Archive for October 2nd, 2009
Friday, October 2nd, 2009Harkat-ul-Jihad al Islami (Huji) was the first militant group to use the remote hill areas in Chittagong for arms training.It set up training camps in the hills in the early 90s. It packed up when the law enforcers began cracking down on the militants after Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh staged countrywide serial blasts on August 17, 2005.JMB, which used to have training facilities mainly in plains, however moved to hill forests.Militant camps in the hills have become an issue much-talked about with Rapid Action Battalion's recent busting of a JMB camp in Khagrachhari.Speaking to The Daily Star about the origins of ...
(read more) Friday, October 2nd, 2009Detained Lashkar-e-Taiba leader Indian national Emadullah alias Mahbub alias Mamun had been overseeing trespassing of militants into Bangladesh and shipment of explosives.Emadullah who was arrested from the capital on Wednesday night uses at least nine pseudonyms to escape law enforcers' dragnet, Detective Branch (DB) of police at a press conference at its office yesterday said.A case has been filed against him under the passport act. He will be produced before the court today seeking a 10-day remand.DB police said Emadullah became the Bangladesh chapter chief of Pakistan-based militant organisations Lashkar-e-Taiba and Harkatul Zihadia Islamia Azadia and Indian militant outfit Asif ...
(read more) Friday, October 2nd, 2009They possess higher degrees, beautiful houses and pieces of land. They have built fine houses over the years with every touch of love and affection. Ironically, they cannot live there anymore; they have rather become residents of Bangladesh Probin Hitoishi Sangha and Jora Bigyan Protishthan in Agargaon in the capital.Sometimes, when there is no one to give company or even offer a cup of tea in the morning, even a fine beautiful house -- whether it is in the over-populated city like Dhaka or elsewhere -- may be unusable, unworthy to live in."I could not live alone in a house. ...
(read more) Friday, October 2nd, 2009Prime Minister and Awami League President Sheikh Hasina returned home yesterday after attending the 64th session of United Nations General Assembly in the United States.Thousands of leaders and activists of AL and its associate organisations gathered in front of VVIP terminal of the Zia International Airport and on the Airport road to welcome Hasina, disrupting traffic movement during the morning rush hours and causing sufferings to the commuters.Traffic movement in the airport and its adjacent roads came to a halt as the party-men kept both sides of one of the busiest thoroughfares occupied for about half an hour from 8:30am. ...
(read more) Friday, October 2nd, 2009Indonesia said yesterday it feared thousands had died in a major earthquake as exhausted rescue workers clawed through mountains of rubble with their bare hands in a race to find survivors.The first flights laden with food, medicine and body bags began arriving in the devastated region on Sumatra island as another powerful quake struck further south, causing more injuries and sparking panic.Wednesday afternoon's 7.6-magnitude quake toppled buildings and led to fires in Padang, home to nearly a million people on the coast of Sumatra, and saw the city largely without power and communications.The official death toll hit at least 770 ...
(read more) Friday, October 2nd, 2009The Kalapara schoolgirl, who was kidnapped and gang raped on September 25 and whose family had to leave home under duress, told a press conference that she was not raped but tortured by a gang.The poor girl along with her peasant father and mother addressed the hurriedly called press conference at Kalapara press club Wednesday night flanked by local Awami League leaders Rakibul Ahsan and Sultan Mahmud.Rakib, secretary of AL Kalapara upazila unit, and Mahmud, vice chairman of Kalapara upazila parishad, were the two arbitrators who set the 16 Chhatra League activists, accused of kidnap and rape, free on Sunday ...
(read more) Friday, October 2nd, 2009The government will engage intelligence agencies to prevent leakage of question papers of admission tests for public medical colleges slated for October 9, said officials.Khandaker M Shefayet Ullah, director (medical education) of the Directorate General of Health Services, yesterday told The Daily Star, “Intelligence agencies will keep a close watch from October 1 on medical coaching centres that have sprung up in the capital and other cities.”He said all medical coaching centres across the country had already been asked to suspend their activities from yesterday till October 10.A senior official of health and family welfare ministry said the move was ...
(read more) Friday, October 2nd, 2009Awami League lawmaker Muhammad Anwar Hossain of Pirojpur-3 on Wednesday allegedly assaulted and detained two officials of land revenue department at his residence in Pirojpur town for not entertaining his plea for leasing a piece of government khas land.The victims--Golam Kuddus, assistant land officer, and Zahid Hossain, sub assistant land officer of Mathbaria municipal area in Mathbaria upazila under Pirojpur--later lodged complaints with the Upazila Nirbahi Officer (UNO) against the lawmaker who was elected from Mathbaria.Md Zakir Hossain, UNO of Mathbaria, told The Daily Star that upon receipt of the complaints from the two victims he informed the deputy commissioner ...
(read more) Friday, October 2nd, 2009Two cases were filed with the Avaynagar Police Station of Jessore against 14 sugar traders last night under the Special Powers Act on charge of hoarding sugar.Besides, the Upazila Nirbahi Officer of Avaynagar M Shah Newaz was withdrawn for not cooperating with the probe committee formed to investigate the sugar hoarding, sources concerned said.District Market Officer Sujat Hossain Khan filed the case. The government has decided to cancel import and trade licences of those businessmen.Officer-in-charge of the police station Humayun Kabir told The Daily Star that soon after the case was lodged they launched a drive to arrest the accused ...
(read more) Friday, October 2nd, 2009The government has taken up a plan to harvest rain and floodwater under a Tk 25 crore project as an alternative solution to the acute water crisis in Dhaka city.Under the project about 2.5 crore litres of safe drinking water will be produced daily by purifying rain and floodwater at a plant at Goran Chadbari in Mirpur area in the city under the management of Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (Wasa).The treated water will also be supplied at a 20 percent cheaper rate, officials from Wasa said.Dhaka Wasa Board Chairman Dr Gholam Mostofa told The Daily Star Rural Development ...
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