Boishakh 5, 1421 Jamadius Sani 17, 1435 Regd. No. DA 6238 Vol 2, No 19
FRIDAY, APRIL 18, 2014 | www.dhakatribune.com
20 pages plus 32-page weekend supplement | Price: Tk10
WT | ADDA CRUCIBLE THAT FORGED HISTORY 7 | WHAT WERE UPAZILA POLLS ALL ABOUT? 14 | BALE STUNNER SEALS CUP JOY FOR REAL
B1 | BIMAN SET TO REOPEN ROUTES
Police yet to make substantial progress Rizwana says she had been issued threats following husband’s abduction Sarkar with our n Kailash correspondent in Narayanganj Despite continuing efforts to find clues behind the abduction of the BELA chief’s husband, law enforcers are yet to make any substantial progress in solving the case, although more than 24 hours had passed since the kidnapping. Syeda Rizwana Hasan, the executive director of the Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (BELA), meanwhile, said she had been issued threats twice over phone following the abduction of husband. She made the claim while talking to reporters after visiting the office of the Detective Branch at the capital’s Minto Road yesterday afternoon. However, she refused to disclose details for the sake of the ongoing investigation. Replying to a query, Rizwana said: “Those who were affected financially for my pro-environmental activities may be involved in the abduction. Some housing estate business organisations are among the suspects’ list.” On the other hand, after going through CCTV footage of the toll plaza at the Mayor Hanif Flyover, the police were able to verify that the abductors of Rizwana’s husband, Abu Bakar Siddique, had entered the capital through the flyover. However, the number plate on the blue-coloured microbus used by the abductors turned out to be a fake one, police sources said. “Watching the video footages captured by the CCTV cameras of the Gulistan-Jatrabari flyover’s toll plaza, we have become sure that the vehicle entered the capital through the eastern end of the flyover. But we could not be
INSIDE News
3 Activities at the Bangladesh Institute of Research & Rehabilitation in Diabetes, Endocrine and Metabolic Disorders (Birdem) returned to a normalcy yesterday as its doctors joined their workplace after ending a two-day work abstention. 5 With the peak time for diarrhoeal diseases currently ongoing, the ICDDRB has been facing difficulties to treat patients without the use of its self-produced rice and oral saline, the manufacturing of which was suspended following recent recovery of fake saline products in the capital.
Nation
6 Railway land, valued about Tk 1000 crore, has been dispossessed for 30 years in Sirajganj but no effective step has yet been taken to reclaim it.
International
9 Strong currents, rain and bad visibility hampered an increasingly anxious search yesterday for 287 passengers, many thought to be high school students, still missing more than a day after their ferry flipped onto its side and sank in cold waters off the southern coast of South Korea.
Op-Ed
11 Inflation in Bangladesh has remained at a moderate single-digit level, despite a recent rise due to a cost-push from supply disruptions and wage increases.
Entertainment
12 The three-day long Bangladesh Cartoon Fest 2014 concluded yesterday at Drik gallery in the capital with the mass visit of viewers and cartoon lovers and the participation of 40 professional and amateur cartoonists of the country.
The Police Headquarters yesterday formed a five-member committee consisting officials from the police, Rapid
Prominent environmental activist Syeda Rizwana Hasan, whose husband was abducted in Narayanganj by unidentified miscreants on Wednesday, has urged the government to ensure that her husband was safely returned to the family. Addressing a press conference at the capital’s Brac Centre Inn, the chief executive of the Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association said she was yet to receive any information from the law enforcers that would make her “hopeful,” but added that there was also nothing that would cause her to lose hope in finding her husband, Abu Bakar Siddique. Without mentioning any name of an individual or a company that might have been behind the abduction, Rizwana requested law enforcers to keep in mind the people who had incurred losses as a result of her legal battles on environmental issues. Mentioning that Siddique might have abducted by a quarter who sought revenge against her, Rizwana, who is a winner of the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay award, said: “My husband does not have any role in my professional activities.” She also made it clear that she was yet to receive any call demanding ransom. Without disclosing any details for the sake of the ongoing investigation, Rizwana said she had received some clues which have been passed on to the authorities concerned. Present at the press conference, Sultana Kamal, executive director
PAGE 2 COLUMN 1
PAGE 2 COLUMN 1
Left: A CCTV capture at the toll booth of Mayor Mohammad Hanif Flyover in the capital’s Gulistan shows the microbus used to abduct AB Siddique. Right: Syeda Rizwana Hasan speaks to the media in front the DB office at the capital’s Minto Road yesterday DHAKA TRIBUNE sure whether they entered the city roads by taking left or right turns through Chankhar Pool and Bakshi Bazar, or if they sped off through the Buet campus,” said Additional Superintendent of Police in Narayanganj Mohammad Sazzadur Rahman, who is also the chief of the 12-member committee formed to accelerate the rescue operation. Syed Nurul Islam, Narayanganj police superintendent, said they had identified the number plate of the car to be Chatta Metro-17-8327; but Md Rofiqul Islam, an assistant director of Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) in Chittagong, confirmed that the number plate was a fake one.
Narayanganj Additional SP Sazzadur said they had gathered physical descriptions of some of the abductors He said: “There is no vehicle in Chittagong starting with the serial number 17. It has only vehicles between the serial 8 and 12.” Earlier on Wednesday afternoon, a gang of seven to eight armed criminals kidnapped Siddique from Fatullah on the capital’s outskirt as he was on his
way back to Dhaka from Narayanganj, leaving his driver Ripon Miah injured. Rizwana filed a case with Fatullah police station mentioning that her husband was the victim of a planned kidnapping, carried out as a revenge for her activities in favour of environmental causes.
Short-haired stout-bodied young kidnappers
Admitting that the police were yet to identify any abductor, Narayanganj Additional SP Sazzadur however said they had gathered physical descriptions of some of the abductors. Quoting driver Ripon Miah and an-
Rizwana urges government for safe rescue of her husband n Abu Bakar Siddique
other witness identified as a local workshop employee Abul Kalam, Sazzadur said: “Among the criminals, those who got down from their vehicle were aged between 28 and 35 years.” Talking to the Dhaka Tribune, both Ripon and Kalam said the criminals were stout-bodied and short-haired, while most members of the gang had been wearing T-shirts.
PHQ forms committee of police, RAB, DB
India holds biggest day of voting ‘Gonojagoron Moncho now a burden on AL’
n Reuters, Bangalore India held the biggest day of its mammoth general election yesterday, with a quarter of its 815 million-strong electorate eligible to vote during a week of fresh blows for the ruling Congress party and gains for the Hindu nationalist opposition. Narendra Modi, the prime-ministerial candidate of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has been wooing voters with promises to rescue India from its slowest economic growth in a decade and create jobs for its booming young population. In the latest large opinion poll, the BJP and its allies were forecast to win a narrow majority in the 543-seat lower house of parliament, compared to previous surveys predicting that they would fall short. Yet a decision by the Election Commission to reprimand a senior Modi aide for making speeches deemed to stir tensions with minority Muslims underlined critics’ assertions that the party is a divisive force. Voting took place in 120 constituencies across 12 states, from the fractious Himalayan region of Jammu and Kashmir - where election materials had to be airlifted to some remote polling stations - to the lush southern state of
n Emran Hossain Shaikh
Women stand in a queue to cast their vote at a polling station at Sirohi district in the desert Indian state of Rajasthan yesterday. REUTERS Karnataka whose capital is the IT and outsourcing hub Bangalore. The world’s biggest ever election is taking place in nine stages from April 7 to May 12, with results due on May 16. “We want Modi to win this time. That is why we are here early in the morning, doing our best for him,” said Preetham Prabhu, a 32-year-old software engineer who was the first to cast his vote in a polling station in a
residential suburb of Bangalore. Modi’s image remains tarnished by Hindu-Muslim riots in Gujarat, the western state where he is chief minister, on his watch 12 years ago. More than 1,000 people, most of them Muslims, were killed in the violence. Modi denies accusations that he failed to stop the riots and a Supreme Court inquiry found he had no case to PAGE 2 COLUMN 4
The ruling Awami League does not want the continuation of Gonojagoron Moncho any longer as it deems that the platform is now a liability to the government. The party bigwigs think the leaders of the Moncho are completely out of their control and this is why they want it no longer. The opinions of several leaders of the ruling party suggest that the Awami League got a big favour from the Gonojagoron Moncho on the issue of war crimes trials but at the same time it had to pay dearly for the emergence of the Hefazat-e-Islam. They held the Moncho “responsible” for the rise of the Hefazat as they think that “controversial” writes-up of many of the Moncho activists gave an opening to the Islamist fanatics to fish in troubled water. Analysing those experiences the old guard of the Awami League want to wrap up the chapter of the Gonojagoron Moncho. Moreover, if the Moncho continues its activities it will ultimately bring into the political scenario more fundamen-
Three days on, no trace of two missing students Jamil Khan and our n Mohammad correspondent in Cox’s Bazar
Three days have gone by but there have been no trace of two missing students of Ahsanullah University of Science and Technology (AUST) until yesterday, who, along with two others, had gone missing from Saint Martin’s Island on Monday after going swimming. The two are Istiaq Bin Mahmud alias Uday and Sabbir Hossain Sagoto. Earlier on Wednesday, the Coast Guard recovered two bodies. Lieutenant Quazi Harun-ur Rashid, commander of the Coast Guard’s Teknaf Station, told the Dhaka Tribune that the coast guard team, in cooperation with the local administration, was searching across the island
relentlessly for the missing students. “Besides, we are also giving mobile number to fishermen, who go to the sea by boat, so that they can call us if they find anything. We suspect we would find their bodies floating in the sea and
Red flags in danger zones to be put up, lifeguards to be appointed we have asked the coast guard team to keep combing all the channels in the sea until the bodies are recovered,” he said. The island beach management committee, meanwhile, held an emergency meeting at Cox’s Bazar district admin-
istration office yesterday around 12pm. The committee decided to appoint beach staff and lifeguards, to put up red flags in danger zones, and to distribute leaflets containing information on bathing in the beach. Earlier on Monday, 34 students of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) of AUST went to the island on an excursion and checked into Senchur Hotel. Surge pushed ten of them far away as they went swimming. Of the ten, locals and the Coast Guard managed to rescue six while two of them – Monfezul Islam and Saddam Hossain – died later in hospital. Soon after the incident, AUST students blamed the local authority for the death of their friends as there was no instruction and red flag in the area
where they went to take bath. They also said the rescue team had made long delay before starting operation. A friend of Sagoto sarcastically wrote on Facebook: “A little red cloth is much precious than six innocent lives. Our friends have lost their lives only for the mismanagement of local authority.” Farhanul Morteza Farhan, a witness to the incident and also a survivor, told the Dhaka Tribune over phone about the mismanagement and negligence of local authority. “Moreover, the rescue team acted too late.” Meanwhile, family members of Sagoto and Uday have been passing their days in agony since the accident happened. Uday is the son of Mahmud PAGE 2 COLUMN 6
talist Islamic forces like Hefazat-e-Islam creating political unrest that will be tough for the government to handle. Another major concerns of the government is the leadership of the Moncho who they think came from “NGO-based leftist groups” known as representatives of the civil society. They can spearhead anti-government campaign any time.
‘The need for Moncho has ended through the execution of Quader Molla. So I do not think the platform should continue to exist’ Talking to several leaders of the Awami league including its associated bodies it was learnt that ruling party threw its weight behind the Moncho for increasing public participation and their support for war crimes trial. Initially the government extended all kinds of support both politically and administratively. But as the voice PAGE 2 COLUMN 4
Tk10,000 crore laundered in last 10 years n Rabiul Islam An estimated figure of Tk10,000 crore was laundered by Bangladeshi human traffickers living in Middle East countries, including Iran and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), in last 10 years. “We think that the figure would not be less than Tk10,000 crore as Bangladeshi human traffickers are confining the migrants in Mideast countries and collecting money by their local agents in Bangladesh,” Criminal Investigation Department’s Additional DIG Md Shah Alam told a press conference at the CID office in the capital yesterday. PAGE 2 COLUMN 1