Main Page «
Metro «
Business «
International «
Sports «
National «
Editorial «
Op-Ed «
Home «
Timeout «
Letters «

Archive «
Launch Supplement «
Special Supplements «

The High Court on Wednesday ordered the police to interrogate the detained former state minister for home affairs, Lutfozzaman Babar, at the jail gate in the 21 August, 2004 grenade attack cases.
   Following the High Court order, Dhaka additional chief metropolitan magistrate Ehsanul Huq at around 6:00pm halted till November 1 the order he issued at around 1:00pm remanding Babar in the police custody for five days for interrogation in the cases.
   The court also ordered the police to send Babar, also a BNP leader, to jail and to produce him again before it on November 1.
   The court passed the modified order after Babar's counsels informed it about the High Court order.
   Earlier on Monday, Babar was shown arrested in the cases filed in connection with the 21 August, 2004 grenade attacks on an Awami League rally in Dhaka that had left 24 people killed and over 200 injured and maimed.
   The High Court bench of Justice Syed Muhammad Dastagir Husain and Justice Md Rais Uddin ordered the police to interrogate Babar in the cases at the jail gate, if necessary.
   The High Court passed the order in the afternoon after hearing a petition filed by Babar's cousin, Shamsur Rahman in the morning, just before the start of the hearing in the magistrate's court on the remand prayer, with a prayer that the police be ordered to interrogate him at the jail gate in any case.
   Pleading for Babar, his counsel Khandaker Mahbub Hossain told the High Court that Babar was seriously ill and he might be tortured in the police custody for extracting false confessions, which might endanger his life.
   Before the High Court issued the order, Dhaka additional chief metropolitan magistrate Ehsanul Huq remanded Babar in the police custody for five days after hearing a petition, filed on Monday by the criminal investigation department that Babar be remanded in its custody for 10 days for interrogation. Babar was present in the dock.
   The court passed the order amid boycott of the hearing by Babar's counsels.
   Court activities were hampered for a while as lawyers from both sides got agitated and hurled abuses at each other.
   Babar's counsels told the court that he had appointed Supreme Court lawyers Rafique-ul Huq, Knadaker Mahbub Hossain and AJ Mohammad Ali to defend him in the case as senior counsels.
   Babar's counsels Sanaullah Miah, Masud Ahmed Talukder and Khorshed Alam also prayed for deferral of the hearing in the remand prayer saying that the senior counsels could not appear in the court on the day as they were busy in the Supreme Court.
   Special prosecutor in the cases, Syed Rezaur Rahman, however, told the court that the defence counsels had made the pleas in a bid to delay the investigation of the cases.
   The investigators need to question Babar as they found his involvement in destroying the evidence and diverting the investigations into the cases and also in supplying the grenades to the attackers.
   Babar was in charge of the home ministry during the grenade attacks and the live grenades, recovered after the attacks, were destroyed on his directives in order to destroy the evidence, he mentioned.
   The defence counsels boycotted the hearing and agitated at the court premises as the court decided to continue with the hearing in the remand prayer rejecting the defence plea.
   After the court order, Sanaullah Miah told reporters that they would appeal against the order remanding Babar in police custody.
   Earlier on 3 August, the Dhaka speedy trial tribunal ordered further investigation into the cases following a petition filed by the prosecution.
   The same court on 29 October, 2008, indicted 22 people, including BNP's former deputy minister Abdus Salam Pintu and Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami operative Mufti Abdul Hannan in the cases, and a total of 61 out of 412 witnesses in the cases had so far testified in the court.
   The CID assistant superintendent Fazlul Kabir, also the investigation officer in the cases, on 11 June, 2008, pressed charges in the two cases against 22 persons.
   Four hundred and twelve people, including president Zillur Rahman, prime minister Sheikh Hasina, home minister Sahara Khatun and AL's former general secretary Abdul Jalil, were named prosecution witnesses in both the cases.
   Past investigators several times attempted to put the case on the wrong track and arrested 20 innocent persons, including George Miah. George gave a statement in court claiming that top criminals Subrata Bain and Joy had carried out the attack, but none of the persons accused at that time was named in the charge sheets.
   George, who had apparently been made a scapegoat, was released from jail after being cleared of all the charges in the case.
   Of the 23 indicted in the case, Pintu and Hannan and 12 others are now in jail, while the rest eight are on the run.
   On 5 March, a metropolitan magistrate's court in Dhaka sent Babar to jail after he surrendered seeking bail in an arms case in which he was earlier jailed for 17 years.
   That was the second time Babar landed in jail. He was, earlier, arrested on charge of corruption on 28 May, 2007 and later released on bail granted by the High Court.
   On 30 October, 2007, Babar was sentenced by Dhaka special tribunal judge Zahed Mansur to rigorous imprisonment for 17 years on charge of keeping illegal arms in his Gulshan house.
   The High Court on 16 October, 2008, granted Babar bail for six months in the case on health grounds. His appeal against the conviction in the case is pending with the High Court.
   The Appellate Division, however, on 23 October, revised the High Court order and granted him bail for three months and directed him to surrender in the trial court within the period.
   After his arrest by the joint forces on 28 May, 2007, at his house, Babar was shown arrested under the Emergency Powers Rules 2007 and placed on a four-day remand for interrogation.
   The Anti-Corruption Commission filed a graft case against Babar with Ramna police station on 4 October, 2007 for taking Tk 21 crore in bribes to save Bashundhara Group chairman's son from murder charges.
   He was also accused of amassing huge wealth by illegal means and hiding assets in his wealth statement submitted to the commission.

The finance ministry has suggested addressing the regional disparity in use of contraceptive items as part of government plans to strengthen the family planning activities which have lost its steam in recent past.
   It made a proposal on strengthening family planning projects after finding that regional disparity was turning out to be a new major challenge, hampering the country's target of bringing down the Total Fertility Rate to 2.2 per cent from the exiting 2.7 per cent to check population growth.
   The present government aims at increasing the rate of use of contraceptive items to 80 per cent by 2011 and reopen the closed down community clinics throughout the country in line with its election pledges.
   Chittagong is the second largest populated region after Dhaka, followed by Sylhet and Barisal, which are all the lagging behind areas where people showed reluctance to use the contraceptives.
   Family planning activists in these regions even faced resistance from local people while the country faced the risk of losing gains it achieved in the last two decades in containing population boom.
   Besides such regional disparity, the finance ministry identified early marriage, poverty, unemployment among female population, inadequacy of field level family planning workers and shortage of contraceptive items as other major problems.
   Experts lauded the finance ministry's proposal to address the regional disparity in the use of birth control items. But they expressed doubt about its success, saying that old problems should be addressed first.
   Professor Dr AKM Nur-Un-Nabi told New Age that the average marriage age among girls in the country is 15.3 years although existing laws prohibit marriage below the age of 18 years.
   He said more than 70 posts of deputy directors under the directorate of family planning were lying vacant for long. Besides, field level workers showed reluctance to work in Chittagong, Sylhet and Barisal regions because of resistance from local people, he added.
   These are some nagging old problems which should be overcome first, he suggested.
   Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies director general MK Mujeri said the government should not delay further in addressing both old and new problems.
   Otherwise, the familyplanning movement which started in late 1970s and helped the country to gain success in checking the unplanned births would face a debacle, he added.
   The finance ministry officials observed that family planning measures had slowed down considerably in recent past, compared to the momentum the country achieved in such activities in 1970s and in 1980s.
   According to officials of finance and family planning ministries, the existing population growth rate is 1.4 per cent as 2 million children are born annually.
   The country's population would reach to 250 million from the existing 150 million in next 40 years unless the TFR was brought down to a replacement level of 2.2 per cent, they said.
   Experts pointed out that the rising population is putting additional pressure on land, food, healthcare and education systems in the resources hungry country and would make difficult to reach its millennium development goals.

A parliamentary panel on Wednesday recommended financial penalties for violators of traffic rules, even if they are lawmakers and ministers, to lessen the constant congestion on the roads and streets of the capital and on busy highways.
   The parliamentary standing committee on the planning ministry at a meeting also opposed the government's project of preparing Machine Readable Passports, tenders for which have already been floated.
   'The machine readable passport scheme, if implemented, will be sheer wastage of public money since we have to go for e-passport by 2014,' said the chairman of the committee, Oli Ahmed, after the meeting.
   He also asked the planning ministry to tell the home and foreign ministries to stop the tender process and take up the scheme for e-passports in order to follow the rules set by the International Civil Aviation Organisation. As per the organisation's decision, the citizens of its member countries must have machine readable passports by 2010 and e-passports by 2014 on security grounds.
   The government should go for e-passports which will be acceptable everywhere in the world, said Oli, a lawmaker of the opposition Liberal Democratic Party.
   Referring to congestion on the city's thoroughfares, he said that only stringent application of laws would help improve the traffic situation.
   He suggested that the police take necessary measures to stop haphazard parking of vehicles to reduce traffic congestion in Dhaka and Chittagong as many people, including lawmakers and ministers, flout rules causing severe traffic jams.
   'There should be a provision of fine of Tk 1,000 for violation of traffic rules even by a minister or an MP,' said Oli.

People of three Upazilas continued agitation for the second week protesting the inclusion of Bajitpur, Katiadi and Nikli Upazilas within the proposed Bhairab district severing them from Kishoreganj district.
   They demanded continuation of their upazilas either under the administrative jurisdiction of Kishoreganj district or making a separate new district comprising their Upazilas.
   People of Bhairab Upazila and Kuliarchar Upazila, meanwhile, have been holding rallies welcoming the government decision of making Bhairab a district.
   A section of people of six unions of Raipur Upazila under Narsingdi district and Astagram Upazila of Kishoreganj district on Wednesday raised their voice to include their areas under the proposed Bhairab district. They staged demonstrations in support of their demands.
   The government at a cabinet meeting on October 12 in principal decided to make Bhairab a separate district with five Upazilas- Bajitpur, Bhairab, Katiadi, Kuliarchar and Nikli Upazilas-out of 13 upazilas of Kishoreganj district.
   Upgrading Bhairab into a district was an election pledge of President Zillur Rahman who was elected a member of parliament from the Bhairab.
   The cabinet also formed a committee and gave one month time to examine how the proposed Bhairab district can be made functional. The cabinet after getting report from the committee would declare Bhairab a separate district.
   In Bajitpur, locals people on Wednesday observed the day-long riverway blockade halting all river transport to protest the inclusion of their Upazila with the proposed Bhairab district.
   People from all walks of life gathered at the Upazila headquarter in the morning and took out a procession. They urged the government to declare Bajitpur a separate district. Otherwise, they threatened to launch a tough agitation programme.
   People of Katiadi and Nikli also staged similar demonstrations on Wednesday protesting the inclusion of their Upazilas with the proposed Bhairab district. People of the two Upazilas on Tuesday also observed hartals to register their protest.
   In Kuliarchar Upazila, teachers and students of Kuliarchar Degree College on Wednesday brought out a procession from the college premises and held a rally at the Upazila premises welcoming the government decision.
   Kishoreganj district under Dhaka division is located in the northeast of the country. It has 13 - Astagram, Bajitpur, Bhairab, Hossainpur, Itna, Karimganj, Katiadi, Kishoreganj Sadar, Kuliarchar, Mithamain, Nikli, Pakundia and Tarail.
   President Zillur Rahman on July 13 said he would continue his all-out efforts to upgrade Bhairab into a district to fulfil the long-cherished demand of the local people.
   'I promise you, I will carry on my best efforts to upgrade Bhairab into a district,' he told a civic reception accorded to him on the premises of Bhairab Haji Asmat College.
   After the reception, a letter, signed by Seema Nahar, a senior assistant secretary of the president's office, was sent to cabinet secretary to take necessary steps to develop Bhairab as a new district, including Bhairab, Kuliarchar, Bajitpur and Nikli Upazila. Later Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina gave her consent to add Katiadi Upazila into the proposed new district.

Six UN foreign staff were killed when Taliban militants attacked an international guest-house in Kabul on Wednesday, while rockets were fired at a foreign-owned hotel in the Afghan capital, forcing 100 guests into a bunker.
   An increasingly resurgent Taliban have vowed to stage attacks ahead of a run-off in Afghanistan's presidential election on November 7 and the apparently coordinated assault on Wednesday will raise questions about security for the vote.
   The attacks occurred as the US president, Barack Obama, weighs whether to send more soldiers to Afghanistan to fight a Taliban insurgency at its fiercest since 2001.
   'The number right now is six dead, all of them UN staff,' said Adrian Edwards, spokesman for the United Nations mission in Afghanistan, adding at least nine were wounded in the attack on the guest-house.
   Their nationalities were unclear. Afghan forces exchanged gunfire for hours with militants inside the house, the police said.
   Later the bodies of three suspected suicide bombers, apparently ripped apart when they detonated their explosives, could be seen lying inside the compound.
   Abdul Ghaim, a policeman at the scene, said: 'We think they (the militants) are Pakistani.'
   Officials said the shooting was over but one female guest at the house was still missing and a search was under way inside the building, covered by bullet holes and badly damaged with its walls charred and windows shattered.
   Explosions also hit the foreign-owned Serena luxury hotel and rockets were fired at the building near the presidential palace, witnesses and security sources said.
   A foreigner staying at the hotel said more than 100 people were rushed to an underground bunker following the attacks but no casualties or smoke could be seen from the building, also attacked in January 2008 when six people were killed.
   The entire area at the Serena had been blocked by security forces. All streets leading to key government buildings were cordoned off, and sirens wailed across the heart of the capital.

A huge car bomb ripped through a crowded market in Pakistan on Wednesday killing 92 people and underscoring the gravity of the extremist threat destabilising the nuclear-armed Muslim state.
   The explosion brought down buildings in the northwestern city of Peshawar just hours after the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, arrived in Pakistan to bolster the two countries' troubled alliance against Taliban and al-Qaeda militants.
   Doctors at the Lady Reading Hospital said most of the dead were women and children, as a routine day out in the city's main bazaar ended in horror.
   'We have 92 dead bodies and 217 injured people. Nineteen of the dead are women and 11 are children. All the dead are civilians,' Doctor Zafar Iqbal said as staff declared an emergency and called for blood donations.
   Hillary, unveiling a 215-million-dollar energy investment while fending off fierce Pakistani criticism of US policies, expressed solidarity after one of the country's deadliest attacks and promised every assistance.
   The United States stands 'should to shoulder' with Pakistan's people, she said, condemning the 'tenacious and brutal extremist groups who kill innocent people and terrorise communities.'
   'We will give you the help that you need,' Hillary told a joint news conference with Pakistan's foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi.
   Peshawar is home to 2.5 million people and the gateway to the tribal badlands where the military has launched a major anti-Taliban offensive in its toughest battle yet against a well-trained enemy on forbidding terrain.
   Flames reached out of burning wreckage and smoke billowed over the collapsed rubble of a mosque and three buildings as rescue workers fished charred bodies out of the wreckage.
   'It was a car bomb. Some people are still trapped in a building. We are trying to rescue them,' bomb disposal official Shafqat Malik told reporters.
   Appalled hospital staff gave harrowing accounts of the dead and wounded piling up in hospital corridors.
   'There are body parts. There are people. There are burnt people. There are dead bodies. There are wounded,' said Doctor Muslim Khan.
   Hillary is the most senior US official to visit since the US president, Barack Obama, put Pakistan at the heart of the fight against al-Qaeda and made the war in neighbouring Afghanistan a top priority.
   'This is a critical moment and the United States seeks to turn the page to a new partnership, with not only the government but the people of a democratic Pakistan,' said Hillary in her first public appearance in Islamabad.
   'We hope to build a strong relation based on mutual respect and mutual shared responsibility,' she added.
   The United States has welcomed the assault being pressed by about 30,000 Pakistani troops against homegrown Taliban in South Waziristan, part of the tribal belt where US officials say al-Qaeda is plotting attacks on the West.

The police Wednesday night started looking for 10 more people suspected of having links with the bomb attack on Awami League lawmaker Fazle Noor Taposh at Motijheel.
   Detective Branch officials close to the investigation said the list of the suspects had been prepared after verification of the call lists and e-mail addresses of the six people already in the custody of the detective police.
   The officials said they had extensively interrogated the suspects - Kamrul Haque Swapan, Abdur Rahim, Mehnaz Rashid Khondokar, Sheikh Shafiullah Sofu, and two brothers Nazmul Hassan Sohel and Mahbubul Hassan Imran -remanded in the Detective Branch custody.
   The investigators continued interrogating them separately as they remanded in custody on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Tuesday.
   Detective Branch deputy commissioner Monirul Islam told New Age, 'We are continuing with drives to arrest 10 other suspects as we have come to know of their involvement in the bomb attack.'
   He also said, 'The acting DMP commissioner and joint commissioner (crimes) Abul Kashem came to the DB office to interrogate the arrested, including Mehnaz, about 12:30pm on Wednesday.'
   He alleged some print media had published false and fabricated news regarding the personal life of Mehnaz. Her four-month-old baby Noor Shahreen was vaccinated at the DB office on Wednesday, he said.
   Manirul, however, declined comments when he was asked whether the six arrested had contacted each others. He said they had been arrested on specific information.
   Asked about the type of the bomb that was exploded in the attack, he said they were yet to get the report from army experts, but said the bomb was exploded with a remote control device.
   Another ranking official of the interrogation team told New Age, 'None of the arrested admitted to being involved in the bomb attack till Wednesday afternoon, but we have extracted some significant bits of information from the arrested that the killers of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman with the help of some foreign militants had plotted a conspiracy after the January 11 changeover.
   Taposh, a nephew of the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, is also involved with the legal team assisting the state counsels in the appeals proceedings. His parents Sheikh Fazlul Haque Moni and Arzoo Moni were also killed on August 15, 1975. Taposh was attacked when he was leaving his office at Motijheel in his car Wednesday night. He escaped unhurt, but 12 others were injured.
   Taposh on Thursday alleged he had been attacked so that the appeals process in the Supreme Court could be derailed.
   He filed a case with the Motijheel police earlier in the day mentioning no names, but alleging the relatives and associates of the people convicted in the August 15 killing were involved in the attack.
   Case details say they carried out the attack to kill him so that the trial of the killers of Sheikh Mujib could be disrupted.
   Motijheel police subinspector Arju Mia was made the investigation officer of the case.
   The Detective Branch received the case docket and documents early Saturday and assistant commissioner Akbar Ali was assigned the investigation.
   Six people have so far been arrested in connection with the attack till Wednesday evening.
   The lawmen early Tuesday arrested two sons of the death convict retired lieutenant colonel Mohiuddin Ahmed - Nazmul Hassan Sohel and Mahbubul Hassan Imran - in this connection.
   The police on Saturday arrested Khandaker Mehnaz Rashid, the eldest daughter of retired lieutenant colonel Khondker Abdur Rashid, a fugitive condemned to death in the Mujib murder case, for her suspected links with bomb attack.
   On Thursday, the police held Kamrul Haque Swapan, younger brother of retired major Shariful Haq Dalim, and Freedom Party leader Abdur Rahim in this connection. All the arrested have been remanded in custody for interrogation.

Death row convict AKM Mohiuddin Ahmed's counsel on Wednesday told the Appellate Division that the depositions made by prosecution witnesses that he was present at the scene of the August 15, 1975 carnage, were concocted.
   The counsel, Abdullah Al Mamun also claimed that Mohiuddin was a victim of mistaken identity as there were three Mohiuddins - one from the lancer unit, another from the artillery and the third one was a driver who had brought Mujib's body to airport by an army vehicle. The first two Mohiuddins are condemned convicts in the Sheikh Mujibur Rahman murder case.
   AKM Mohiuddin, who was tried in absentia, was deported from the United States on June 18, 2007.
   Mohiuddin was not named in the first information report of the Mujib murder case but his name was mentioned in deposition by witness Abdul Quddus, a security guard at Mujib's house, the counsel said referring to the case records.
   'Quddus's deposition was contradictory to the those of other security guards Abdul Gani and Sohrab Ali, and retired major Shahadat Khan, who came from Dhaka Cantonment to see the dead bodies at Mujib's house,' Mamun told the court.
   According to Quddus's deposition, after killing Sheikh Kamal at the reception, Mohiuddin along with his troops brought Mujib from the first floor to the stairs at gunpoint where Nur Chowdhury and Bazlul Huda pulled their sten guns and shot him dead. Before opening fire, Nur asked Mohiuddin to step aside.
   Referring to the depositions of two witnesses - Mohitul Islam, who is also the plaintiff of the case, and Mujib's chief security officer Nurul Islam, Mamun argued, 'If Mohitul and Nurul were injured in the firing by Huda, why Mohiuddin was not injured though he was also on the stairs.'
   Justice Md Abdul Aziz, a judge of the five-member Appellate Division bench, replied that Mohiuddin was trained as a soldier and knew how to save himself. 'He was not a novice like you or me.'
   Mamun replied that the stairs were too narrow to move easily. The judge said, 'Have you measured the space of the stairs? Why are you arguing on a hypothetical point?'
   Mamun claimed that he was pointing to the contradictory depositions of the witnesses. A witness in his deposition said that he had seen many signs of shooting on the stairs where Mujib's body was lying.
   'Actually, Mohiuddin had not taken part in the killings, he should not be convicted of the killings,' Mamun argued. 'Quddus had concocted the story to involve Mohiuddin in the killing.'
   The court asked Mamun to complete his argument today so that the government could start argument on Sunday.
   It had earlier heard arguments from the counsels for Bazlul Huda, Syed Faruque Rahman, Mohiuddin of the artillery, Sultan Shahriar Rashid Khan. All are now in the jail.

The Bangladesh envoys to India, United Kingdom and the United States have been elevated to the status of state minister on special consideration, an adviser to the prime minister said on Wednesday.
   'It was the desire of the prime minister to grant the status to these three envoys only…She felt this would honour the distinguished personalities appointed as diplomats,' the prime minister's adviser on the establishment ministry and administrative affairs, HT Imam told reporters after a function in the city on the day.
   When asked whether the elevated three would now continue reporting to the foreign secretary, the adviser said, the new status would not affect the existing chain of command. The status would rather help them carry out their responsibilities in a better manner, he added.
   'They will report to the ministry and their status will not affect the chain of command in the ministry,' the adviser, also a former cabinet secretary, said. Ambassador to the US, Akramul Quader, high commissioner to the UK, M Sayedur Rahman Khan and high commissioner to India, Ahmed Tariq Karim will now enjoy the status, salaries and other facilities that a state minister is entitled to, according official notifications.
   The cabinet division on October 22 issued three gazette notifications to this effect which is the first such instance in bureaucracy.

The prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, on Wednesday told the parliament that her government would consider enhancing facilities for persons with disability in all offices and public places.
   She also urged the countrymen not to neglect the disabled persons and treat them with responsibilities, tolerance and compassion, extending them a helping hand.
   The PM made her appeal, responding to a question from Awami League lawmaker Shaheen Monwara Huq during the question-answer hour of the parliament, with speaker Abdul Hamid in the chair.
   The proceedings of the third session of the ninth parliament began on Wednesday at 5-30pm after a 14-day recess with the absence of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party.
   Replying to a question from AL MP Fazle Rabbi, she said the government would consider enhancing facilities for the disabled persons in all offices and public places and reserve separate lifts for them in the Secretariat. She also said the government has a plan to identify the exact number of the disabled people in the country through a census of such citizens.
   Responding to a supplementary question from Shaheen Monwara, Hasina instructed the education ministry to extend the time for the disabled students while appearing in examinations.
   Hasina said the government also plans to set up a Disabled Training Institute in each district to help the disabled people lead a normal life and establish district-based specialized schools for autistic and intellectually retarded children.
   The government will set up hostels for the visually impaired children, shelter homes and training centers for autistic children and rehabilitation and recovery centers for the disabled in the northern districts, she informed the House.
   The prime minister, responding to a star-marked question of absent BNP lawmaker Abul Khayer Bhuiyan, said that the government has planned construction of flyovers, underground railway, elevated railway or circular railway, overpasses at railway level crossings, orbital waterways surrounding the capital city and roads to solve the transportation system and free Dhaka city from traffic congestions.
   Hasina also informed the House that a plan was in implementation stage to increase the number of public buses on the city routes to carry more passengers. The government also plans to reduce the number of small vehicles, including commercially operated three-wheelers.
   Responding to a supplementary from AL MP Mollah Jalal Uddin, she informed the House that she had proposed at the recently concluded 'All European Development Days' conference in Swedish capital Stockholm for creating an international fund for the developing countries which would be affected by the adverse impact of climate change.
   'The developing countries are the worst sufferers of climate change for which they are not responsible but the developed countries are,' she said, adding that the global fund should be utilized exclusively for the developing countries, which will be the worst sufferers of climate change.
   Hasina said her government has been attaching importance to river dredging, construction of embankments and afforestation to face the challenges of climate change and urged people to remain alert and get prepared to face any adverse impacts of climate change.
   Responding to another supplementary question from Jalal Uddin, she said the government is examining the possibilities of creating Bangladesh as a 'tourist destination' through regional cooperation with neighbouring India, Nepal and Bhutan.
   Besides, Hasina informed the House that her government's 16-point initiative includes development of tourism industry, formation of a Tourism Promotion Council, creation of special tourism areas for foreign tourists, formation of special tourist police force and a coordinated plan for maintaining the Sundarbans forest.
   Responding to a question from ruling party lawmaker Golam Faruq Khondoker Prince, she told the House that the government is going to formulate a new education policy for modernizing the education system and make it time-befitting.

French deputy prime minister Jean-Louis Borloo, also minister for ecology, energy, sustainable development and land planning, arrives in Dhaka on a daylong visit today.
   He will discuss issues related to the forthcoming climate change conference scheduled for December in Copenhagen, foreign ministry officials said.
   Borloo, who will be leading a 12-member delegation, is scheduled to meet the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, foreign minister Dipu Moni, food and disaster management minister Abdur Razzak and state minister for environment and forest Hassan Mahmud.
   Borloo will present his government's position on climate change negotiations, especially for the least developed countries, as Bangladesh plays an important role in this group.
   He will discuss the need for Copenhagen to agree to a 'climate justice plan' to finance the adaptation and sustainable development for developing countries.
   Borloo has been successful in developing a strategy for France by taking a series of measures to address climate change threat in France.
   His ministry has stressed the need for building new-energy efficient housing, positive-energy buildings, and undertaking programmes to promote renewable energy and developing eco-city centres.
   Introduction of pollution-free transport system with the development of clean vehicles, railway network and the protection of biodiversity, establishment of ecological agriculture and improvement in water quality are high on the agenda of his ministry.

The mural of the late president Ziaur Rahman in the auditorium of Sher-e-Bangla Medical College in Barisal was damaged allegedly by the ruling party's physicians' forum Swadhinata Chikitsak Parishad on Wednesday.
   The college principal, Syed Zahid Hossain and the college hospital director Dhirendra Nath Sardar said they had received the allegation and would investigate the matter.
   Witnesses said the physicians' forum damaged the mural at the auditorium entrance, pasted coloured papers on it and wrote on the papers slogans alleging Ziaur to have been involved in the killing of the country's founding president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
   The forum leaders held a gathering of its panel candidates for Bangladesh Medical Association election on Wednesday and damaged the mural, BNP leaders said.
   BNP lawmaker Majibor Rahman Sarwar, city unit BNP convener Mahmud Golam Salek, city unit BNP joint convener Ahsan Habib Kamal, former BNP lawmaker Bilkis Akhter Jahan Shirin, and front organisation leaders in separate statements condemned the incident and demanded punishment for the people responsible for it.
   The college vice-principal, Abrar Ahmed, also president of the college unit Swadhinata Chikitsak Parishad, brushed aside the allegation and said they did not knew who had done this. He also he wanted the incident to be investigated.

The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party's secretary general, Khandaker Delwar Hossain said on Wednesday the chances for the opposition's return to the parliament was diminishing because of the government's 'autocratic attitude.'
   'The lawmakers of our party could not join the parliament session as the government vitiated the atmosphere in and outside the parliament by its autocratic behaviour with the people and the leaders and activists of the opposition,' Khandaker Delwar Hossain said at a press briefing at the party chairperson's Gulshan office in the morning.
   The third session of the parliament resumed Wednesday afternoon after a two-week recess. The lawmakers of BNP have refrained from joining the house over a seating arrangement dispute.
   Delwar said the BNP lawmakers had attended the house from the first sitting but the ruling party created an atmosphere in and outside the house so that the opposition MPs did not participate in the proceedings.
   He alleged that the government and the ruling party were trying to unleash a 'reign of terror' by repression on the opposition and the people.
   He called on the government not to force the opposition to go for a movement. 'Lies, conspiracies, repression and fascist activities never bring good results. Good sense should prevail in you [government]. Do not compel us to go for movement,' he said.
   He censured the government for deteriorating law and order and filing 'new' and 'false' cases against the leaders and activists of the opposition. 'The attitude of the government towards the opposition parties has created an impression among the people that the government does not believe in democracy at all. It seems they [ruling party] are considering themselves as the last the government.'
   The BNP leader accused the prime minister of making a 'false' statement on October 17 about the distribution of the front row seats to the left of the speaker in the parliament.
   'We had given all 10 front-row seats to the left of the speaker in the house [to the opposition]. Eight seats were given to the Awami League lawmakers and two to lawmakers of the Jatiya Party,' he said. 'No treasury bench lawmaker sat in the front row to the left of the speaker.'
   The prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, said at a conference at Bangabandhu Conference Centre on October 17 that the opposition had refrained from joining the house for 'only one or two seats'. 'Why do they [BNP-led alliance] want what they did not give us,' she said.
   Leaders of the BNP and its associate bodies, MK Anwar, Osman Faruk, Barkat Ullah Bulu, Khairul Kabir Khokon and party chairperson's press secretary Maruf Kamal Khan were present at the briefing.
   Jatiyatabadi Juba Dal, associate organisation for youths of the BNP, on Wednesday announced a two-day programme in protest against filing of 'false' cases against BNP's senior joint secretary general Tarique Rahman.
   The announcement was made at a meeting organised by Juba Dal at the city's Mahanagar Natyamancha marking the 31st founding anniversary of the organisation.
   The meeting, presided over by Barkat Ullah Bulu, was addressed, among others, by BNP secretary general Khandaker Delwar Hossain, joint secretaries general Mirza Abbas and Goyeshwar Chandra Roy and Juba Dal secretary Syed Moazzem Hossain Alal.
   Bulu said Juba Dal would stage countrywide protests and demonstrations on October 31 in all district and divisional headquarters on November 2.
   He said the organisation would also hold a large gathering in Dhaka soon in protest at filing of 'false' case against Tarique.

Today the Power Development Board will open the tenders for installation of eight much-hyped rental power plants, for which PDB has sold more than 117 tender documents, mostly to inexperienced companies.
   The interested bidders who purchased the tenders for oil-based power plants are expected to submit their bids today, the last day for the submission of bids.
   ‘The PDB will open the tenders at 11:30am after the bidders submit the tenders before the deadline of 11:00am,’ said an official.
   Energy officials said that an ‘unusually’ high number of tender documents was sold as the government relaxed tender specifications to allow participation of more bidders so that many inexperienced entrepreneurs, who are close to the ruling party, could participate in the bidding.
   The PDB on September 9 invited tenders for installation of four diesel-based and four furnace oil-based plants on the Build-Own-Operate basis and started selling tenders from September 10 and set the initial deadline at October 22.
   In its tenders the PDB relaxed some provisions, especially that of the experience of power companies.
   The country will purchase 530MW of costly electricity for three to five years from these plants once they are installed.
   The PDB, under pressure from the government, on October 15 extended the deadline for the purchase and submission of tender documents till October 29, and relaxed the tender specifications again by allowing captive power plant owners to participate in the bidding.
   ‘Around 70 tender documents were sold before the PDB relaxed the tender specifications for allowing captive power plant owners [who install very small power plants for their own industries] to participate. But after the provision of experience was relaxed, more then 40 documents were sold in a few days only,’ said a source.
   ‘The government asked PDB to allow captive plant owners to participate in the bidding, probably to benefit the businessmen close to the ruling party,’ he alleged.
   The cost of each document was Tk 35,000.
   Although a bidder can submit bids for all the eight power plants, s/he will not get work-order for installation of more than two plants even if s/he becomes the lowest bidder for all the power plants.
   The government took the initiative to install the costly rental power plants in a bid to add around 530MW of electricity to the national grid on an emergency basis.
   The diesel-based rental power plants are scheduled to be installed by only 120 days, by March 2010, while the furnace oil-based plants are supposed to be installed by August 2010.
   Many power officials, however, are sceptical about the installation of the plants in such a short time as many inexperienced companies are lobbying to get the work-orders.

The seventh pay scale implementation committee is likely to place its recommendations for the new salary structure of nearly 1.2 million government servants before the Cabinet on November 9, said official sources.
   ‘We have already prepared the recommendations and have pointed out three options,’ said an official engaged in the process.
   The new pay scale has suggested increase in all kinds of allowances by 25 per cent, to be effective from July 1 of this year. The government has allocated Tk 31.46 billion in the current budget for implementation of the new pay scale.
   The official said they had not received clearance from the finance minister AMA Muhith to send the recommendations to the Cabinet on November 2, so it is likely to be sent in the following meeting scheduled for November 9.
   The committee, headed by the cabinet secretary in the first option, has suggested that the highest salary should be Tk 40,000 and the lowest Tk 4,100 for the government officials and employees.
   In the second option, Tk 38,000 has been suggested as the highest and Tk 3,950 the lowest salary.
   The third and the last option’s highest salary is Tk 36,500 and the lowest Tk 3,800.
   Sources in the implementation committee said that the finance minister prefers to place the first option for approval in the Cabinet meeting on 9 November.
   The interim government on 1 September, 2008 formed the National Pay Commission with former finance secretary M Mustafizur Rahman as its chairman.
   The commission recommended Tk 45,000 as the highest salary and Tk 4,000 as the lowest.
   The present [sixth] pay scale of the government servants, implemented in January 2005, has 20 pay levels, with the highest salary being Tk 23,000 and the lowest Tk 2,400.

India said on Wednesday it wanted to see China as a ‘partner’ while the Asian giants stake out a global role, a day after their foreign ministers met to defuse spiralling tensions over a festering border dispute.
   But the two sides appeared to sidestep several contentious issues in a bilateral meeting on Tuesday, including visa policy and Beijing’s support for projects in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, which India claims.
   Both sides are trying to rein in rising rhetoric over reports of troop mobilisation along the border and more recently a planned visit by the Dalai Lama to an Indian state Beijing claims, stoking fears the rivalry could spiral out of control.
   Each side claims vast swathes of the other’s territory along their 3,500-km Himalayan boundary, leading to occasional charges of border incursions.
   ‘It (the border) is not delineated. As a result there could be incursions once in a while but nothing to be alarmed about,’ the Indian foreign minister, SM Krishna told reporters. ‘The effort is to take the relationship to the level of being partners.’
   Krishna said India did not raise the issue of Chinese projects inside Pakistani Kashmir, while the Chinese defended their stand on a separate visa policy for Indians.
   New Delhi sees a Chinese move to issue visas on loose sheets to Indian Kashmiris as an attempt to undermine its rule over the region that is at the core of its rivalry with Pakistan.
   Differences also remained over the Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama’s visit to Arunachal Pradesh. Beijing sees the Dalai Lama’s trip as encouraging the Tibetan struggle by undermining Chinese territorial integrity.
   India has been home to the Dalai Lama since he fled a failed Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule in 1959.
   The two sides, which vie for resource and influence in Africa and Asia, have an experts forum which has held 13 rounds of border negotiations. But little progress has been achieved. The two sides fought a brief war in 1962 over their border disputes.

It will be ‘impossible’ to conclude a comprehensive climate treaty in Copenhagen in December, but a strong political deal is still a must, the UN’s top climate official said Wednesday.
   ‘It is physically impossible under any scenario to complete every detail of a treaty in Copenhagen,’ said Yvo de Boer, executive director of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
   ‘But Copenhagen can and must agree to the political essentials that will make a long-term response to climate change clear, possible, realistic and well defined,’ he told journalists by phone.
   The December 7-18 meeting in the Danish capital of negotiators from 192 countries ‘must see the end of negotiation and the beginning of technical process to work out all the details,’ de Boer said.
   A final, five-day session of preliminary low-level talks within the UN framework will take place in Barcelona starting Monday.
   In order to succeed, Copenhagen would have to bring ‘absolute clarity’ on four key points, all of which remain essentially stalemated barely a month ahead of the December conference, de Boer said.
   The meeting must decide by how much rich countries will cut greenhouse emissions by 2020 and 2050, and what major developing nations — including China, India, Brazil, Mexico and Indonesia — will do to limit growth of their emissions, he said.

The criminal investigation department of police on Wednesday quizzed Shamshul Islam, a former deputy inspector general (special branch) of police, in connection with Chittagong arms haul case of April 2, 2004.
   The investigation officer in the case, CID officer Mohammed Moniruzzaman, told New Age the former DIG reached their Dampara office at 10:45 am on a summon and they quizzed him till 4:30 pm.
   The IO said they wanted to know from Shamshul, who was a member of the official investigation committee headed by the then home secretary Omar Fareque, about submission of the probe report without unearthing the mystery behind the arms shipment.
    The IO quoted him as saying that the report was submitted without unearthing the mystery behind the incident due to the hastiness of the committee chief.
   Earlier, the CID quizzed former home secretary Omar Fareque in connection with the sensational arms haul case on October 3, former industry secretary Nurul Amin on July 27 and former chairman of Bangladesh Chemical Industries Corporation retired major general Imamuzzaman on July 26.
   They also quizzed a former deputy commissioner, a former assistant commissioner and a former officer in change, also the plaintiff in the case, of Chittagong Metropolitan Police in this connection on July 30.
   Police recovered a total of 4,930 different types of sophisticated firearms, 27,020 grenades, 840 rocket launchers, 300 accessories of rocket launchers, 2,000 grenade launching tubes, 6,392 magazines and 11,40,520 bullets, while those were being offloaded on 10 trucks from two engine boats at the CUFL jetty on April 2, 2004.

The Raiganj upazila administration in Sirajganj imposed Section 144 on Wednesday in the Raiganj bus-stop area where both the ruling Awami League and the main opposition BNP organised their meetings at the same time.
   Raiganj upazila nirbahi officer Md Abdul Ahad said he had issued the order of 144 from 3:00pm to 8:00pm in the Raiganj bus-stop area considering the law and order situation as both the AL and BNP called their protest meeting at the same place simultaneously.

The Reporters Without Borders, a French-based organisation working for freedom of the press, demanded that the Bangladesh government should punish the Rapid Action Battalion personnel who tortured New Age reporter FM Masum in custody.
   It also asked the government to give the security forces clear instructions to stop mistreatment to journalists and human rights activists.
   ‘The torturers must be punished and Masum must be compensated,’ Reporters Without Borders said in a statement issued from its headquarters in Paris on Monday.
   ‘But more importantly, the government must give the security forces, including the RAB, clear instructions to put a stop to arbitrary arrests and mistreatment of journalists and human rights activists,’ it called on the civilian and military authorities in Dhaka.
   Members of a RAB unit identified as RAB-10 entered Masum’s home on 22 October and tortured him while others pretended to discover drugs there. They then took him to their headquarters at Dhalpur and held him for about 10 hours. They tortured him and threatened to kill him with the aim to extract a confession.
   Masum told the Reporters Without Borders from his hospital bed that he thought he would take months to recover from his injuries.
   He said the police officers vented on him the rage they felt towards New Age editor Nurul Kabir.
   Reporters Without Borders also said Hasibur Rahman Bilu, the Daily Star’s correspondent in the northern city of Bogra, was held for several hours on trumped-up charges on 19 October.
   Bangladesh made progress in more than 10 places in the latest Reporters Without Borders press freedom index but it is still in the bottom third (121st out of 175 countries).

Prime minister’s economic affairs adviser Mashiur Rahman has asked the newly appointment chairman of the Sonali Bank to curb ‘extortion’ by leaders of the ruling Awami League-backed Collective Barging Agents, official sources said.
   He also said stern
   punitive actions will be taken against the extortionists.
   The prime minister’s economic affairs adviser last week sent a letter to the chairman of Sonali Bank and the same letter was also sent to the finance ministry, officials said.
   ‘Some of the CBA leaders are collecting money from the temporary staffs of the bank alluring them to make their jobs permanent,’ a Sonali Bank official told New Age.
   The officials also said the temporary staff of the bank would now need to pay no money to make their jobs permanent as the process would be completed legally and in a transparent manner.
   At present, around one thousand temporary staff and employees of the bank are expectant to make their jobs permanent. Their salaries range from Tk 4,380 to Tk 5,100.
   When contacted on Wednesday, Mahommad Kamaluddin, president, and Shiekh Jamaluddin, general secretary of the AL-backed employees’ union of the bank, denied the allegation of taking money from the staff in the name of making their jobs permanent.
   They also said opposition camp people of the union have been indulging in such ‘dirty works for damaging the image of them’.