leaders were yet to send the lists.
   Replying to a query, the PM’s special assistant said he is going to extend the deadline by one month to the end of June.
   Meanwhile, many Thana and Upazila unit leaders of the ruling party told New Age that while some of their colleagues have received the letter, many others were yet to get it.
   However, aware of the government’s move, the Thana and Upazila level leaders started to prepare the lists locally.
   Hanif said that he was aware of the fact that all Upazila and Thana unit leaders had not received the letter. ‘We will dispatch the letters to them who did not get it yet.’
   He said under the Awami League’s election pledge, the government initiated the move and the educated unemployed youths would be provided with jobs in different sectors. ‘The scheme would continue for next five years.’
    AL in its election manifesto had pledged that an employment guarantee scheme would gradually be made effective to provide employment to at least one member of each family across the country.
   President of Awami League Sundarganj Upazila in Gaibandha, Manjurul Islam Liton, told New Age that he did not receive any such letter from the PMO, but he was aware of the move. ‘I managed to get a copy of the letter from adjacent Sadullahpur Upazila AL president, who had received the letter. On the basis of that, I am now preparing a list of educated unemployed youths of my Upazila,’ he said.
   But president of Digholia Thana AL in Khulna, Khan Nazrul Islam, said he had received the letter from PMO few days back and prepared a list of educated unemployed youths, mentioning their political identity in accordance with the instructions. ‘I have prepared the list and will send it to PMO today,’ he told New Age on Saturday.
   Dinajpur district unit general secretary of Awami League, Mostafizur Rahman Fizar said that he did not receive any letter, but some grassroots leaders, being aware of move of the PMO, had collected the Curriculum Vitae of the ‘educated unemployed’ youths and sent those to him. ‘Now I will forwards those to Mahabubul Alam Hanif,’ said Fizar, who is also the state minister for forests and environment ministry.

Stepping up his anti-India rhetoric, Maoist supremo Prachanda has accused it of backing a ‘conspiracy’ to restore monarchy in Nepal, which had turned into a republic from a kingdom just a year ago.
   Prachanda, who quit as premier after a dispute with the president, Ram Baran Yadav, over the issue of sacking of army chief, said the present CPN-UML-led government is ‘just a puppet’ and efforts are on to ‘murder the infant republic’.
   ‘After Madhav Kumar Nepal became the prime minister, a conspiracy is being hatched with the help of foreign powers to restore monarchy,’ Prachanda told a workers’ gathering in Lalitpur near Kathmandu on Friday, the day Nepal observed its first republic day.
   The country abolished its 240-year-old monarchy on May 29 last year, dislodging King Gyendra from power.
   ‘First of all, Gyanendra will be brought back as the king for some time and he would then abdicate on health grounds. Then his grandson Hridayenda will be declared ceremonial king for which preparations are being done in Delhi,’ he alleged.
   While resigning as prime minister earlier this month, Prachanda had indirectly accused India of interfering in Nepal’s internal affairs.
   Prachanda also warned of a ‘decisive fight’ against parties favouring restoration of monarchy. He assured the nation of success of the people’s victory.
   ‘Now the war will be launched from the urban areas unlike in past, when the war began from rural areas,’ said the Maoist chief.
   The Maoist party last week reorganised its 22,000-strong People’s Liberation Army. Position of a number of rebel fighters was upgraded and divisional commanders transferred to one place to another.
   Although the Maoists said it was a routine annual exercise, political circles saw it a warming up
   measure.

At least 25 people were injured in attacks on Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s programmes marking the anniversary of death of Ziaur Rahman by activists of ruling Awami League and its associate bodies at different places in the country on Saturday.
   Twenty activists of BNP and its associate bodies were injured when activists of Awami Juba League and Bangladesh Chhatra League attacked and foiled the party’s programmes at Daulatkhan and Lalmohan in Bhola and Banaripara in Barisal.
   Reports from Banaripara said Juba League and Chhatra League activists vandalised a microbus carrying BNP leader Sarfuddin Ahmed Santu at Dak Bungalow crossing at 11:30am as he was going to attend the party’s programme in front of the upazila agriculture office. The attackers pounced on BNP activists and beat them up leaving at least seven injured.
   Protesting against the attack, the BNP activists blocked the Barisal-Banaripara-Swarupkati road at Guthia. Traffic resumed after more than two hours after police intervened.
   Farukul Islam, officer-in-charge of Banaripara police station, said a general diary was lodged by Sarfuddin Santu in connection with the attacks.
   In Daulatkhan of Bhola, Awami League activists, led allegedly by Miraj, Mannan and Amzad, attacked the BNP’s programme at Daulatkhan Uttar Bazaar at about 11:30am.
   The attackers also blocked Bhola-Daulatkhan road by burning tyres and took away the food cooked to feed the destitute.
   At least 10 BNP activists sustained injured in the attack and the programme was foiled, said Nazimuddin Howladar, Daulatkhan upazila BNP president and Char Pata union council chairman.
   At Lamohan of Bhola, Awami League activists attacked BNP’s programme near Lalmohon police station at about 11:00am and drove away the participants from the venue. Three activists were injured in the attack, said Aminul Islam Khan, Bhola district BNP president.
   Officers-in-charge of Daulatkhan and Lalmohan police stations admitted there were incidents of violence but nobody lodged any complaints.
   New Age correspondent in Natore reports: unidentified miscreants fired two rounds of gunshot during a discussion organised by Natore district unit of BNP marking Ziaur Rahman’s 28th anniversary of death.
   Two gunmen, covering their faces by handkerchiefs, appeared at the place on a motorbike and fired shots targeting the stage of the Zila Parisad auditorium as soon as the discussion began.
   Former deputy minister M Ruhul Kuddus Talukder Dulu and former BNP lawmakers and district BNP leaders were sitting on the stage during the incident. The gunmen sped away as the BNP activists chased them.
   Officer-in-charge of Natore police station, however, told New Age that he was not informed about the incident.
   Reports from Gaizpur said the Awami League activists ransacked the stage of a discussion and prayer session organised by Kaliganj upazila BNP at Sombazar at around midday. The party’s student affairs secretary Fazlul Huq Milan was scheduled to attend the programme in the afternoon.
   New Age correspondent in Magura said Juba League and Chhatra League activists attacked and foiled a discussion meeting of BNP at its office at Chaurangi crossing at around 11:45am. They took away the PA system and signboard of the party office.
   Immediately after the attack, convener of district unit Chhatra Dal Sahabuddin Sohag came under attack from Chhatra League activists near the stadium. He was admitted to sadar hospital.
   Later local Chhatra League and Juba League brought out a procession in the town and attacked Manjuri Hostel at College Para run by Islami Chhatra Shibir and vandalised furniture. Three Shibir activists were injured in
   the attack.

Investigation into the sensational 10 truck loads of arms case is likely to take a dramatic turn soon as the criminal investigation department (CID) tasked for the same  took a move for global option to involve Interpol to trace external links to this arms deal, sources close to the investigation said.
   ‘We need to find out the international links to this eal as stated in the confessional statements of the arrested officials of  National Security Intelligence (NSI). So a process is underway to involve Interpol and other foreign intelligence agencies to help us in this regard,’ said a senior official of CID.
   ‘Our higher authorities are dealing with the matter to engage such foreign organizations to help us with the investigation process and find out the external links to this arms deal,’ he added.
   ‘But we can’t give you further details at this moment for the greater interest of our investigation,’ he said, adding ‘our top authorities will take a decision to this effect.’
   When contacted, investigation officer (IO) of the case, ASP of CID Mohammad Moniruzzaman, said, ‘We’re trying to find evidence of foreign links to this arms deal. We’ll do everything in the interest of our ongoing investigation.’
   Public Prosecutor (PP) Kamal Uddin said that CID must follow due process to complete a fair investigation into this arms deal that involved both national and international bodies.
   “As the involvement of a foreign embassy and a Dubai-based business firm owned by a Pakistani national, was revealed in the confessional statements of former NSI officials, the CID may move forward to engage Interpol or any other international agency to grill those external bodies,’ the PP added.
   Detained NSI director  Shahabuddin Ahmed in his confessional statement revealed that a foreign embassy and Dubai-based business firm ARY (Aga Rahman Yusuf) group, owned by a Pakistani national, were involved in the shipment of the illegal arms, CID sources said, adding that the authorities are giving due importance to such statement.
   Shahabuddin also said that the ARY group allegedly financed the arms consignment brought to CUFL jetty from a Chinese port for supplying to an Indian insurgent group, the sources added.
   Police seized 10 trucks loaded with illegal arms from the jetty of CUFL on April 1, 2004.

The Rohingya issue that has strained diplomatic relations between Bangladesh and Myanmar over the years is likely to come up prominently in the foreign minister’s talks between Bangladesh and Thailand scheduled in Dhaka for Monday, diplomatic sources have told New Age.
   Thailand’s foreign minister Kasit Piromya and his Bangladesh counterpart Dipu Moni are also expected to discuss, in the meeting in the Foreign Office, the ways to reduce trade gap between the two countries and improve connectivity.
   Scheduled to arrive in Dhaka on a two-day trip Monday morning, Piromya is expected to hold crucial talks with the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina.
   Piromya is likely to inform her of the initiatives taken by Thailand to bolster regional cooperation.
   As Myanmar is the gateway between the emerging South Asia and Southeast Asia, Thailand wants to see a healthy relation between Bangladesh and Myanmar through resolution of the Rohingya issue.
   Myanmar’s Rohingyas entered the Bangladesh territory during 1991–1092 and, according to an unofficial estimate, more than two lakh refugees now staying in Cox’s Bazar.
   The Thai minister is also set to meet the communications minister, Syed Abul Hossain, to get to know Dhaka’s specific response to Bangkok’s earlier proposal for the construction of an elevated expressway in Dhaka to reduce traffic jam congestion.
   ‘Bangladesh will request Thailand to take effective measures to narrow the bilateral trade gap now heavily tilted towards Bangkok,’ a high ministry official said.
   Dhaka may take up the issue of duty-free access for more Bangladeshi products to Thai market as a means to narrow trade gap. Bangladesh earlier requested Thailand to allow zero tariff on 229 products.

The government will take back all the books bought for school libraries during the tenure of the immediate-past BNP government containing text against the country’s war of independence.
   ‘The National Curriculum and Textbook Board on Thursday formed a three-member committee to look into the matter as directed by the education minister,’ a board official said.
   ‘A large number of books were bought between 2002 and 2006 for school libraries. The committee has been asked to find out books containing text against the war of independence,’ he said. ‘After scrutiny, the books will taken back from the schools.’
   ‘During the immediate-past BNP rule, a huge number of co-curricular books were bought under an education ministry project which were then sent to the schools for secondary students,’ an additional secretary of the education ministry said.
   ‘Most of the books were published by unknown publishing houses associated with the then ruling BNP and most books are on the late president Ziaur Rahman, Khaleda Zia and Islam. The books were selected on political considerations, without judging their quality,’ he said.
   ‘Some of the books contain text against the war of independence. And many of the books are not fit for secondary students,’ he said.

India said on Saturday it was ‘closely monitoring’ the situation of its students in Australia after a wave of attacks on them that has raised diplomatic tensions between the two countries.
   Bollywood legend Amitabh Bachchan threatened to reject an honorary doctorate from a Brisbane university to protest the attacks.
   ‘My conscience does not permit me to accept this decoration from a country that perpetrates such indignity to my fellow countrymen,’ Bachchan’s blog post said.
   But the Indian movie icon said he would ask for fan feedback on whether he should turn down the degree.
   External affairs spokesman Vishnu Prakash said India had received Australia’s assurances that ‘they will be doing what is necessary to ensure that such attacks don’t reoccur.’
   His statement came amid Indian newspaper headlines Saturday voicing anger over the attacks.
   ‘Outrage over ‘curry bashing’,’ said leading newspaper The Times of India.
   The Hindustan Times showed a photograph of bandaged Indian student Sravan Kumar Theerthala lying comatose in his Melbourne hospital bed.
   Theerthala was left in a coma and fighting for his life after being stabbed last weekend with a screwdriver by gatecrashers at a party. A 17-year-old boy has been charged with attempted murder.
   ‘We are very closely monitoring the situation. We are quite concerned at the brutal attacks that are taking place,’ Prakash added.
   He was speaking after the Australian prime minister, Kevin Rudd, phoned his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh on Friday to pledge that ‘the overwhelming majority of Indian students were safe’ in his country, according to a statement from the prime minister’s office.
   Rudd ‘took the issue of the security of all foreign students in Australia very seriously,’ the statement said.
   Indians form the second-largest group of overseas students in Australia and there has been a spate of attacks on students from the subcontinent.
   India’s media has dubbed Australia a ‘racist’ country and newly appointed external affairs minister SM Krishna said Friday he was ‘appalled’ by the violence.
   Meanwhile, an Australian student stabbed at a Melbourne train station by two thieves last Monday told the Press Trust of India: ‘My advice to every Indian student now who wants to come to Australia is, ‘Please don’t come.’ ‘There’s no life here,’ Baljinder Singh told the news agency from where he was recovering in a Melbourne hospital.

The government has planned to reinforce from the next financial year Ghare Phera Karmasuchi, the Bangladesh Krishi Bank’s ‘back to sweet home’ programme, which faltered over failures in recovering about 70 per cent of the loans provided for city slum dwellers so that they could return to their villages.
   The Krishi Bank in 2001 disbursed about Tk 4 crore among 2,373 slum dwellers, 1,391 of whom retuned to the capital, according to statistics available with the bank.
   ‘The government will resume the programme
   in the next financial year
   in four city slums, said a senior finance ministry official.
   The official also said the ministry had decided to allocate Tk 4 crore to Tk 5 crore in the next financial year to resume the programme, first introduced by the Awami League government in 1996.
   Sources said a high-powered meeting in the finance ministry in the past week discussed the reintroduction of the programme and the Bangladesh Krishi Bank was entrusted with the job to work out the policies by June 15.
   ‘We are examining seven years’ performance of the programme, the Krishi Bank’s deputy general manager ATM Anisur Rahman told New Age.
   He said the Krishi Bank was working on a policy to reintroduce programme from the next financial year.
   After assuming office in 2001, the BNP-led alliance government did not cancel the programme, but tagged the condition that the bank would need to recover about 70 per cent of the unpaid loans before giving out fresh credits.

Iran on Saturday hanged three men in public accused of involvement in the bombing of a Shia mosque that killed 25 people, an official said, branding them ‘terrorists’ and ‘enemies of God.’
   Iran also summoned Pakistan’s ambassador Mohammad Bakhsh Abbasi over the deadly attack after Sunni rebels reportedly claimed responsibility, the official IRNA news agency reported.
   The executions were carried out near the mosque in southeastern Iran which was devastated by Thursday’s bombing, said Hojatoeslam Ebrahim Hamidi, justice chief of Sistan-Baluchestan province.
   At least 125 people were also wounded in the powerful blast caused by a suicide bomber at the Amir al-Momenin mosque in the Sistan-Baluchestan provincial capital Zahedan during evening prayers.
   ‘The terrorists Haji Noti Zehi, Gholam Rasoul Shahi Zehi and Zabihollah Naroui were hanged at 6:00am (0130 GMT) near the Amir al-Momenin mosque in public,’ Hamidi told the official IRNA news agency.
   ‘They confessed to illegally bringing explosives into Iran and giving them to the main person behind the bombing,’ he added.
   ‘They were convicted of being ‘mohareb’ (enemies of God) and ‘corrupt on the earth’ and acting against national security,’ Hamidi said.
   He said the trio had been arrested before Thursday’s bombing but had confessed that they had provided the explosives for the mosque bombing.
   ‘They were tried and they had court-appointed legal representation,’ he said.
   The three men, he added, had also been charged with ‘direct involvement’ in the bombing of a Revolutionary Guards bus in 2007 in which 13 people were killed, the bombing of Al-Ghadir mosque in Zahedan in February this year which caused no casualties and ‘some other bombings.’
   Iran summoned Abbasi after Iranian state television quoted pan-Arab channel Al-Arabiya as reporting that the Jundullah (Soldiers of God) group said it was behind the mosque attack.
   Sistan-Baluchestan has for several years been the scene of a deadly insurgency by Jundullah, a group of Sunni rebels headed by Abdolmalek Rigi and which strongly opposes the government of predominantly Shia Iran.
   The province has a substantial Sunni minority and lies on a major narcotics-smuggling route from Afghanistan and Pakistan.
   Jalal Sayah, the province’s deputy governor said on Friday that the three men arrested over the incident were ‘hired by America and the agents of the arrogance.’
   Officials usually use the term ‘global arrogance’ to refer to Iran’s arch-foe the United States.
   State Department spokesman Ian Kelly denied emphatically that Washington was behind the attack, saying the US does ‘not sponsor any form of terrorism in Iran.’
   The chief of the Iranian armed forces, General Hassan Firouzabadi, in comments carried Saturday on the state television web site, accused Britain and ‘Zionists’ of involvement in the bombing.
   ‘We should not forget the role and the plot of the British who in the past 200 years tried to divide Sunnis and Shiites,’ the general said.
   State-run television, meanwhile, showed footage of funeral ceremonies on Saturday for those who died in the bombing.
   Thousands of women and men clad in black gathered in front of the Amir al-Momenin mosque hours after the hangings carrying coffins draped in Iranian flags and banners bearing the name ‘Fatima al-Zahra,’ the daughter of the Prophet Muhammad.
   At the time of the suicide bombing, the mosque was crowded with devotees mourning the death of Fatima, a revered figure in Shia Islam.
   Those at Saturday’s funerals, according to IRNA, shouted, ‘I will kill he who killed my brother,’ and ‘Death to Wahhabis’ — referring to followers of a fundamentalist Sunni strand of Islam as practised in Saudi Arabia.

Bangladesh’s border guards pushed back 52 more Rohingyas into Myanmar at Teknaf and Gundum crossing points Saturday morning, the Bangladesh Rifles said.
   A large number of Rohingyas have been trying to enter Bangladesh illegally since Myanmar’s border force Nasaka started fencing with barbed wire. About 400 of them were pushed back by the Bangladesh Rifles earlier.
   The Rohingyas are one of the ethnic groups of Myanmar’s Rakhaine state. They claim they were trying to escape the persecution by Myanmar’s military junta.
   The 42 Rifles Battalion’s commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Abdul Khaleque, said the 52 were pushed back through the Naitang hill point at Teknaf along the River Naf and through the Gundum land crossing point in the Bandarban frontier, the Bangladesh border force said.

New research suggests that low vitamin D levels in the body are associated with thinking or ‘cognitive’ impairments in older men, but whe-ther vitamin D supplements can help is not yet known.
   In the study, an investigation of European men, subjects with low levels of vitamin D scored worse on a standard test of cognitive ability than did their peers with normal levels, Dr David M Lee, from the University of Manchester, UK, and co-researchers found. Although, the authors emphasise, the difference in scores was not that great.
   Included in the investigation were 3133 men, 40 to 79 years of age, who were enrolled in the European Male Aging Study. The average level of 25-hydroxyvitamin D, an inactive form of vitamin D used to measure levels of the vitamin, was 63 nanomoles per litter. Levels of 90 to 140 nanomoles per litter are typically considered optimal.
   The researchers report their findings report in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry.
   As vitamin D levels fell, so did cognitive performance. Further analysis indicated that this relationship was largely confined to men over age 60 and was strongest with vitamin D levels below 35 nanomoles per litter.

The civic forum called National Committee to Protect Oil, Gas, Mineral Resources, Power and Ports on Saturday demanded of the government to stop the move to handover the valuable minerals in Cox’s Bazar beach to a foreign company, Premier Minerals, for export.
   The committee also protested the recent moves of Petrobangla to hand
   over 75 square kilometres of additional area adja-
   cent to Jalalabad gas field
   to the US company, Chevron.
   The committee convenor, Sheikh Md Shahidullah and member secretary Anu Muhammad, in a statement said that they were worried over the move to sign an agreement with the Singapore-Australian company, Premier Minerals, for extracting and exporting of valuable minerals by taking only 6-8 per cent royalty.
   ‘This type of agreement will allow smuggling of huge amount of mineral resources from the country. The Cox’s Bazar sea beach, which is considered as a world heritage, will be devastated and as a result the coastal area will be in danger of erosion,’ the statement said.
   They demanded of the government to engage any state-run organisation for exploration and production of the minerals under a long-term plan which would ensure environmental safety and cent per cent ownership of people over the minerals.
   They asked for stopping any move to hand over the mineral resources to the foreign company and
   for punishing people responsible for engaging the company.
   Protesting the move to give Chevron an additional area of 75 square kilometre, they said the state-run Bangladesh Petroleum Exploration and Production Company should be engaged for gas exploration and production in the area as per a policy adopted by the government earlier.

Former BNP lawmaker and whip in parliament Jahed Ali Chowdhury and four others were injured in a road accident at Maona in Gazipur on Saturday.
   Witnesses said the accident occurred when the jeep of the former MP from Sherpur 2 constituency crashed into a roadside tree at about 11:00am.
   Jahed was going to Sherpur from Dhaka to attend a programme organised by district BNP on the occasion of Ziaur Rahman’s anniversary of death.
   The injured were taken to a clinic at Maona.