28 Feb, 2015

Falgun 16, 1421 Jamadiul Awal 8, 1436 Regd No DA 6238 Vol 2, No 324

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2015 | www.dhakatribune.com | SECOND EDITION

16 pages plus 24-page supplement Avenue-T | Price: Tk12

AVENUE T

7 | ARTS & LETTERS

11 | OP-ED

12 | SPORT

IN BLOOM THIS YEAR

SABIDIN IBRAHIM: FOUR CENTURIES OF A FAMILY

ESAM SOHAIL: ANGELS AMONG MORTALS

PACERS LEAD THE PACK

Avijit murdered by professional killers Alleged Islamist outfit claims responsibility for the killing on Twitter

n Abid Azad

n Mohammad Jamil Khan The attack on author Avijit Roy and his wife was carried out by professional machete-wielding killers in a premeditated manner, investigators have said, adding that initial leads suggest that fundamentalist militants were behind the killing.

“Two persons took part in the killing mission that lasted around two minutes. From the spot [of the killing], we have collected two machetes and a handbag; but both of the machetes’ handles were wrapped in paper, so it was not possible to get any fingerprint from it,” Shirjaul Islam, officer-incharge of Shahbagh police station, told the Dhaka Tribune.

Quoting witnesses, the OC said the two assailants were aged between 30 and 35 years; one of them was wearing a white shirt and black trouser and the other wearing a grey coat.

“Soon after the incident, they just disappeared. The murder would not have been possible without backup support, and we are suspecting that the killers might have had other associates nearby as they had carried out the killing in a preplanned way,” Shirajul said.

Based on previous incidents and  PAGE 2 COLUMN 1

20-party calls fresh 72-hour hartal

n Mohammad Al-Masum Molla The BNP-led 20-party alliance has again called a fresh 72-hour nationwide hartal from Sunday 6am protesting killing of opposition members in the name of crossfire, mass arrests and demanding a snap poll.

BNP Joint Secretary General Salahuddin Ahmed made the announcement through a press release yesterday afternoon.

He said the 72-hour strike from Sunday 6am to Wednesday 6am would be enforced on top of the ongoing indefinite nationwide transport blockade.

On behalf of party Chairperson Khaleda Zia he also called upon party leaders and activists to observe the hartal peacefully.

The BNP-led 20-party alliance has been enforcing a non-stop nationwide blockade since January 6, in protest

Police’s responsibility questioned

Students of Dhaka University placing a banner around the Raju Memorial on the campus with slogans protesting the murder of blogger and writer Avijit Roy

Questions have been raised over police’s responsibility centring the attack on writer Avijit Roy and his wife on Dhaka University campus on Thursday night as police are deployed at several points surrounding the place of incident.

Bangla Academy had installed 40 CCTV cameras to ensure security for the Amar Ekushey Book Fair; there are also six police check posts in the area.

Witnesses said there were seven policemen on duty at the police barricade and the entrance of the Suhrawardy Udyan and the place of the incident was just 25 yards away.

They said Avijit and his wife Rafida Ahmed Bonna were returning from the book fair by a rickshaw around 9pm when three young men got off a CNGrun autorickshaw and started hacking them with machetes at Bot-tola near the TSC roundabout.

Akram Hossain, a witness, said: “The attack took place right in front of the police barricade.”

Shahbagh police station is 250 yards north of the spot; the Nilkhet police outpost on the west and the Suhrawardy Udyan on the east. There are police check posts at all the entrances to the Dhaka University campus.

SYED ZAKIR HOSSAIN

 PAGE 2 COLUMN 4

Manna’s phone records being analysed De Villiers shows stomach n for record-breaking Mohammad Jamil Khan

Apart from interrogating Nagorik Oikya Convener Mahmudur Rahman Manna detectives are now analysing his mobile phone call records.

Officials of the Detective Branch of Police have collected call detail records of Manna’s phone over last three months to get a complete data on people who he had maintained contact with and the political identities of those people.

Yesterday was the second day of Manna’s 10-day remand period. Manna, a former Awami League leader, was taken on the remand in a case filed with Gulshan police station for his alleged involvement in inciting the army to grab power.

A high official of the DB, who is involved in the interrogation, requesting anonymity said Manna was trying to evade direct answers.

Manna admitted that he had talked to BNP leader Sadeque Hossain Khoka

and some other leaders but denied the real fact, said the official.

The DB high official said Manna was plainly asked why suddenly the army

‘You have sufficient technical support, so why do you not find it out yourself?’ issue came up and who asked him to do it but Manna avoided a direct answer, saying: “You have sufficient technical support, so why do you not find it out yourself?”

Mahfuzul Islam, additional deputy commissioner of DB police, said: “We are interrogating Manna and it is going on systematically but he refused to disclose anything in details.”

During interrogation the detectives

played some audios and videos of Manna to extract information but he skirted around the main issue, Mahfuz claimed.

At present detectives are trying to collect as much information as possible about the unnamed Bangladeshi expatriate.

Manna was picked up by DB police around 3am Tuesday. His whereabouts remained untraceable until the Rapid Action Battalion disclosed the arrest early Wednesday after 21 hours of his disappearance.

A Dhaka metropolitan magistrate court on Wednesday granted the 10day remand for Manna in a case filed with Gulshan police station for allegedly “trying to instigate revolt in the armed forces.”

About interrogating Manna, DB Joint Commissioner Monirul Islam said: “We are trying to glean information from him but we need more time.”

He termed Manna an expert and crafty politicians. l

n AFP, Sydney South Africa captain AB de Villiers was laid low by illness which gave him a sleepless night before he found the perfect cure by hitting a breathtaking 162 not out in Friday’s 257-run World Cup rout of the West Indies.

De Villiers made his runs off just 66 balls as South Africa raced to the second-highest World Cup total of 408 for five, behind only the 413 for five made

by India against makeweights Bermuda in Trinidad in 2007.

It was the fastest 150 in one-day internationals and de Villiers now has the fastest fifty, hundred and 150 in ODI cricket - all coming against West Indies.

De Villiers’ century came off 52 balls, just shy of the World Cup fastest ton hit by Ireland’s Kevin O’Brien off 50 deliveries against England in Bangalore in 2011.

“I had some stomach problems last night, I didn’t eat much and had a very rough night. But the doctor gave me an  PAGE 2 COLUMN 1

 PAGE 2 COLUMN 6

REPLY TO BAN KI-MOON

A road of some sort could have changed their lives

n Mohammad Al-Masum Molla

Bakar Siddique n Abu back from Padma basin

Khaleda willing to sit for dialogue Khaleda Zia, in a reply to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, expressed her willingness to sit for talks in order to resolve the ongoing political crisis; she also highlighted negative statements ruling party leaders have been delivering regarding a possible dialogue.

She also made a point to mention her seven-point demand she had earlier made through a press statement on January 5 this year.

A member of the BNP Standing Committee has delivered the letter to the UN, a senior BNP leader confirmed the to the Dhaka Tribune last night.

On February 17, Ban had written to both Prime Minister Sheikh Hasin and the BNP chairperson, urging them to call an end to the violence and hold talks to resolve the crisis.  PAGE 2 COLUMN 6

Faruk from Char Ashariya Daho of Godagari upazila, Rajshahi, has to walk six kilometres every day from the bank of the Padma with a 30kg milk container on his head to the nearest market at Bidirpur, since there is no road link in between ABU BAKAR SIDDIQUE

Milk trader Faruk wishes that the monsoon in their area was eternal because when there is water everywhere he makes much more profit than when it is dry.

The richest and the poorest alike, residents of a shoal named Char Ashariya Daho on Padma River in Godagari upazila of Rajshahi district have to walk at least 6km for two and a half hours to reach the nearest human settlement.

That journey to the nearest human settlement is interrupted at least twice in the middle by two water bodies which have to be crossed on boats.

That is the story of the dry season.

However, during monsoon that lasts about two months, things are much easier for these people as everything

5 | News

15 | Entertainment

INSIDE

3 | News

Friends and family of slain Bangladeshi-born blogger Avijit Roy said the outspoken humanist had been receiving death threats since 2012.

CPB and BSD called upon the people of the country to form an alternative left political force to get rid of the negative politics of the two major political parties.

6 | Nation

Two years into the attack that damaged the Kansat Palli Bidyut headquarters in Chapainawabganj, the perpetrators are yet to be brought under justice.

9 | World

The Solar Impulse 2, a solar-powered plane, flies over the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi during preparations for next month’s round-the-world flight,

Celebrated actress Sohana Saba is all set to start her journey with the Indian film industry.

With the romantic-thriller ‘Shoro Ripu,’ she is going to embark on the global film fraternity.

goes under water; and therefore, reaching the nearest settlement becomes a simple half an hour journey by boat.

During dry seasons, 19-year-old Faruk Hossain begins his day at 8am by milking cattle – mainly cows and buffaloes – owned by other people.

The land of Char Ashariya Daho is not fertile enough for any crop to grow extensively. So, the inhabitants of the shoal depend on raising cattle and selling the milk for a living.

Faruk is one of those who do not have cattle of their own but still earn a living by milking other people’s cattle and carrying and selling the milk at the nearest town at a nominal profit.

The 6km-journey to the nearest settlement called Bidirpur from Ashariya Daho is not too big a distance. However, because there is nothing resembling a road out of Ashariya Daho, people –  PAGE 2 COLUMN 1

2

DHAKA TRIBUNE

News

Saturday, February 28, 2015

I don’t care, says Dr Kamal n UNB Referring to the statement of Sajeeb Wazed Joy, prime minister’s ICT affairs adviser, that he be tried for “treason,” Gano Forum President Dr Kamal Hossain yesterday said he does not care about the threat of any sedition charge.

“I do not care about the threat of any sedition charge...I have to hear the threat in 2015. It is disgraceful for me, the country and the person who uttered such words,” he told a meeting of Gano Forum at the party’s central office in the city’s Arambagh area.

Recalling that he faced sedition charges in the past, the eminent jurist said, “Pakistan tried me on sedition charges, BNP also brought the charge in 2007...

Ershad also wanted to do.”

As per media reports, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s son Sajeeb Wazed Joy on Thursday in his official Facebook page wanted that Dr Kamal Hossain, Daily Star Editor Mahfuz Anam and Nagorik Oikya

Khaleda willing to sit for dialogue

Convener Mahmudur Rahman Manna be arrested and tried for “treason.”

Pointing at Joy, Dr Kamal said he made childish comment without knowing things properly. “It’s not decent for the person like him to make such remarks... No one could have thought that he could make such remarks. It’s unfortunate for us.”

Replying to a query, Gano Forum President denied his involvement with Mahmudur Rahman Manna in anti-government conspiracy saying that he knew nothing about that.

“I was not in the country. When I returned home, he (Manna) came to me and asked to attend the procession, but I replied him that some things will have to be clarified first,” Dr Kamal said.

Saying that the telephone conversations between Manna and BNP Vice Chairman Sadeque Hossain Khoka should be investigated, “It must be investigated... we know nothing about it. I am a jurist. I got surprised hearing such things. We’re far away from such politics.” l

 PAGE 1 COLUMN 1

Osman Faruk, adviser to the BNP chairperson, held a meeting with UN officials where he spoke about the current government’s stance on possible talks, BNP’s stance, and the overall political situation of the country, party insiders revealed.

Farruk subsequently issued a press release from the USA, urging the government to hold immediate elections to meet expectations of national and international quarters.

Ruling party leaders rejected the proposal, saying the government could not speak with killers.

Since then, more than 75 people have been killed, hundreds others injured, and around thousand vehicles vandalised in the ensuing BNP-led blockade to realise demands. l

20-party calls fresh 72-hour hartal

1st National Law Students’ Conference kicks off n Tribune Report The first National Law Students’ Conference 2015 began yesterday at Nabab Nawab Ali Chowdhury Senate Bhaban of Dhaka University.

The two-day conference was participated by around 100 law students from about 23 law schools in the country as well as student leaders and organisations from the South Asian region to discuss issues on friendship, cross-border networking and regional cooperation.

The conference was organised to promote and discuss contemporary legal issues, figuring out challenges and prospects for legal education in South Asia, and creating avenues for empowerment and development of law students through service-oriented careers in the legal profession.

Justice Md Rezaul Hasan, a sitting judge at the High Court who was present as the chief guest, opened the conference yesterday. Professor Dr Begum Asma Siddiqua, former chairperson of the Department of Law at Rajshahi Uni-

versity, and Professor Dr Borhan Uddin Khan, former chairperson and dean of the Faculty of Law at Dhaka University, were present as special guests.

In his keynote speech, Professor Dr Asif Nazrul said Bangladeshi people love to talk about constitution but do not believe in its true spirit.

“Our political parties have amended the constitution at their whim with a view to clinging to power. While India and Pakistan have made some significant amendments to their constitutions such as elevating the status of the right to education (RTE) as an enforceable fundamental right from a non-enforceable social and economic right, we have deliberately closed the doors to bring about such changes in our constitution,” he added.

Louis Vanegas, chief technical adviser of the Better Work programme of International Labour Organisation in Bangladesh, explored a range of issues such as importance of maintaining proper working conditions in his speech. l

 PAGE 1 COLUMN 1

A billboard has already been put up at Bangla Motor in the capital, campaigning for Awami League leader Sayeed Khokon who got nominated for the Dhaka South City Corporation mayor election on Thursday. Electoral campaigns are not allowed before the withdrawal of nomination papers. The photo was taken yesterday SYED ZAKIR HOSSAIN

against what it said was the confinement of their party chief Khaleda Zia at her political office in the capital’s Gulshan area.

Khaleda has been staying at her Gulshan party office since January 3, ahead of a party rally that was scheduled to be held to mark the Democracy Killing Day. On January 12, the security was relaxed in front of the Gulshan office.

But Khaleda never came out; instead, she said in a press conference that she was going to stay there and the blockade would continue unless the government took the first step towards a solution.

For most of the day, the blockade and hartal enforced by the BNP-led 20-party alliance had little impact on the lives of the people on its 46th day except in a few stray incidents of violence across the country.

So far, more than 75 people have died and scores of others injured in different parts of the country during the non-stop blockade.

Meanwhile, law enforcers continued to carry out their crackdown on alleged anarchists and pickets throughout the country. l

De Villiers shows stomach for record-breaking

Police’s responsibility questioned

 PAGE 1 COLUMN 6

 PAGE 1 COLUMN 6

Moreover, the book fair was closed at 8:30pm and it was rush hour for people returning from the fair.

Thousands of people visit the fair every day and it was no different on Thursday.

Witnesses and people questioned how the assailants could have escaped the area after committing the crime amid such security and the rush of people.

Many said they had not gone forward to save the couple thinking it was an internal clash of the Bangladesh Chhatra League, the student front of the ruling Awami League, which they said often happened on the campus.

Police also have no convincing answer and clue as to how the incident happened.

Shahbagh OC Sirajul Islam said: “Police were far from the spot. When they heard about the incident they rushed to the spot.

“A group named Ansar Bangla Seven has claimed on Twitter that the killing was a victory for them. We are investigating this but primarily we think militants were behind the incident.”

He also said: “Two persons were involved in the incident. One wore a white shirt while the other a coat. They were about 30-35 years old. They took about two-three minutes to complete the mission.”

Witnesses said they saw the two attackers escaping in two different directions – one towards the Suhrawardy Udyan and the other towards the Milon Chattar.

A number of people questioned why the police could not trace the attackers from the CCTV footage; the dresses of the criminals could be bloodstained.

Police Commissioner Asaduzzaman said: “The militants proved on Thursday how desperate they can be. The police station is just beside the spot and there were policemen in front of the entrance to the book fair...policemen were at all the entrances to the campus.” l

time will be saved,” said Shahinur Alam, a cattle-owner at Char Ashariya Daho.

The shoal was created after India built the Farrakka Barrage in the upstream on the river Ganges – parts of which is known as Padma in Bangladesh. After the barrage came into effect, Padma started drying up shoals like the Char Ashariya Daho started popping up.

Golam Mostafa , chairman of the local union parishad, told the Dhaka Tribune that the village produces around 3,000 liters of milk every day. But because of the poor communication during the dry season, they have not been able to make the profit they could have.

The 40-year-old UP chairman said: “The situation has been worsening every year as the river [Padma] has been shrinking and bringing out more land to cover on foot.”

According to hydrology expert Ainun Nishat, cultivating crops is a not an option for the inhabitants of these shoals because the Padma River and its tributaries have been drying up.

Glam Miostafa also said that in recent years, many milk producers have given up their profession because they have not been able to cover up the cost.

Many of them are now working as day labourers in the big cities.

Environmental economist Dr Ahsan Uddin Ahmed said: “There is no contesting the fact that communication is a constitutional right. But while taking any development project, governments in the developing countries first consider the economic viability of these projects. As a result, people in this remote areas keep on suffering for years and their livelihoods also change.”

Dr Ahsan, who is also a panel scientist of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), suggested that the government should take steps so that these people can at least get access to the market. l

had to stop selling Avijit’s books after Farabi issued death threats to the website’s owner for selling publications by the blogger.

These three blows to the head were the injuries that eventually caused the death of Avijit, he added.

The marks suggested that the attack was done by expert hands as all the hits were three-inch deep, while the attackers also knew about the sensitive spots of the human body.

Meanwhile, before the autopsy, an inquest report was prepared by Shahbagh Sub-Inspector Subroto Goldar, who is also the officer investigating Avijit’s murder. He told the Dhaka Tribune that there were six wounds on Avijit’s body and all of the hits were made in sensitive points.

any suspect in the First Information Report, soon after filing the case he told the Dhaka Tribune: “Fundamentalist militant group is responsible for my son’s death and Jamaat-e-Islami had instigated it [the attack].”

He also expressed hopes that the government would take necessary measures to ensure exemplary punishment for the criminals.

Along with the Shahbagh police, the case is also being investigating by the Detective Branch of police.

In this regard, DB Deputy Commissioner Krishnapado Roy said they have started investigating even though they were yet to get an official order in this regard.

“Every incident is different and every incident has its own pattern. We are working, but it is tough to give any deadline [to solve the case]. But our maximum effort will be to bring out the masterminds of the killing,” he added. l

injection and I was on my way,” said de Villiers as his team recovered in emphatic style from their 130-run loss to India in Melbourne last time out.

The result was the record-equalling heaviest defeat at the World Cup alongside India’s 257-run win over Bermuda.

De Villiers demolished the West Indians with eight sixes and 17 fours and was particularly savage on his counterpart Jason Holder, clouting four sixes off the pace bowler’s final over.

South Africa moved into second place in Pool B behind India on run-rate while West Indies are fourth, also on four points but behind Ireland after their net run-rate took a battering at the SCG.

“As a team it was a very important win for us tonight,” added de Villiers.

“It was important for us to step up after the loss to India in Melbourne and show what we’re all about as a cricket team.

“After Melbourne we had a few meetings, a few good training sessions and got the boys inspired for today.”

He added: “I think the credit must go to the guys up front for setting a base. Rilee (Rossouw) inspired me and that affected how I played.”

For the West Indies, the defeat was a crushing blow, coming just three days after Chris Gayle became the first man to make a World Cup double century in the win against Zimbabwe.

Holder conceded 104 runs off his 10

overs - the fifth-most expensive return in all ODI cricket - before redeeming himself to a degree by top-scoring with 56.

“I thought we did well early in the game with the ball and keeping the run-rate down but then it got away from us,” said Holder.

“If you take away his de Villiers innings it is a totally different score but we dropped chances and psychologically chasing 400 is a huge task.

“We have some areas we need to improve on. Going forward we need to take the positives and try to go in with full confidence. We are confident we can make the quarter-finals and we need to play good cricket against India (in Perth on March 6).” l

A road of some sort could have changed their lives  PAGE 1 COLUMN 6

starting from the oldest to the youngest – have to walk this distance.

Faruk has a container that can hold up to 30 litres of milk. When that container is full every morning, he sets out for the tediously long journey on foot with a 30kg load on his head. That is what Faruk does virtually every day.

The contract between Faruk and cattle-owners goes like this: for each litre of milk Faruk pays the owners Tk20.

At Bidirpur, the milk sells for Tk30 per litre.

On the way, he needs to spend Tk40 for crossing the two rivers by boat – Tk20 for the up journey and Tk20 when he re-

turns. Moreover, carrying a 30-kilogram load over a 6km distance is not an easy task; the effort drains a lot of energy. So, Faruk spends another Tk20 for having a good meal. In total, he spends around Tk60 out of the Tk300 he earns by selling the milk at Bidirpur.

But this expenditure comes down to only about Tk20 during monsoon. The journey from Char Ashariya Daho and Bidirpur can be covered by boat at Tk10 up and Tk10 down because it is once continuous stretch of water.

As he is carrying the load by boat the entire distance, the effort is not much and Faruk can save the money he spends for a meal during dry seasons.

If the milk can be carried to the Rajshahi city some 40km away, it sells for Tk50 per litre. But that would also mean another Tk20-Tk40 in transport cost.

However, because communication is easier during monsoon, some of Faruk’s fellow milk-carriers lose their jobs as many cattle-owners carry the milk to Bidirpur on their own.

“It is really hard for us to carry the milk to the selling point during the dry season. In fact, we have to pay for this by selling the milk at a lower price. If there was a road on which vehicles could ply, we would have been able to transport much more milk because

Avijit murdered by professional killers  PAGE 1 COLUMN 1

analysing the method of the attack, the police was now investigating militant links to the killing, the OC added.

Avijit, 45, was hacked to death and his wife Rafida Ahmed Bonna, 35, was seriously injured in an attack by unidentified assailants near the TSC roundabout on Thursday night.

Bonna is currently being treated at the capital’s Square Hospital. She is reportedly in a stable, but critical condition.

Meanwhile, as per Avijit’s wishes, his body will now be handed over to the Dhaka Medical College for medical research, said the slain author’s cousin Bishnu Roy. Family sources said Avijit – a naturalised US citizen who lived in the US state of Georgia – came to Bangladesh with his wife on February 15 after two new books by him were published at the Ekushey Book Fair.

Since arriving in Dhaka, the author,

who rose to prominence with his Bangla-language blog site Mukto-mona, had been visiting the book fair every day – reportedly staying there until the end of business hours.

During this period, the perpetrators might have monitored the movement of Avijit to plan the attack, Shahbagh OC Shirajul said. An inquest report has also found that the main target of the culprits was to murder Avijit, he added.

Militant group claims responsibility

Only hours after the death of the author and blogger, the responsibility of the crime was claimed by a Twitter account reportedly belonging to “Ansar Bangla 7” - a group believed to be an Islamist outfit.

“Allahu Akbar..A great success today here in #Bangladesh. Target is Down -:here in #Dhaka,” read the tweet by the group.

“Anti-Islamic blogger US-Bengali cit-

izen Avijit Roy is assassinated in capital Dhaka due to his crime against #Islam,” another tweet also followed soon after.

Acknowledging the tweet, Ramna division’s Assistant Commissioner of police SM Shibli Noman told the Dhaka Tribune that investigators were considering militant involvement as the prime lead, as the method of attack was almost similar to the previous attacks on another blogger – Ahmed Rajib Haider – and author Prof Humayun Azad.

Also following the killing, different posts in Facebook pointed out that a cyber-bully named Farabi Shafiur Rahman had previously posted to the social networking site threatening to kill Avijit Roy. “Avijit Roy lives in America. So it is not possible to kill him now. He will be killed as soon as he returns home,” Farabi wrote in a Facebook status posted on February 9, 2014.

In 2014, an online bookstore also

Autopsy findings

The autopsy of Avijit Roy was carried out at the Dhaka Medical College yesterday, with the findings suggesting that the murder was committed by trained killers.

After the autopsy, Dr Sohel Mahmud, an associate professor of the DMC Forensic Department, told the Dhaka Tribune that there were three deep wounds on the back-right side of Avijit’s skull, indicating that he was struck with some sharp weapons like a machete.

“The distance between one injury spot to the other is half an inch, and all of the injury marks are parallel. The gashes were too deep that it directly hit the victim’s brain after breaking the skull,” said Dr Sohel.

Case filed

Avijit’s father Ajay Kumar Roy, a former professor of physics at Dhaka University, filed a case with Shahbagh police station yesterday, accusing one or more than one unidentified person.

Although Ajay Roy did not mention

DHAKA TRIBUNE

News

3

Saturday, February 28, 2015

MASS PROTEST AT DU

Immediate arrest of Avijit’s attackers demanded n Arif Ahmed

Left, Gonojagoron Moncho brings out a torch procession in the capital’s Shahbagh area yesterday protesting the murder of blogger and writer Avijit Roy; right, demanding justice for the killing of Avijit, Blogger and Online Activist Network forms a human chain right beside the spot in Dhaka University’s TSC area where the author was hacked to death by unidentified men on Thursday night RAJIB DHAR/SYED ZAKIR HOSSAIN

Avijit threatened with death since 2012 n Arif Ahmed Friends and family of slain Bangladeshi-born blogger Avijit Roy said the outspoken humanist had been receiving death threats since 2012.

An engineer by profession, Avijit rose to prominence with Bangla-language blog site Muktomona, which promoted freedom of conscience, reason and secularism.

A childhood friend, asking not to be named, said Avijit began to receive threats on numerous websites and from several Facebook accounts after the publication of “Obishwash er Darshan” in 2012.

Rokomari.com, a popular Bangladeshi e-commerce site, dropped the book from its catalogue after its owner received death threats.

The website still refrains from selling any of the nine books, mostly on

science, authored by Avijit.

In 2013, after he denounced the killing of fellow blogger Rajib Haider, Avijit was threatened with death again.

The publication of “Bishwaser Virus” in 2014 set off another round of death threats.

Extremist blogger Farabi Shafiur Rahman is one militant with whom Avijit is known to have debated online.

His exchanges with Avijit resulted in death threats against the blogger.

Farabi is known to have aired questionable views of the Qur’an to defend the books and blogs he has written.

Avijit countered Farabi’s claims with citations and references in notes and status updates posted on Facebook and on his blog, earning the wrath of Farabi and his followers.

“Avijit Roy lives in America. So it is not possible to kill him now. He will be killed as soon as he returns home,”

Farabi wrote.

Responding to his posts against “atheists,” most of Farabi’s followers said they ought to be killed to protect Islam.

Farabi’s Facebook profile has around 25,000 followers.

Avijit, a naturalised US citizen, was mortally wounded in an attack on Thursday that left his wife, Rafida Ahmed Bonya, badly injured.

In a recent Facebook post, Avijit defended atheism calling it a “rational concept to oppose any unscientific or irrational belief.”

On November 24 last year, Farabi said Avijit was not an atheist, but a Hindu.

“He acts like an atheist only to mislead the Muslim boys. To prove his neutrality, Avijit sometimes criticises the gods and goddesses of his own religion.”

In a post, the slain blogger wrote: “I am an atheist, but most of my close

friends are Muslims. I have no wrath towards them. I join them when they celebrate. I feel hurt when they are oppressed...I did it earlier and will continue to do so in the future. This is what I have learnt as a humanist.”

“Why does Farabi accuse me of something that I did not say? Because he is desperate to prove that he has vast knowledge on Islam. So he wants to prove me wrong by accusing me falsely of telling something,” Avijit wrote.

Farabi also warned Avijit of consequences for supporting Gonojagoron Moncho, a youth-based platform run by online activists who demand capital punishment for the convicted war criminals of 1971, Avijit’s friend said.

A critic of the prime minister and the ruling government, Farabi, according to a post of February 4 this year, said he had wanted to meet Mufti Jasim Uddin Rahmania, chief of Ansarullah Bangla

Team at Kashimpur jail. But he could not.

On that day, he reportedly appeared before the Dhaka Metropolitan Sessions Judge Court in the case against him.

Now on bail, Farabi, is an accused in a case filed under the ICT Act for issuing a death threat to the imam of a mosque who had performed funeral prayers for slain blogger Ahmed Rajib Haider.

Haider, an active participant of the Shahbagh movement, was labelled an atheist after he was killed on February 15, 2013.

Avijit and his wife Bonya arrived in Bangladesh on February 16 for the publication of two of his books at this year’s book fair.

He was the author of nine books and was a regular columnist on bdnews24. com. l

People from various social, cultural, professional, and political spheres gathered at Raju Bhaskarja premises in Dhaka University around 11:15am on Friday to protest the killing of blogger and writer Avijit Roy. They demanded immediate arrest of the killers and said the attack was on freedom of speech and democracy.

Mentioning the similar killings of Humayun Azad, Rajib Haider, and others by fundamentalists and militants, the speakers at the mass protest termed the attack “an unacceptable failure of the government and the state.”

Human rights activist Dr Hameeda Hossain expressed her frustation at the inactivity of police and people during the attack and stressed the need for united resistance in order to avoid repetition of such brutality.

Journalist Kamal Lohani said: “Now the task for all of us is to increase resistance against these criminals who perpetrated the heinous act.”

Professor Anwar Hossain said: “There must be a link between the ongoing anarchy in the name of BNP-Jamaat’s strike with the attack. The government cannot avoid its responsibility as it has failed to try similar crimes before.”

Human rights activist Khushi Kabir said the masterminds behind such heinous killings want to resist free thinking, independence, and a democratic atmosphere.

International Crime Tribunal Prosecutor Rana Das Gupta said the careless on-duty policemen must be brought to book and demanded immediate punishment of the attackers.

Meanwhile, Gonojagoron Moncho activists also staged a mass sit-in in front of the National museum in Shahbagh at around 10am and vowed to continue their movement until the trial of Avijit’s killers is held. l

Nasim finds Manna-Khoka’s Violence and land grabbing forced 210 indigenous link to Avijit murder families to flee the country in 2014 n Abu Hayat Mahmud

Health Minister Mohammad Nasim yesterday said Abhijit Roy was the first victim of Viber conversation plot between BNP leader Sadeq Hossain Khoka and Nagorik Oikya Convener Mahmudu Rahman Manna.

Nasim also warned BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia of dire consequence if she killed innocent people in the name of blockade and shutdowns.

Khaleda was involved in anti-state conspiracy as she was killing innocent people in collusion with militants and terrorists, he said at press conference of 14-party alliance.

The minister called Khaleda Zia the queen of militants and terrorists. She is also now a leader of petrol bombers and killers.

“You (Khaleda) have to wait only a few days to meet your tragic consequence,” Nasim cautioned.

The press conference was held after a meeting of the 14-party alliance leaders at the Awami League President and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s political office at Dhanmondi in the capital yesterday.

He said, the telephone conversation between Khoka and Manna proved that BNP was also involved in the conspiracy.

Nasim, also the spokesperson of the 14-party, put the blame of Abhijit

Roy murder on fundamentalists and militants led by the BNP-Jamaat alliance.

“In the conversation BNP leader Khoka and Nagorik Oikya Convener Manna plotted to kill several persons or students on the Dhaka University campus to create an anarchic situation in the country,” he added.

In another programme Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed said BNP Chief Khaleda Zia called a war against the country’s general people.

Criticising Khoka-Manna’s leaked conversation, Tofail said: “It proved that BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia directed Manna to plot the conspiracy in the name of political dialogue.”

“Khaleda’s conspiracy has failed and she would also miserably fail in her war against innocent people like that of Pakistan that was defeated by Bangladeshis,” he added.

Meanwhile, Food Minister Quamrul Islam yesterday said BNP’s proposal for a dialogue can be taken into consideration if it severs its relation with terrorists and militants.

“Election is the only way to go to power and the national polls will be held in the year 2019,” he vowed.

Conspiracy will bring no benefit, he said while speaking as a chief guest at a discussion organised by Bangabandhu Sangskritik Jote at Shilpakala Academy in the capital. l

n Abid Azad Two hundred and ten indigenous families fled Bangladesh in 2014 after being threatened or dispossessed of their land, a human rights report said.

In 2014, some 3,911 acres of land in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) had been taken over by state and non-state actors and another 84,647 acres were in the process of being acquired and occupied.

The report said 500 people belonging to 150 families from the Alikadam-Thanchi Hills in Bandarban district migrated to Myanmar in the face of mounting insecurity in 2014.

Moreover, at least 300 plains-dwellers belonging to 60 families left for India because of communal attacks and fears of persecution by Bangali land grabbers during 2014, the report said.

The Human Rights Report 2014, published by indigenous rights organisation, Kapaeeng Foundation, was unveiled at a launching programme on Friday at The Daily Star seminar hall in the capital.

It was presented by Pallab Chakma, editor and executive director of Kapaeeng Foundation.

The Forest Department intensified its process of acquiring more than 84,542 acres of land, declaring them reserved and protected forests, while

Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) has acquired lands in violation of the customary land rights of indigenous peoples and the provisions of the Hill District Councils Act, 1998, the report said.

According to the report, 122 indigenous women and girls were subjected to sexual and physical violence in 2014, up from 67 in 2013 “The fight for justice and the fight for rights is not only an issue for indigenous people but is an issue for all the people of the country,” the chief guest of the programme, member of the CHT Commission and executive director of Ain O Salish Kendra, Advocate Sultana Kamal, said.

“Establishing cantonments and BGB camps cannot bring peace to the CHT,” Hazera Sultana MP, member of the parliamentary caucus on indigenous people, said, adding that indigenous land rights must be secured to achieve peace.

The report also highlighted the leas-

Land grabbing and violence

Land disputes were the main motive for attacks on indigenous people, mostly perpetrated by ethnic Bangalis.

Rapes, killings, abductions and violence against women increased in 2014.

Some 102 families, including two families from the plains, were evicted from their ancestral homesteads.

Another 886 families, including 300 plains families, are currently facing eviction.

Land grabbers attacked 153 families, 89 from the plains and 64 from the CHT, in 2014 in a bid to take over land belonging to indigenous peoples.

The report said 150 indigenous people, 106 in the CHT and 44 in the plains, were implicated in false and fabricated cases.

The report said 122 indigenous women and girls were subjected to sexual and physical violence in 2014, up from 67 in 2013.

Seventy-five cases of violence against indigenous women and girls were documented in 2014, up from 48 the previous year.

In 2014, seven women and girls were killed after rape.

Twenty-one cases of rape and gang rape were reported from across the country, with 12 taking place in the CHT and the remaining nine taking place in the plains.

Rape attempts were made on 22 indigenous women and girls, and 10 women and girls were kidnapped or were attempted to be kidnapped during the reporting period.

Sixty percent of the victims or survivors were children aged between 4-18 years, and 40 percent were adults above 18 years of age.

Accord and discord

The CHT could face “uneasiness” if the government does not fully implement the Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord

by April 30, the report said.

Parbatya Chattagram Jana Samhati Samiti (PCJSS) Chairman Jyotirindra Bodhipriya Larma, known as Santu Larma, threatened last November 29 to wage a non-cooperation movement from May 1 if the government failed to fully implement the accord.

According to the PCJSS, only 25 out of 72 sections of the CHT Peace Accord had been implemented so far, the report said.

Thirty-four sections of the accord still remain totally unimplemented, while 13 sections have been only partially implemented. l

Rizvi placed on fresh 4-day remand

231 SSC candidates absent in Ctg n FM Mizanur Rahaman, Chittagong Two hundred thirty-one candidates were absent in the Secondary School Certificate (SSC) examination in Chittagong yesterday.

Chittagong Education Board Examination Controller Mohammed Mahbub Hasan said 82,862 applicants appeared at the five subjective examinations of the board, while 231 students were absent.

“None were expelled yesterday from the hall during the examination,” said Mahbub.

A Chittagong Education Board source said, this year’s SSC examination is being held at 159 exam halls, while 88,602 students are sitting for the examination.

Earlier, 238 candidates were absent during the SSC Math examination on February 20, while three candidates were expelled, including a madrasa student, and two hall secretaries were suspended due to negligence in their duties. l

ing out of thousand of acres of land under customary ownership of indigenous peoples to non-residents to establish rubber plantations.

n Md Sanaul Islam Tipu

Garment workers protest against layoffs and demand due wages in front of the National Press Club yesterday

SYED ZAKIR HOSSAIN

BNP Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi was placed on a fresh fourday remand yesterday in connection with an arson case filed with Mohammadpur police station in the capital.

Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Hasibul Haque passed the order after police produced him before the court seeking a seven-day remand in the case filed against him for arson on a vehicle near Geneva Camp at Mohammadpur on January 26.

Rizvi was produced before the court on completion of his three-

day remand in another arson case filed with the same police station.

Till now, Rizvi has been placed in a total of 21 days of remand in six cases filed with Jatrabari, Badda and Mohammadpur police stations on charges of vandalism, arson attacks and blasting cocktails during the ongoing movement of BNP-led alliance in the city. l

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Abundant prospects, but little endeavour for Mirsarai gas

Transport owners affected by blockade demand compensation

n Our Correspondent, Mirsarai

n Our Correspondent, Barisal

The borehole, to be, of the deep tubewell was ogling gaseous fuel.

Waiz Uddin was implementing a deep tube-well on the grounds of his home in Mirsarai, Chittagong. The people digging the hole suddenly smelt methane. They lit-up a matchstick and held it on the mouth of the hole – the air ignited.

When informed, the upazila chairman of the area brought along the executive officer and investigated the area.

The gas outlet was closed, subsequently, and remains so till date.

Another such incident was witnessed by the upazila nirbahi officer in the nearby Ichakhali union, at the fishery of now deceased Yusuf Chairman.

Local sources later revealed that the officer informed the district commissioner about the incidents via a memorandum (865) and advised that Ichakhali 6 and Mayani 13 union were

explored for mineral gas.

In a year since, very little has been done with regard to that advice.

In local areas of Mastanagar, Haitkandi Bapna Pukur, locals have time and again informed authorities of such incidents. In Kumira, Sitakunda, a geyser has been oozing gas through bubbles for a long time.

From Baiyarhat in Mirsarai to the bank of the Karnaphuli River in Chittagong, there are many such prospective gas exploration points. In many places of Mirsarai-Sitakundu, gas oozing out of the crust of the earth is visible through the naked eye.

The enterprise required for extracting these resources, however, is non-existent. The DGM of Chittagong Bapex, Abul Bashar, admits awareness of the prospects in the area.

A research-geologist Almgir Hossain said valuable fuels could surely be extracted by implementing deep tube-wells in strategic locations in the

vicinity. Only effort necessary is the adequately extensive exploration.

But the upazila executicve officer Ashraf Hossain expressed frustration as despite his efforts, authorities concerned have put very little endeavour forward.

When the Dhaka Tribune contacted the Bapex DGM for comment, he informed that the Bapex proposals have been put forward to the MD of the company. Special initiatives need to be taken by public policymakers to realise this potential.

He also informed that Bapex geologist Md Alamgir Hossain had conducted a field-level report at the area few years back.

The Dhaka Tribune contacted Alamgir Hossain, now the project director of the Sonakandi gas field at Noakhali, about his expert opinion on the region’s prospects.

“There are many gas points between Baroyahat, Mirsarai till the Karnaphuli.

But the mining rigs here need to be at least 400 metres deep. The equipments we have used before did not have adequate capacity.

“If higher capacity equipments are used, it more likely that an ‘unconventional reserve’ will be discovered – it’s a regular discovery in the developed world now.

“Countries like Canada, America are now extracting fuel from the source of the soil. Our region, however, is even more prospective if proper technology can be procured. Jica or Canadian cooperation could facilitate the process further,” he said.

In another silver lining, the specialist informed that even the surface temperature of the area could be used to generate electricity given the investment and technology.

The upazila executive will shortly write to the district commissioner so that necessary measures are taken, again. l

Owners of road transports damaged in political violence are yet to get any compensation in Barisal.

Leaders of Bus and Truck Owners Associations in Nathullabad and Rupatali Central Terminals made the claim.

Aftab Hossain, president of Nathullabad Bus Owners’ Association, said: “Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Wednesday handed over cheques as financial assistance to the bus, truck and other vehicle owners who were affected in the ongoing hartal and blockade programmes enforced by the BNP- led 20-party alliance.”

Kawsar Hossain Shipon, secretary of Rupatali Bus Owners’ Association said the premier distributed the cheques for Tk 4,20,65,000 to 146 owners of the 156 vehicles in the first phase at her Tejgaon office in Dhaka.

However, road transport owners of

Barisal were not included in that list, they said.

The leaders informed that at least 35 road transports on different routes have been damaged so far in the recent political violence that started on January 5.

At least six people were killed and more than 50 injured in those incidents.

Many of the victims became physically and mentally unstable, they added.

Wali Muhammad Khan, owner of Abdullah Paribahan, said blockade supporters torched his bus Dhaka MetroBa-14-78183 on the Dhaka-Kuakata route leaving six people injured on January 21.

“Police estimated a damage of Tk60 lakh in the incident but I am yet to receive any kind of compensation from any source,” said Wali.

However, Barisal Metropolitan Police Commissioner Shobol Kanti Chowdhury said they had not received any direction from the higher authority yet to assess the loss of road transports in political violence. l

CPB-BSD: Still no democracy and peace in Bangladesh

Muhith: Khaleda Zia trying to start a civil war n Our Correspondent, Sylhet

n Munir Momtaj

Finance Minister AMA Muhith yesterday claimed that BNP chief Khaleda Zia was trying to start a civil war in the country, which is why the number of murders increased in the capital.

Speaking to reporters at the district conference of Rotary International in Sylhet city yesterday, he said: “She is inciting murders in Dhaka because she wants a civil war to happen. But she will not succeed because the government will never allow it.”

He made the remark when asked about the European Union’s concern about a possible civil war in Bangladesh.

“She [Khaleda] has no collaboration with the people of the country. That is why she has no clue about the sufferings of common people. She wants to grab power by holding the people hostage through violence and hartal-blockade.”

Urging the BNP chairperson to leave the path of destruction, Muhith said: “Killing people won’t help after all. The people must get united against to resist such destructive movement and work together to uphold peace and order in the country.”

Presided over by Rotary District Governor MA Latif, the conference was further addressed by special guest and former Indian Rotary governor Nirmal Kumar Sinvi, his wife and Rotary member Dina Sinvi, and former Rotary Club governor Dr Manzurul Haque Chowdhury. l

Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB) and Bangladesher Samajtantrik Dal (BSD) called upon the people of the country to form an alternative left political force to get rid of the negative politics of the two major political parties.

The left combine of the two parties said this at a rally at the Suhrawardy Udyan in the capital yesterday.

The Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB) and Bangladesher Samajtantrik Dal (BSD) asserted that even after 40 years, Bangladesh still has no democracy and peace.

At the rally, Mujahidul Islam Selim, president of the Communist Party of Bangladesh, said: “While Awami League’s regime has become awful, the BNP regime would be worse and a Jamaat-e-Islami regime far worse. We have to come out from their rule.”

“The kind of government we have had in the last 40 years cannot bring peace to our country, and cannot change its situation,” he added.

Selim told the government: “How can our nation’s people live in peace?”

And to opposition party leader Begum Khaleda Zia, he said: “While you have the right to carry on a movement against the government, you cannot kill people in the name of movement.”

General Secretary of BSD, Khalequzzaman, said: “There has been no democracy in Bangladesh after the liberation war, and it is still absent here.”

“According to our opposition leaders, this unstable situation has been created to save people and our democracy,” added Khalequzzaman.

Organisers at the convention declared a two-day programme for March 1 to March 2, in which they will observe Tajul Day and hold a rally and mass procession in several parts of the country. l

WEATHER

DRY WEATHER SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 28 DHAKA TODAY TOMORROW SUN SETS 6:00PM SUN RISES 6:22AM FORECAST FOR TODAY 33 30 32 32 32 32 32 30

Dhaka Chittagong Rajshahi Rangpur Khulna Barisal Sylhet Cox’s Bazar

22 20 20 19 18 19 20 21

YESTERDAY’S HIGH AND LOW

34.6ºC Rajshahi

18.0ºC Teknaf

Source: Accuweather/UNB

PRAYER TIMES Fajr Sunrise Zohr Asr Magrib Esha

5:06am 6:21am 12:11am 4:23pm 6:00pm 7:16pm

SourceL IslamicFinder.org

The Communist Party of Bangladesh and the Bangladesher Samajtantrik Dal jointly hold out a rally in Suhrawardy Udyan of the capital yesterday, protesting the ongoing violence and demanding a ban on Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir RAJIB DHAR

Increase in essential processing oil a double blow for jute traders n Our Correspondent, Khulna The jute industry, which is already suffering due to the lack of raw products and the on going political violence, is further troubled with the increased price of jute batching oil (JBO).

JBO is an essential element in processing the raw jute. The jute mills mainly use the oil to soften the raw jute before it is put in a machine. The sudden rise in the price has forced the jute mills in Khulna, Jessore, Faridpur and Gopalganj to spend an extra Tk3 crore.

Though it is possible to buy the raw jute in credit, the owners must pay in advance to get the JBO.

Gazi Shahadat Hossain, owner of Crescent Jute Mills, said his factory needed about 18,000 litre of JBO in a week. The increase in the price has caused him to spend Tk7,56,000 extra in a week.

Workers of the various jute factories were worried that though the owners could manage the price hike by increasing their product prices, it would be their pay that would be affected.

The Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources on February 4 issued a notification increasing the price of JBO to Tk110 from Tk68 to check the adulteration of soya bean oil.

Meghna Oil Company Khulna depot in-charge Mahiuddin Chowdhury said:

Eight members of thieves’ gang arrested n Tarek Mahmud, Chittagong Police after an overnight drive from Thursday night till early yesterday nabbed eight members of a notorious inter-district thief-gang from Chittagong city’s Kolpolok Residential Area under Bakalia Police Station.

The arrestees are Mohammad Rubel, 18, Mohammad Siraz, 20, Mohammad Liton, 28, Mohammad Jasim, 29, Mohammad Nabi, 20, Mohammad Jewel, 18, Mohammad Kashem, 25, and Mohammad Masud, 30, police said.

According to Bakalia police station, the gang mainly target mobile and electronics shops, groceries and other roadside and residential areas’ small and middle sized business organisations in the early of the day.

They used to cover the front side of the target shop with a bed sheet while two of them used to act like that they were busy in selling and buying while

other members, behind the cover, used to broke the lock of the shop and stole valuables and cash money, said Bakalia Police Station’s Officer-in-Charge (OC) Mohammad Mohsin.

“With simple watch, people assume they are busy in shopping while none can realise that a theft is being occurred under the cover of the shopping,” he said.

The OC said they nabbed the eight members from the area in an overnight drive following on a tip-off while the 15-member gang stole valuables and cash money from about 50 shops in the city’s Halishahar, EPZ, Bakalia and Akbar Shah areas and the district’s Raozan, Anwara and Potiya upazilas.

“We are trying to nab the other members of the notorious racket,” he said; adding that a case was lodged with Bakalia Police Station in this connection. l

“JBO has the same colour as soya bean oil. Also the price was cheaper than that of any other edible oil. So some corrupt traders was mixing it with soya bean oil posing a great threat to public health. Hence the government decided to increase the price.”

Earlier, the BPC sent an official proposal to the ministry seeking equalisation of the price of JBO with that of edible oil.

JBO, after being refined at the Eastern Refinery, is distributed across the country through three state owned oil companies – the Padma, Meghna and Jamuna oil companies.

Since the price increased, the oil companies distributed about 6 lakh

62 thousand 850 litre of JBO, worth Tk2,78,39,700, to the nine jute mills of Khulna and Jessore.

In-charge of Padma Oil Company Khulna depot Anwar Hossain said supply of JBO was less in recent times due to the political violence. However, his company supplied about 6000 litre of JBO each day since February 4.

And from Meghna depot, about 13,000 litre of JBO is supplied each day.

Deputy Managing Director of Bangladesh Jute Mills Corporation and Khulna liaison officer Md Rafiqul Islam said the price hike would adversely affect the payment of salary to the workers.

“Though some corrupt business-

men is using JBO to adulterate soya bean oil, the price should be kept at an acceptable level for the sake of the sector,” he said urging the authorities to reduce the price.

However, Jahangir Alam Sabuj, general secretary of workers’ association of privately owned jute mills, said the increased price was unlikely to hit the workers since owners could now make more profit.

“One drum of JBO was sold at Tk23,500 instead of Tk17,500. The price of raw jute has also increased

by Tk200 per maund. But, the owners could now sell their products for Tk6063,000 per tonne, which is a sharp rise from Tk51,000,” he added. l

Gemcon Literary Award shortlist announced n Munir Momtaj Five books have been shortlisted for the Gemcon Sahitya Puroshkar (Literary Award) 2015. The announcement was made by Gemcon Group in a press conference at Dhaka Reporters Unity Auditorium in the capital yesterday.

The five short-listed books are: “Kaler Kopol Tawle” by Jatin Sarkar, “Immigration” by Salma Bani, “Moyur Singhashon” by Shaheen Akhtar, “Onno Ek Golpokarer Golpo Niye Golpo” by Shahaduzzaman, and “Kachhey Durer Gaan” by Prosanto Mridha.

The Gemcon Group told reports at the press conference that the recipient of this year’s award, which includes a cash prize of Tk5 lakh will be selected subsequently from this shortlist by a panel of judges.

Prominent poet and writer, Asad Chowdhury, revealed the shortlisted books. He said, “The names of the five shortlisted authors are undoubtedly important writers of our country,” Professor Biswajit Ghosh said: “The Gemcon Sahitya Puroshkar will work to

Speakers announce names of the litterateurs shortlisted for the Gemcon Literary Award 2015 in a press conference at Dhaka Reporters’ Unity yesterday MEHEDI HASAN encourage young, upcoming writers in Bangladesh.”

Speaking at the event, poet Shamim Reza, member secretary of the award committee, said, “This is the first time we are announcing the shortlist. The final selection will be done by a panel of senior writers from Bangladesh and West Bengal.”

“The main purpose of publishing the shortlisted books is to bring them

into the spotlight, so that the writers can be included in discussion by people. The Man Booker prize authorities adopted the same policy.

The Gemcon Sahitya Puroshkar 2014 recipient was Hasan Azizul Haq. Ahmed Mostofa Kamal, Zakir Talukder, Selim Al Deen, Syed Shamsul Haq and Shahidul Zahir were past recipients of the Gemcon Sahitya Puroshkar. l

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Saturday, February 28, 2015

No justice yet for Kansat Palli Bidyut office attack Correpondent, n Our Chapainawabganj Two years into the attack that damaged the Kansat Palli Bidyut headquarters in Chapainawabganj, the perpetrators are yet to be brought under justice.

Following the incident, three cases were filed and arrest warrants were also issued against a number of accused. However, police could not yet book any of them.

On February 28 of 2013, a group of activists who allegedly belonged to the BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami, went on a rampage following the verdict against war crimes accused Delwar Hossain Sayedee.

They launched an attack on the headquarters of rural electrification board vandalising, torching and stealing properties worth Tk200 crore. The attack left about 55,000 customers without electricity and halted power supply for irrigation for four months.

Data entry officer Shefali Khatun, driver Abdur Rashid and technician Mizanur Rahman witnessed the anarchy unfold before them.

Recalling the dreadful day, they said the attackers came in numbers at around 2pm. They set fire to the administrative building, power supply room, switch room, vehicles, transformers and other electrical equipment. They also did not spare the residential quarters of the employees.

Though the families managed to escape and save their lives, their houses

Chapainawabganj’s Kansat Palli Bidyut office lies in a devastated state following the attack of miscreants on February 28, 2013 FILE PHOTO were set afire, valuables were looted and they were homeless for many days.

The miscreants also fell trees and electric poles on the roads to bar fire

service from coming to the area.

Hasan Shah Nawaz, general manager of the Palli Bidyut office, said the miscreants had completely destroyed

the main administrative building, 25 residential apartments, garage, storage, power supply room, switch room and the guest house.

The power plant was partially damaged resulting in a massive power cut in Shibganj, Bholahat and Gomostapur.

No power for irrigation for four months also damaged crops in about 1,200 hectares of land. He further added that one jeep, one pick-up truck, 25 motorcycles, 20 computers and a number of transformers were also destroyed in the attack, counting the loss at Tk200 crore.

After the incident, central leaders of the 14-party alliance, including the then home minister and the state minister for energy, visited the spot and assured of arresting the perpetrators soon.

Assistant General Manager of the office Rezaul Karim filed three cases in this connection.

President of Chapainawabganj Palli Bidyut Samity Monirul Islam said those accused in the three cases had been roaming around freely but the police was yet to arrest any of them.

Prosecutor of Chapainawabganj Jabedul Haque said: “Of the three cases, chargesheet in one case has already been submitted. But the case was pending due to a leave to appeal filed by the defence. And arrest warrants have been issued in the two other cases, one of which is with the Special Tribunal court and another is with the court of Senior Judicial Magistrate.”

M M Mainul Islam, office in-charge of Shibganj police station said despite some hurdles many people were already arrested and efforts were on to arrest the warranted criminals. l

Three burnt as gas cylinder blasts in Savar n Our Correspondent, Savar

Irrigation being hampered as ruling party men block canal’s water flow

Three people received burn injuries, and five others were injured, when a gas cylinder exploded at a jewellery shop in Ashulia on Thursday night.

Bhola Das, Bhim and Nakul were burnt when the cylinder exploded at Aditya Jewellers in Ashulia’s Nischintapur.

Witnesses and the injured said the cylinder exploded with a bang when jewellery workers were trying to light a fire, leaving the three men burnt.

Locals rushed the three to Enam Medical College and Hospital in Savar.

A firefighting unit from Ashulia arrived on the scene shortly, said officerin-charge of Ashulia police station Mostafa Kamal. l

Fish farming by ruling party activists is blocking the water supply needed to irrigate Boro paddy, thereby severely damaging its cultivation, as well as endangering the local environment at the Uttar Satla area of Wazirpur upazila in Barisal.

After speaking with locals, this correspondent learned that crop-lands in the area can only be cultivated once in a year.

Hundreds of local families depend on farming the 1,200 acres of land, and fishing on open waters of the canal that flows in the area.

Recently, however, a group of influential ruling party activists, led by

n Our Correspondent, Barisal

union AL president and defeated UP chairman candidate Liton Molla, his associates Nasiruddin, Aiub Ali Mia, and others, started fish-farming by blocking the canal at Muchibari point in the area.

This action essentially stopped the natural flow of the canal, which connects to Waizirpur, Agoiljhara and Gournadi upazilas in the district.

Porimal Bain, a local farmer, said, we depend on irrigation to cultivate our boro-paddy and earn a living. Blocking the canal midway will force us to live in poverty and hunger.

The fish-farms have made some ruling party men wealthier, but it has reduced the majority of the locals to poverty, said Lal Mia, a local freedom fighter.

Vegetable farmers count losses n Our Correspondent, Thakurgaon

Despite an ample production, vegetable farmers in Thakurgaon district are counting losses because of the ongoing non-stop blockade and hartal enforced

by BNP-led 20-party on January 5.

Price of vegetables has fallen drastically in the local market. Because of an increased transport fare, the farmers are selling their products at a dirt cheap rate to the wholesalers.

During a visit to Gobinda Nagar, the largest vegetable wholesale market in the district, it was found that per kilogramme potato was selling at Tk5, cauliflower at Tk8/piece, tomato at Tk10/kg, cucumber at Tk12/kg, chillies at Tk20/kg, eggplant at Tk10/kg, carrot at Tk7/kg, onion at Tk28/kg, garlic at Tk60/kg, ginger at Tk160/kg and cabbage Tk3/piece.

Potato farmer Abdul Ali, who came to the wholesale market from Aulia-

pur union, said: “Tk10,000-12,000 was spent for producing potato on one bigha land. Now we are selling those at Tk7,000.”

Farmer Sahabul Islam said: “Tk13 is spent to produce one piece of cauliflower. Now we are selling it at Tk5-6.”

A buyer at the market, Rahmat, said Tk22,000 was the fare for one truck for carrying vegetables. After the blockade started the rate soared to Tk35,00040,000.

Truck driver Shakerullah said the owners of trucks fear to bring out their trucks on streets. So they are charging a greater fare.

He added that the drivers also charge the owners extra as they drive the trucks at night by risking their lives.

Previously they used to get a monthly salary of Tk2000 which now stands at Tk5000-8000.

Besides, the drivers have to pay extortion money to different labour or-

NEWS IN BRIEF Man jailed over child marriage in Chuadanga A mobile court jailed a man for one montha as he was going to marry his teenage girl off to a youth in Jaipur village of Damurhuda upazila, Chuadanga yesterday. Upazila Nirbahi Officer Faridur Rahman gave the verdict against Abdul Kuddus, 50. Officer-in-Charge of Damurhuda police station Rajib Hossain said Kuddus had arranged marriage ceremony of his daughter who was student of class IX with Shahin Mia, 24, son of Chand Ali, yesterday afternoon. On receiving information, the UNO rushed to the spot and gave the verdict against Kuddus. After the verdict, he was sent to jail.

– Our Correspondent, Chuadanga

15 injured in clash over land dispute in Jhenaidah At least 15 people were injured in a clash that took place between two groups of villagers over land dispute in Maharajpur village of Jhenaidah Sadar upazila yesterday. Locals police said a long-standing conflict had been prevailing over 40 bighas of land at the village between Golam Sarwar and Afjal Hossain. Yesterday morning, Sarwar went along with his relatives to reoccupy his land. At the time, Aijol and his loyalists tried to resist them and locked into a clash that left 15 people injured.

– Our Correspondent, Jhenaidah

Valuables looted from a house in Satkhira Robbers looted valuables including gold, cash and phone sets from a house at Labsha village of Sadar upazila early yesterday. Police said a gang of 7-8 robbers, equipped with sharp weapons, stormed into the house of freedom fighter Magfur Rahman Lalu by breaking open the door in the dead of night. The hoodlums took away Tk 1 lakh in cash, 24 tolas of gold ornaments and five mobile phone sets after taking the house inmates hostage at gun point.

– Our Correspondent, Satkhira

ganisations and police during night, he claimed.

“Otherwise police would not provide us with security,” he said.

Shahdat, a labour leader, said: “During the ongoing political unrest, the truck drivers and helpers are falling the victims to the arson and petrol bomb attacks. They are going out with vehicles on the streets only to earn a living.”

He added: “We do not want to charge more. But during blockade there is no other way.”

Deputy Director of Department of Agriculture Extension, Thakurgaon office, Zaherul Islam informed every year, vegetables worth Tk425 crore are produced on 12,000 hectres of land in Thakurgaon. The produced vegetables amount to 3.15 metric tonne at the end of the year. Among them, two lakh metric tonnes of vegetables are sold inside the district, rest are supplied outside the district. l

Four Sundarbans’ robbers held in Satkhira n Our Correspondent, Satkhira Rapid Action Battalion arrested four members of a robbers’ gang with arms and ammunition in Satkhira Thursday night.

The arrestees are Ziaur Rahman, 29, leader of the gang; his second in-command Masum Sardar,22, Alal Gazi,45, and Simul Hossain, 20, Rab said.

Lt Col Enamul Arif Suman, commanding officer of Rab-6, said the gang named after its chief Ziaur had been engaged in robbery in Satkhira range of west Sundarbans for long time.

Members of the gang used to collect ransom from fishermen in Sandarbans area, he said.

On the basis of the confessional statement of arrestees, the Rab team conducted drives in Kateshwar area of the deep forest and recovered nine pipe guns, three light guns, ond shot gun and seven bullets, he added. l

Abdul Huq, a minor farmer in the area, said he has 5 acres of land and boro cultivation on that land is almost damaged due to the water scarcity.

Local farmer Aiub Noor had the same story, and added that during the new and full moons, his farmland was engulfed by the regular tidal flow of the canal.

Shahid Mia, another local, said using poisonous fish-feeds for the fish farming has killed off the canal’s sweet water fish, crabs and scorpions, rotted the water, and has spread skin diseases among the residents.

We informed the upazila administration, but failed to have anything done about this situation, as those blocking the canal are influential ruling party activists, the distressed farmers said.

Hafizur Rahman, AL-backed Wazirpur UZ chairman said a decision was taken to pay every affected farmer Tk200 every day, but he is unsure whether the payments were being made or not.

Wazirpur Upazila Nirbahi Officer Sohrab Hossain said none were permitted to start a pisciculture project there by blocking the natural water flow. He will take action regarding this matter after carrying out an investigation.

Liton Molla said: “The idea behind the pisciculture project took root at a meeting held the previous year at United School with the locals, and none had opposed it. Now, however, after having invested Tk65 lakh some are going against us after seeing our probable profit margin.”

3 of a family among six die in accidents n Tribune Report At least six people were killed in separate road accidents that took place in Narayanganj, Rajshahi and Jaipurhat yesterday.

In Narayanganj, four people, including a child, were killed and four others injured as a truck rammed an auto-rickshaw at Karnagop in Rupganj upazila on Dhaka-Sylhet highway in the morning.

Of the deceased, three were identified as Kader Miah,65, Sweety Begum, wife of Sentu Miah and their son Limon,2 and the unidentified auto-rickshaw driver.

Both of them were taken to Joypurhat district hospital where the on- duty doctor declared Molin dead Police said a Dhaka-bound truck hit a Karimganj-bound auto-rickshaw carrying some brick-kiln workers from behind around 8am, leaving three people dead on the spot and five others injured.

Among the injured, one died on way to hospital while the others were admitted to Dhaka Medical College Hospital in critical condition.

In Rajshahi, a head-on collision between a truck and a motorcycle left the driver of the motorcycle dead on the spot at Bagha upazila. The deceased is Saidur Rahman, 25 is son of Rais Uddin of Chandpur of Ishwardi.

Officer in-Charge of Bagha police station Aminur Rahman said Saidur riding on a motorcycle heading towards Rajshahi from Ishwardi while the stone-laden truck coming from opposite direction collided head-on with the motorcycle in Gangarampur area, leaving him dead on the spot.

In Joipurhat, one person was killed and another injured when a sand loaded truck knocked a motorcycle at the crossing of cadet college on Joypurhat-Mollagbari road in the morning.

The motorcycle rider Abdus Sattar, 55, and passenger on the bike Molin, 22, were seriously injured in the crash.

Both of them were taken to Joypurhat district hospital where the on- duty doctor declared Molin dead. l

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Arts & Letters

Saturday, February 28, 2015

7

Untitled still Sayeeda Tahera Ahmad Black text slung on the board in the corner by your hand look like streaks of ash on a steam-covered window in the mist.

I stand two feet away, try to decipher three letters that stare back at me like cuneiform would to a layperson.

I lock eyes with the sole I. Roman numeral one am I in your little black book? I wonder what your mystery hides when I spy an L

T

n Tareq Adnan he thing about hydroplaning is that you feel it with your whole body.

To be more specific, the feeling lies in cessation. The steering wheel feels a little too loose in your hands, almost as if there is no purchase from the road - which in fact is the case. You could almost say you were floating.

The first thing I do is resist the urge to press down on the brakes. The only way to slow down would be to let the car wear out its momentum. I switch lanes though, all the way to the far right because I have a feeling I’m not the only one who might be in this predicament. The guy behind me in the shining Tundra had been keeping pace for over a mile and I really didn’t want to find out if all Toyotas have the same stellar workmanship. It’s kind of terrifying how little movement from the steering is enough to make the car change direction, the tires aren’t really touching the ground.

The rain is just ever so slightly different. Colder for one but it I feel as though it lacks that primal, tempestuous flavour. Today is not different. Heavy rain but it’s still sedate compared to the great belting slogs I’ve had to live through. If it wasn’t for the difficulty driving I probably wouldn’t even have called today all that eventful. As it is, I’m still a little cagey about going beyond the legal 65mph. I personally love it when these days roll around, the ones that quietly emasculate me and bring my many inadequacies into fluorescent relief, like my mediocre driving skills. It means I eventually end up finding some place nice to eat out at. I’ve been insecure for long enough to have predictable silver linings to look forward to.

Homage to Dhaka city

to the right, like the curve of the El train turning toward the next stop, bending at the undercurve of a sole U. Who are you to leave

(after Lucille Clifton’s ‘Homage to my hips’) Sayeeda Tahera Ahmad

me shaking my head when you never spoke of love, of you and I, and yet you write with hearts in mind, and stand by my side? l

this city is a messy city. it doesn’t seem to care about cleanliness. it doesn’t fit between a few narrow rivers, but oozes all over. this city is a wild city. it likes to do as it pleases. it likes to go where it wants. its lanes are narrow lanes its lanes are bordered by half-open drains.

I have known this city to yank me to its heart and scramble my brains. l

World’s End There is a place called World’s End in Massachusetts. It’s a reservation I think, or conservation land of some sort. Some kind of frog or insect that needs protecting. Whatever it is, it’s a stretch of swampy, wooded land on the South Shore, and it has spectacular views of the little bay and the islands, with quiet roads around it hosting small homes that haven’t yet been turned into condominiums. I’m driving there to take a look at a dead person’s house. Or specifically I’m driving down there because I need to determine whether or not the mortgage bank should keep the house or cut its losses and sell it. It’s not a glamorous job and on most days the scenic routes are the ones on private roads I drive by. World’s End is one of the few places you can go to without being part of an income bracket that regularly donates to political lobby groups.

The house itself is a ranch, those two level homes that have a second floor sunk into the ground. The land slopes downward so that the back of the house isn’t actually underground. After I park into an overgrown driveway I walk around it, dutifully noting down the clapboard sidings that have fallen into disrepair. Whatever this house was back in the day, it isn’t worth much now. The backyard ends in scree and a rocky little slip of beach that gives way to the water. I always waste time outside on assignments like this. The rain makes my work harder so I have a perfectly good excuse to dawdle.

I get inside using the lockbox some real estate agent left behind. The house has that musty smell of empty abandonment; dusty with a tinge of rot. It was carpeted once but the estate agents stripped this house bare, exposing the unsanded hardwood floors. There’s crap all over the floor, old newspapers and empty bags and cans of beer that the movers must have left behind. I can’t really picture this

place ever being inhabited. On one of the bedroom walls, in a little child’s hand is scrawled, “Rachel hates Martha.” I wish I knew Rachel. I wish I knew Martha.

I don’t like dead people’s homes. Mostly because the prerequisite for houses being homes, the furniture, the human messes and the private lives have all been quietly excised. When a person dies, especially when someone elderly, there aren’t always people left behind. What I get to see at the very end are the marks on the walls, the scuff marks where beds, or maybe tables, used to be.

I stand in the husk of the downstairs kitchen. The sink is green with mold and where the stove used to be is a gas pipe sticking out of the wall, capped and closed. The windows look out into what passes for a backyard. In this light, with the rain and the sun setting outside, the view is surreal. The falling raindrops speared with light, refracted through the dirty window panes. I know there are other houses outside, hidden behind the trees, houses that aren’t empty. People living their lives, looking out at the water, probably from their kitchens. I doesn’t feel like I’m in the same world they’re in though. I really hate my job. When I’m done I leave quickly. I feel like an intruder, I feel like I’ve somehow pissed of some remnant memory that’s still clinging to this place.

When I get to the gated entrance of the World’s End conservation nearby I drive into it. All the way to the water where the road turns around in a circle and goes back. I can’t really see the Atlantic from here. I can’t really see much of anything because of the rain. I can however appreciate the appropriateness of the name they’ve given this place. In the dusk light, in the rain, with the muddy beach and the water stretching out, the trees blocking the lights behind me, it’s hard to imagine there is another world out there. l

Four centuries of a family

N

n Sabidin Ibrahim iaz Zaman’s History of the Family is a unique book in the field of history and biography. The full title of the book is: History of the Family of Sheikh Gul Mohammad (formerly Ghumman Mal of Bhera). It is written by his humble descendant Niaz Zaman. Niaz Zaman, for several decades, has been a prolific writer in English from Bangladesh.

In the beginning of the book Napoleon Immortal by Kemble and John Murray we will get a clear picture of Napoleon’s mother returning from field while the baby Napoleon is yet to be born. What masterful and unique descriptions by them of the birth of the baby Napoleon! Over all the pages following this is a beautiful mixture of history and fiction.

History of the Family is very similar. As we know the writer herself to be one of the leading fiction writers, this book carries all the marks of her craft, yet it never appears embellished or created out of nothing. This book on family history contains all the qualities of great fiction.

Another noticeable aspect of the book is that it is full of allusions from great classics like Homer and Shakespeare. The great honesty the writer maintained in this book is that the writer not only talked about the glories of her family but also of the ignominies!

Generally, we have a notion that history books are boring, the prose is mechanical and the flow is slow. But there is no chance of that in this book. Another book of that dimension is Freedom at Midnight, which was jointly written by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre.

One of the chief characteristics of the book is its high sense of humor. It is quite refreshing that a person can make light of his own family and ancestors; mediocre writers would write a big book on the glories of his family with lavish praises and extravagant sentences.

Here, the writer wrote the glories in a journalistic manner. Sometimes we get the picture of the family conflicts, family struggles, failures at the same time of the successes.

The polygamy in the family and the famous heritage of the beautiful girls of that region are a few sides which will attract the attention of the reader. We will see that the writer made upon her own suggestions and judgments on the events that had taken place in the remote past. It becomes possible for the writers’ good command over history.

What attracts me to this book is my preconceived notion that Bengalis are fa-

mous for not having historical sense. They don’t study history well; even in their own family they can’t trace more than three or four generations, more often less than that. Here the writer is telling the stories of her family, which encompasses more than four centuries! How many family here in Bangladesh can trace their family tree to four hundred years? It will of course be very few.

If we start from the beginning we will find that it reads like a novel. Like a great storyteller, she tells the story of her family. The history begins with the acceptance of Islam by her ancestor. After accepting Islam, Ghumman Mal became Sheikh Gul Mohammad. Then the acquiring of the sword of Hussain came into the narration.

We will get an interesting information from her on the difference between Christian and Muslim swords! She says, “there is a slight difference between the sword of Islam and Christianity: The swords of Christianity were straight, and, with the transverse hilts, became crucifixes that a soldier could kiss his vows on ... the swords of Islam were curved, like the crescent which ushered in Ramazan.”

We find a clear show of integrity which is quite a mark of her personality by her statement, “We were Sheikhs, not Sayyads, Indian converts to Islam, not descendants of the Prophet.”

Mirza Rasul Beg introduced Ghumman Mal to “the beauties of Islam ... not the beauty of its women.” Ghuman Mal served Akbar’s military campaigns. Rasulpura was the name of the village that was given to him. On describing Rasulpura she says, “the area of what was Rasulpura still boasts of the most beautiful girls for miles around. Their aquiline noses and green or blue eyes are a throwback and a living testimony to the Greek armies of Alexander that marched across India and only came to a halt at the banks of the Bias.” Rasulpura is now Mohammadpura, only 12km from Attari Sham Singh in the district of Amritsar, 16 miles from Lahore.

One will find recurrent allusions to the different episodes of world history, especially the Muslim civilisation and references from world literature in the book.

To knowledgeable readers it might seem the writer is a bit showy of her command over world history and world literature, but readers like us will find a treasure in this book.

Reading this book is not merely a journey into the world of a single family, but a journey into a continent, a civilisation, and a brief introduction to world civilisations and world literature. The lover of history will find enough to treasure in this book and the lover of literature will find enough windows to see things in different lights. l

8

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Germany backs Greek extension but bailout fatigue grows n Reuters, Berlin Germany’s parliament approved an extension of Greece’s bailout yesterday but a record number of dissenters from Angela Merkel’s conservatives underscored growing scepticism in Berlin about whether a new Greek government can be trusted to deliver on its reform pledges.

With Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble promising not to let Greece “blackmail” its euro zone partners, 542 members of the Bundestag voted “yes” to the extension, while 32 opposed it and 13 abstained.

It was the biggest majority for a euro zone bailout since the crisis erupted five years ago, in part because Merkel’s year-old “grand coalition” enjoys a dominant position in the Bundestag lower house.

But 29 of the 32 “no” votes came from Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) and their sister party, the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU) – more conservative rebels than any other lower house vote.

“We Germans should do everything to keep Europe together,” said Schaeuble, the 72-year-old political veteran who has clashed repeatedly with the new leftist government in Athens, notably his Greek counterpart Yanis Varoufakis.

The parliamentary debate showed

World

Saturday, February 28, 2015

I N D O M I TA B L E

widespread misgivings about Greece.

The broader German population also grown more sceptical since Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras took power last month, with a poll this week showing only 21 percent of Germans back an extension for Greece.

“Look at Tsipras, look at Varoufakis: would you buy a used car from them?”

CDU dissident Klaus-Peter Wilsch said in parliament. The CSU said it was Athens’ “last chance” to get its act together.

Media campaign

Top-selling German daily Bild had staged a front-page campaign for a “NEIN!” in the Bundestag vote, the only big parliamentary hurdle in Europe for the four-month extension to the Greek bailout programme.

“Patience and readiness to show solidiarty with Greece is coming to an end,” read a front-page editiorial in the conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper titled “The Danger.” It said the big risk was that Greeks would misconstrue the parliament vote as a sign that all was well.

Although the extension gives the Greeks a lifeline, they face an April deadline for convincing Germany and other euro zone partners that they are serious about their reform drive. If that fails, Athens would run out of cash, likely triggering an unprecedented exit from the single currency bloc. l

Palestinian demonstrators clash with Israeli soldiers during a protest demanding the reopening of Shuhada Street in the West Bank city of Hebron yesterday

Most Americans Chinese diplomat tells West to consider see combating climate change as a Russia’s security concerns over Ukraine public show of understanding from He said the “nature and root cause” moral duty n Reuters, Beijing China for the Russian position. China of the crisis was the “game” between Western powers should take into con- Russia and Western powers, including and Russia see eye-to-eye on many inReuters, Washington n the United States and the European ternational diplomatic issues but Beisideration Russia’s legitimate security A significant majority of Americans say combating climate change is a moral issue that obligates them – and world leaders - to reduce carbon emissions, a Reuters/IPSOS poll has found.

The poll of 2,827 Americans was conducted in February to measure the impact of moral language, including interventions by Pope Francis, on the climate change debate.

In recent months, the pope has warned about the moral consequences of failing to act on rising global temperatures, which are expected to disproportionately affect the lives of the world’s poor.

The result of the poll suggests that appeals based on ethics could be key to shifting the debate over climate change in the United States, where those demanding action to reduce carbon emissions and those who resist it are often at loggerheads.

Two-thirds of respondents (66 percent) said that world leaders are morally obligated to take action to reduce CO2 emissions. And 72 percent said they were “personally morally obligated” to do what they can in their daily lives to reduce emissions.

“When climate change is viewed through a moral lens it has broader appeal,” said Eric Sapp, executive director of the American Values Network, a grassroots organisation that mobilises faith-based communities on politics and policy issues.

“The climate debate can be very intellectual at times, all about economic systems and science we don’t understand. This makes it about us, our neighbors and about doing the right thing.” l

Turkish police seal off street outside US consulate, detain suspect n Reuters, Istanbul Turkish police yesterday sealed off a street outside the US consulate in Istanbul, a Reuters witness said, and local media reported a suspect had been detained.

Dogan News Agency said police had detained a man, believed to be mentally unstable, for questioning. A police official said he was not able to immediately comment.

A US diplomat told Reuters the consulate had taken precautionary measures following a security alert.

Istanbul has been on high security alert since January, when a suicide bomber blew herself up at a police station in the historic Sultanahmet district, killing one officer and wounding another. l

concerns over Ukraine, a top Chinese diplomat has said in an unusually frank and open display of support for Moscow’s position in the crisis.

Qu Xing, China’s ambassador to Belgium, was quoted by state news agency Xinhua late on Thursday as blaming competition between Russia and the West for the Ukraine crisis, urging Western powers to “abandon the zero-sum mentality” with Russia.

Union.

He said external intervention by different powers accelerated the crisis and warned that Moscow would feel it was being treated unfairly if the West did not change its approach.

“The West should abandon the zero-sum mentality, and take the real security concerns of Russia into consideration,” Qu was quoted as saying.

His comments were an unusually

jing has generally not been so willing to back Russia over Ukraine.

China has also been cautious not to be drawn into the struggle between Russia and the West over Ukraine’s future, not wanting to alienate a key ally.

It has said it would like to continue to develop “friendly cooperation” with Ukraine, and respects the ex-Soviet state’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity. l

UK spies face questions about failure to stop ‘Jihadi John’ n AP, London British spy agencies are facing questions about how a young Londoner who was on their radar as part of terrorist investigations was able to travel to Syria and become the knife-wielding masked militant known as “Jihadi John.”

Officials have identified the man shown in hostage-beheading videos as Mohammed Emwazi, a Kuwait-born computer science graduate raised and educated in Britain.

Emwazi, now in his mid-20s, was

known to the British intelligence services since 2009, in connection with investigations into terrorism in Somalia and elsewhere.

Prime Minister David Cameron yesterday defended the security services, saying they are doing an “incredibly impressive” job keeping the country safe.

“All of the time, they are having to make incredibly difficult judgments and I think basically they make very good judgments on our behalf,” he said in Wales.

He did not mention Emwazi by

Bright lights on dwarf planet perplex NASA as probe nears n AFP, Washington The discovery of another bright light on the dwarf planet Ceres has NASA scientists perplexed as the US Dawn probe prepares to enter the orbit of the largest object in the asteroid belt and possibly resolve the mystery.

The images taken nearly 29,000 miles (46,000 kilometers) from Ceres show that a bright spot on the planet scientists previously discovered appears next to another slightly darker spot, NASA said in a news release.

The light appears in the same basin as the other spot, images released by ƒNASA show.

“This may be pointing to a volcano-like origin of the spots, but we will have to wait for better resolution before we can make such geologic interpretations,” Chris Russell from the Dawn mission said.

The Dawn probe will enter the orbit of Ceres March 6. Scientists expect to receive better views of the mystery lights as

the spacecraft closes in and spirals nearer the dwarf planet.

“The brightest spot continues to be too small to resolve with our camera, but despite its size it is brighter than anything else on Ceres. This is truly unexpected and still a mystery to us,” said scientist Andreas Nathues who is in charge of the camera.

Scientists detected water vapor emitting from Ceres in 2012 and NASA reports the surface of the body contains “water-bearing minerals.”

Launched in 2007, the Dawn probe was sent to investigate the two largest bodies in the asteroid belt, which lies between Mars and Jupiter.

Dawn explored giant asteroid Vesta starting in 2011, providing measurements and images. After 2012, the probe left Vesta’s orbit and began its journey to Ceres.

Ceres has a diameter of about 590 miles (950 kilometers) and Vesta has a diameter of about 326 miles (525 kilometers). l

name but said it was his top priority “to find these people and put them out of action.” He said anyone who commits “appalling and heinous” crimes against British citizens anywhere in the world will be tracked down.

The failure to prevent Emwazi from traveling to Syria to join extremists has highlighted the challenge that intelligence agencies across Europe face as the number of would-be jihadis grows.

Emwazi is one of a number of men from West London believed to have traveled to Syria in 2012. Several are now dead. l

AFP

Deaths shake Ukraine truce, Poroshenko wary of Russia threat n Reuters, Kiev Ukraine yesterday reported the first deaths in three days in east Ukraine, denting hopes a ceasefire will hold, and President Petro Poroshenko said Russia would pose a “military threat” even if the truce is solid.

Government troops fighting pro-Russian separatists in the east began towing artillery away from the front line on Thursday, a sign that Ukraine’s military recognised a ceasefire meant to take effect on Feb. 15 was at last holding.

But Kiev’s military later announced the deaths of three servicemen in the past 24 hours, following two full days without fatalities that had raised hopes of the truce holding.

“Even under the most optimistic scenario ... the military threat from the east would unfortunately remain,” Poroshenko said, referring indirectly to Russia in a televised speech at the National Defence University.

Kiev and Western governments have accused Russia of sending troops and weapons to support the separatists in east Ukraine, despite a peace deal agreed in the Belarussian capital Minsk on Feb. 12, but Moscow has denied this.

The situation in the conflict zone was “relatively calm” overnight, Ukrainian military spokesman Anatoly Stelmakh said, although he reported

isolated attacks by rebels on Ukrainian troop positions.

Ukraine continued to withdraw its weapons yesterday, but the army will remain on high alert in case of a new offensive from the separatists, Defence Ministry spokesman Serhiy Galushko said in a televised briefing.

“Sufficient troops and resources remain along the front line in case the terrorists and the forces supporting them violate the ceasefire,” he said.

The rebels, who committed to the truce only after seizing a strategic town in a humiliating defeat for Kiev, have been pulling back heavy weapons since Tuesday.

Kiev says it fears the rebels could be regrouping and preparing to attack Mariupol on the Sea of Azov, as capturing the port city would help open up a corridor to the Crimea peninsula which Russia annexed from Ukraine last year following the overthrow of a Moscow-leaning president in Kiev.

Military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said a convoy of GRAD missile systems and other equipment had been tracked leaving rebel-held Donetsk in the direction of Mariupol. Moscow has in turn raised doubts about Kiev’s commitment to the ceasefire and asked whether the United States and the European Union, which have imposed economic sanctions on Russia, really want the Feb. 12 peace deal to succeed. l

Fears mount for Iraq heritage after IS museum rampage n AFP, Baghdad Archaeologists expressed fears yesterday that after ransacking the Mosul museum in Iraq, Islamic State group jihadists would embark on a systematic destruction of heritage in areas under their control.

Particularly at risk are the ancient cities of Hatra, a Unesco world heritage site, and Nimrud. Both are south of Mosul, which has been the jihadists’ main hub in Iraq since June last year.

“This is not the end of the story and the international community must intervene,” said Abdelamir Hamdani, an Iraqi archaeologist at New York’s Stony Brook University.

IS released a video on Thursday showing its militants smashing ancient statues to pieces with sledgehammers at the Mosul museum. Jihadists were also seen using a jackhammer to deface a colossal Assyrian winged bull at the Nergal gate in the large archaeological park that lies in the city.

“They told the guards they would destroy Nimrud,” said Hamdani, who used to be based in Iraq with the department of antiquities.

“It is one of the very important Assyrian capitals, there are reliefs and winged bulls there... This would be a real disaster,” he told AFP by telephone from the United States.

IS released a video on Thursday showing its militants smashing ancient statues to pieces with sledgehammers at the Mosul museum “Maybe they will also attack and destroy Hatra, it is a very isolated site in the desert,” he said.

Hatra is a Unesco-listed site that lies in IS-controlled territory around 100 kilometres (60 miles) southwest of Mosul.

Unesco says the “remains of the city, especially the temples where Hellenistic and Roman architecture blend with Eastern decorative features, at-

test to the greatness of its civilisation.”

“I am afraid that more destruction is in their pipeline,” said Ihsan Fethi, an Iraqi architect and heritage expert based in Jordan.

“They could do anything, they could move to the temples in Hatra, and say they’re heathens and blow it up pretty easily. Who will stop them?,” he said.

On Thursday, IS blew up a 12th century mosque “because it housed a tomb,” Fethi said.

In the jihadists’ extreme interpretation of Islam, statues, idols and shrines are a material corruption of the purity of the early Muslim faith and amount to recognising other objects of worship than God. Their views are marginal however and most clerics, even those who promote a rigorist Islam, argue that what were idols in the day of the Prophet are now part of cultural heritage.

Unesco chief Irina Bokova said on Thursday that she had sought an emergency meeting of the Security Council following the demolitions in Mosul, which she called “intolerable” and described as a threat to Iraq’s security. l

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Somali pirates release Thailand hostages held for five years n AFP, Nairobi Four Thai fishermen held hostage by Somali pirates for nearly five years have been released, local officials said yesterday.

“We collected the four Thailand men from a remote area,” said Omar Sheikh Ali, an official in Somalia’s central Galmudug administration.

The four fishermen were among 24 crew members seized in April 2010 when pirates hijacked the Taiwan-flagged fishing vessel FV Prantalay 12.

Their nearly five-year captivity is the longest suffered by any victims of Somali piracy.

Ali said the relieved men were able to contact family members soon after their release on Wednesday.

“They called their families by phone and cried and cried and cried,” he said.

Residents of Galkayo, where the Galmudug administration is based, said a $150,000 ransom was paid but the information could not be independently verified.

“The pirates were fed up of feeding and taking care of the hostages, they had borrowed huge sums of money,” said Mohamed Abdi, a businessman in Galkayo, who was close to the negotiations.

After its capture the FV Prantalay

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THE SOLAR IMPULSE

was used as a pirate mother ship to launch attacks far out to sea before it capsised in July 2011 and the crew was taken ashore.

Of the original 24 crew members, six died from sickness at various stages during their captivity.

Another 14 crew from Myanmar were released to the government in the Somalia’s northern Puntland region in May 2011 and repatriated by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Hostage Support Programme.

The four fishermen were among 24 crew members seized in April 2010 A further 26 hostages are still being held by Somali pirates.

Piracy off the coast of Somalia reached its height in 2011 when there were 237 incidents attributed to Somali pirates and 28 vessels hijacked.

But a combination of armed onboard guards and international naval patrols have had a big impact and last year there were no successful hijackings, according to the International Maritime Bureau which tracks piracy incidents worldwide. l

The Solar Impulse 2, a solar-powered plane, flies over the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi during preparations for next month’s round-the-world flight, February 26. Swiss pilots Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg will attempt to fly around the world in the Solar Impulse 2, in a bid to prove that such a flight is possible without the use of fossil fuels.

The solar-powered plane has a wingspan of 72 metres, larger than that of a Boeing 747, but weighs only 2.3 tons, about as much as a family car. More than 17,000 solar cells on the wing power lithium-ion batteries in four electric motors. The airframe makes use of carbon fiber, which is three times lighter than paper, to keep the plane as light as possible. The 35,000 km flight is expected to take about five months, with stops in Oman, India, Myanmar, China, the United States, and in Southern Europe or North Africa depending on the weather. The Solar Impulse 2 is expected to land back in Abu Dhabi in late July or early August REUTERS

Modi: My govt’s only religion is ‘India More Hong Kong university students first,’ holy book the constitution back independence n Agencies Prime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday denounced communalism and said that nobody has right to discriminate on basis of religion.

“No one can take the law in their hands and discriminate on the grounds of community,” the Prime Minister said.

“My government’s only religion is ‘India first’,” PM Modi said.

“The only religious book is Indian Constitution, only prayer is welfare of all,” the PM added PM Modi was replying to a discussion on the motion of thanks to the president’s address in the Lok Sabha.

Earlier, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the government had “compelled” the nation to talk about black money.

“We have compelled the nation

to talk about black money. This is a big thing,” Modi said while replying to the discussion on the motion of thanks to the President’s address in the Lok Sabha.

“Our first decision in our first cabinet meeting was the decision on (forming) SIT on black money,” he said.

Modi said corruption had “ruined the nation” and the issue should not be discussed through political prism. l

P Y R O T E C H N I C S AT T H E O Z A I R S H O W

n Reuters, Hong Kong A growing number of Hong Kong students support independence for the former British colony, amid sliding confidence in the “one country, two systems” formula under which the city is governed, an online poll by a university magazine showed.

The findings come a month after Hong Kong’s embattled leader Leung

China defends its South China Sea activities n AP, Beijing

Acrobatic pilots perform on the first public day of the Australian International Airshow at the Avalon Airfield near Lara southwest of Melbourne on February 27 2015. Some 180,000 patrons were expected through the gates over three public days of the event AFP

Chun-ying warned against the rise of separatism, after parts of the city were paralysed last year by more than two months of pro-democracy protests.

About 28 percent of 569 students polled by Undergrad, a student union magazine of the University of Hong Kong (HKU), supported independence, up from 15 percent in a similar poll early last year.

Some 53 percent of respondents fa-

China defended its activities in the South China Sea as restrained and responsible yesterday after the US intelligence chief called its expansion of outposts in the region an “aggressive” effort to assert sovereignty.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said the country’s activities on shoals and in surrounding waters it claims are “reasonable, legitimate and legal” and that its attitude has been one of “restraint and responsibility.”

China says it has historical claims to a huge swath of the South Sea China that overlaps the claims of several neighbors including Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and the Philippines, and it objects to what it considers US meddling. The US says it has a national interest in the peaceful resolution of the disputes in the region.

US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper cited China’s expansion of its outposts, including for the stationing of ships and potential airfields, at a US Senate hearing in Washington on Thursday. His comments underscored US concerns about land reclamation activities that could fuel tensions between China and its neighbors.

Clapper described China’s claim to more than 80 percent of the South China Sea as “exorbitant.”

Hong said China hopes the US can be more “circumspect” regarding the issue. “No other country has a right to make unfounded accusations,” he said at a daily ministry briefing.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies said last week that Vietnam, Malaysia and Taiwan have over the years modified existing land masses in the South China Sea, and the Philippines is planning to upgrade an airport and pier on an island it occupies. l

Reunions and ransoms: a day online in Myanmar’s Rohingya camps n Reuters, Thae Chaung, Myanmar In this teeming camp for displaced Rohingya Muslims in western Myanmar, it’s easy to overlook the internet huts. The raw emotion they generate is much harder to ignore.

The huts have bamboo walls, thatched roofs and - most importantly - dusty laptop computers that allow Rohingya to reestablish contact with relatives who have left on boats for Thailand and Malaysia. The internet connection comes via cellphones jammed into the cobweb-strewn rafters.

Smoke from the camp’s cooking fires seeps in through the flimsy walls.

Sound drifts out just as easily, obliging callers to share their personal dramas with everyone nearby.

What emerges is an intimate portrait of the Rohingya, a mostly stateless people living in often grim conditions in Myanmar, where many consider them illegal immigrants. The huts also provide an insight into the human traffickers who profit from the boat-people and the families they leave behind.

Today, there is joy: Fatima, 56, is blessing her son’s choice of bride. Connected via a Skype-like app, he sits in an internet cafe in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur, where he works as a cleaner.

“Of course you must marry her, if her skin is fair,” Fatima tells him. Her son promises to introduce his sweetheart in a later call.

Other exchanges are tragic or sinister.

Many people arrive with scraps of paper with a cellphone number with a Malaysian country code. These belong to the traffickers who each year ferry thousands of Rohingya to Thailand, where they are routinely held for ransom in remote camps near the border with Malaysia.

Freedom costs $1,200 to $1,800 - a fortune for most Rohingya living on a dollar or two a day.

A trafficker is demanding $1,400 to release Rahana’s 12-year-old son. Rahana, who like many Rohingya women goes by a single name, has already sent $1,100, but the trafficker wants the balance.

At least she is allowed to talk briefly

with her son. Usually, after an initial “proof of life” call, traffickers do not let relatives speak until paid in full.

A man answers the Malaysian number Rahana calls. “Let me speak to my son,” she tells him. A few seconds pass.

Then a small voice says, “Mum?” Rahana’s eyes fills with tears and her jaw trembles. She quickly composes herself.

“I will send the money,” she tells the boy. “Then they will let you go.” After the call, Rahana is dazed and fretful.

“My son told me he was sick,” she says.

“Whenever he eats, he vomits.”

‘They trust me’

Thae Chaung was a fishing village until 2012, when ethnic Rakhine Buddhists drove thousands of Rohingya from the nearby city of Sittwe. Religious violence in Rakhine State that year killed at least 200 people and left 140,000 homeless.

Today, Thae Chaung is a grimy, overcrowded camp. For most residents, a boat to Thailand is the only way out.

All those arrivals and departures

presented Rohingya merchant Kyaw Thein, 29, with an opportunity.

Until 2012, he sold ice and gasoline to village fishermen. Now he runs a busy internet hut, charging 100 Myanmar kyat (10 cents) per minute for an overseas call on one of three battered laptops that are in almost constant use.

He provides other services too.

Rohingya working overseas routinely send money to relatives back home. This can be wired to the Sittwe bank account of a Rakhine middleman, who brings the cash to Kyaw Thein. He then gives it to the relatives - minus his 1.5 percent commission.

His windowless shack is also the conduit for thousands of dollars in ransom money.

Relatives entrust Kyaw Thein with bricks of kyat that he delivers to a Rohingya middleman in a nearby village.

He says he does not charge for this service or deal directly with the traffickers. “They trust me,” he says, “but I don’t trust them.”

In the past, Kyaw Thein says, Rohingya had to pay hundreds of dollars to board Malaysia-bound boats. Now,

they pay only a few dollars to be ferried to large ships moored far offshore.

Their onward voyage is free - because traffickers know they can extort much higher sums by detaining these boat people once they arrive in Thailand or Malaysia.

Brokers roam the Rohingya camps dotted along the Rakhine coastline, says Kyaw Thein, and get a “finder’s fee” from traffickers for each passenger they deliver.

Abdul Kadar blames these brokers for luring away his 14-year-old daughter. She left home one morning to visit a neighbour and never came back.

She is now in a camp in Thailand or Malaysia. The traffickers want $1,500 that Abdul Kadar, a whippet-thin rickshaw driver, cannot pay.

“They told me they would kick her off the top of a mountain,” he says.

Abdul Kadar told them to find a man who wants to marry her, then ask him to pay the ransom. He knows he is effectively giving them permission to sell his daughter.

“All I have are worries,” he says. “I can’t do anything.” l

vored the “one country, two systems” formula as the best political structure for Hong Kong, down from 68 percent in early 2014, according to the poll, done between Jan. 24 and Feb. 5.

In January, Leung expressed concern that universities could be incubating a separatist movement that could threaten Beijing’s sovereignty. He singled out Undergrad magazine for advocating self-determination. l

Hong Kong woman jailed for six years for abusing Indonesian maid n Reuters, Hong Kong A Hong Kong mother of two who punched her maids, beat them with mops and threatened to kill their relatives was jailed for six years yesterday in a case that triggered outrage and exposed the plight of millions of domestic helpers across Asia.

Former beautician Law Wan-tung, 44, looked stunned as the sentence was passed after being found guilty of 18 of 20 abuse charges. She was also ordered to pay a fine of HK$15,000 ($1,934).

The charges included inflicting grievous bodily harm and criminal intimidation against Erwiana Sulistyaningsih and an another maid, also from Indonesia. Law looked emotionless as she was led out of court. She had pleaded not guilty to the 20 charges but had admitted one of not buying insurance cover for her maid. l

Myanmar culls chickens, quail to contain H5N1 n Reuters, Yangon Myanmar has culled thousands of poultry to try to contain an outbreak of H5N1 bird flu in Monywa, west of the commercial centre of Mandalay, health officials said on Thursday.

The first outbreak of H5N1 in Myanmar was in the same region, about 525 miles (840 km) northwest of Yangon, in 2006 and the last outbreak was in western Rakhine State in January 2011.

The disease was brought under control and was not known to have spread to humans. An official said more than 1,400 chickens and 10,000 quail had died in the Monywa outbreak early this month and about 1,500 chickens and more than 20,000 quail had since been culled. H5N1, which first infected humans in 1997 in Hong Kong, has since spread from Asia to Europe and Africa and has become entrenched in poultry in some countries, causing millions of poultry infections and several hundred human deaths. l

10

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Editorial

Saturday, February 28, 2015

CODE-CRACKER

Bring Avijit’s killers to justice

W

e trust the police will receive widespread public support in swiftly finding and bringing to justice the killers of Avijit Roy. The brutal manner in which the writer and his wife were attacked in a highly public space at the TSC of Dhaka University on Thursday evening is chilling and despicable. We send our condolences and offer solidarity with their family and friends.

Our society must stand united against all types of violent attacks, whoever carries them out.

It is understood that three unidentified persons carried out the attack which killed Avijit and left Rafida Ahmed Bonna in a critical condition.

As the couple are known to have received threats from militant Islamists over the content of their writings and police note some similarity with the attack carried out on Professor Humayan Azad in the same area in February 2004, it seems incontrovertible the attacks were the work of such groups who had threatened time and time again to carry them out.

The government must act against those who issue death threats and incite others to kill. To do so is a crime, and often has deadly consequences.

The perpetrators must be found and held to account before the law.

Upholding rule of law is the only way to ensure justice and reassure all citizens that there will be no tolerance of violent extremism.

The government must do more to take action against those who threaten or incite deadly violence. Waiting until after they have acted is too late.

Reassure all citizens that there will be no tolerance of violent extremism

Make BRTA answerable for failure to inspect

T

here is no justifiable excuse for the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority failing to make operational five automatic vehicle inspection centres it established in 2000.

Except for initial test runs, the automated facilities which were set up to speed the process of checking road worthiness and vehicle fitness at a cost of Tk40cr, have remained unused for over 14 years.

It shows an astonishing disregard for responsibility in spending public money, for the BRTA still to be blaming a lack of skilled operators and software glitches for the delay in using these facilities. This is particularly so given that a PPP contract was signed in 2008 to make them operational.

If contractors and suppliers have been failing in their obligations to make these usable, they need to be held to account.

More importantly, the BRTA needs to be made answerable to the public about the widespread failings inherent in the system for ensuring vehicle fitness.

Periodic high profile drives against unfit and unlicensed vehicles are not enough to deter irresponsible vehicle owners and operators, when collusion by corrupt officials helps foster a culture of poor compliance with vehicle fitness regulations.

BRTA has to become more efficient in fulfilling its duty to properly register vehicles and ensure the monitoring and provision of fitness certificates for all vehicles on our roads.

With IT systems making it easy to log and track vehicle maintenance records, there is no reason why BRTA can not overhaul its systems to ensure proper compliance. The public expects nothing less.

Overhaul the system to ensure vehicle fitness

Be heard Write to Dhaka Tribune FR Tower, 8/C Panthapath, Sukrabad, Dhaka-1207 Email letters.dt@dhakatribune.com Send us your Op-Ed articles: opinion.dt@dhakatribune.com www.dhakatribune.com Join our Facebook community: https://www.facebook.com/DhakaTribune

The trophy goes to the public

February 10 about those guys’ looks. I know it sounds shallow, but aren’t we all that way to some extent? If you are going to watch a game for a number of hours then everyone wants to look at handsome people.

The difference between anonymous and with the rest of us is that he/she doesn’t try to sound sanctimonious such as yourself and dreampie and that takes guts, if you ask me. Why do you think millions of women are glued to the TV set or spend their 3 months’ salaries to go watch a tennis match at the French Open when the players are Karl Hungus hot? I know that is the reason I went to one. Haha.

It’s been quite a year for us in the field of football Lighten up. My advice to you would be to spend (pun unintended), let’s hope that the trend only time thinking about your next topic instead. You progresses from here on in. don’t want to pick fights with the readers. They are the ones you are writing for, are you not? anonymous Hey, is this the time to talk about football when Dreampie the entire country is in turmoil and children are Anonymous: Of course it’s the time to write about being burned with petrol bombs? I am glad the football, we just participated (and got really far BD team lost because there is a time and place into) a major regional tournament! But that aside, for everything. Where is your sense of humanity? who are you to tell someone what to write and Always writing about fun stuff. You are wasting what not to write on? the newspaper’s print space by writing about nonsense at a time like this. Enough said! anonymous Dreampie: I am a reader, and I have every right to Towheed Feroze say what one should or should not write about. anonymous: Hey, beginning to savour these trenchant observations … sorry, if “good looks” sneep is the sole criterion for following a sport, then all anonymous: I think some people (myself, for the best! example) might like a little respite from all the bad news, and appreciate reading something a little Sylvia more light-hearted and fun.

Towheed Feroze: I think anonymous has a point

Popular pizza chain Sbarro in Dhaka February 7

Mayeen Chowdhury Thanks for this DT! Abu Ahmed Mokammel Haque SBARRO is in Dhaka! Yummy, SBARRO yummyy!

Shreya Ghoshal ties the knot with beau Shiladitya February 7

February 10 $hameal Its hard getting truck drivers to move Viagra.

They take a really really long time to reach their destination.

Dreampie $hameal: I imagine they had to drive through a lot of dark tunnels and whatnot.

Return to democratic path, PM urges BNP February 8

Bogra arson victim dies

Kick politics out of tenders

Neelima Neel We common people don’t support this kind of violence, why can’t BNP-Jamaat understand that?

Gradually, they are turning into a militia group.

The Economist: Army may be compelled to act February 8

Adel Ahmed We need a leader with class and vision. Classless and visionless leaders are a curse for Bangladesh.

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

SUDOKU How to solve: Fill in the blank spaces with the numbers 1 – 9. Every row, column and 3 x 3 box must contain all nine digits with no number repeating.

Tk2.5 crore viagra seized, 2 held

Merline Marie Wishing them a happy married life ...

February 8

How to solve: Each number in our CODE-CRACKER grid represents a different letter of the alphabet. For example, today 15 represents H so fill H every time the figure 15 appears.

You have two letters in the control grid to start you off. Enter them in the appropriate squares in the main grid, then use your knowledge of words to work out which letters go in the missing squares.

Some letters of the alphabet may not be used.

As you get the letters, fill in the other squares with the same number in the main grid, and the control grid. Check off the list of alphabetical letters as you identify them.

M Sirajullah It is a waste of time and energy to talk to BNP.

February 9

Shuvon Ban all political groups completely. BCL is meant to be a student body but they act like gangsters, right down to muscling in on city contracts.

CROSSWORD ACROSS 1 Wagers (4) 5 Inadequate (5) 9 Seemingly mocked by fate (6) 10 Bishop’s territory (3) 11 Tibetal priest (4) 12 Kilns for drying hops (5) 14 Separated (5) 16 Contends in rivalry (4) 19 Augury (4) 21 Divine messenger (5) 24 In the midst of (5) 27 Passport endorsement (4) 29 Indicate assent (3) 30 Made level (6) 31 Slender supports (5) 32 Rodents (4)

DOWN 1 Beak (4) 2 Period of time (3) 3 Love apple (6) 4 Break suddenly (4) 5 Tallying (7) 6 Donkey (3) 7 Fish trap (3) 8 Irritable (5) 13 Consumed (3) 15 Exacts satisfaction for (7) 17 Salt lake (6) 18 Schemes of action (5) 20 Homo sapiens (3) 22 At all times (4) 23 Cushions (4) 25 Pithy saying (3) 26 Lyric poem (3) 28 Tennis term (3)

The bigger they are …

February 9

Zero-Agenda State-owned banks are bleeding us dry! It boggles the mind to see the government constantly bail them out despite their ridiculously high rates of defaulting.

Arson suspect killed in police ‘gunfight’

CALVIN AND HOBBES

February 10

YESTERDAY’S SOLUTIONS CODE-CRACKER

CROSSWORD

PEANUTS

SUDOKU Nazmus Sakib Law under force.

Mobile network in Gulshan 2 area back on February 10 Mobasser Islam Thanks ghost!

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Op-Ed

11

Saturday, February 28, 2015

Long to belong n FS Aijazuddin

W

hat was remarkable about Lahore’s Litfest 2015 was not that it was done well, but that it took place at all. The three day program from February 20 to 22 attracted scholars and specialists from all curves of the globe -- from the United States, United Kingdom, Norway, Germany, Egypt, Afghanistan, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Australia.

Pakistan is passing through a slough of despondency after its cricket team’s humiliating debacle at the 2015 World Cup

BIGSTOCK

Angels among mortals

O

n Esam Sohail ne of the tragic pitfalls of the average Bengali’s deeply cultivated preference for focusing on the past more than the future is the creation of angels and devils out of mortal men and women. In our desperation to escape the repeated catastrophes -- natural and manmade -- of the present, we often seek solace in a mythical past where things were simpler, people nicer, and judgments easier to make.

Elaborately crafting this imagined past, we get to a point where the halo of perfection is bestowed on people long dead … unless they are dead people disliked by the powers that be, in which case the horns of the devil are retroactively attached to them.

So, depending on who is at the helm of the affairs of state and its overbearing cultural, literary, and academic tentacles, a valiant freedom fighting martyr can become an agent of the enemy’s intelligence service while the founding president can become a nefarious megalomaniac.

Good luck trying to argue about nuances because chances are pretty high that you will be hauled off by sycophants of the rulers of the day for insulting their feelings, if you are fortunate; if fortune doesn’t smile on you, well, then you will be hauled off to jail on some charge that nobody knows.

And then we wonder why dispassionate historical research or interna-

tionally peer reviewed social science scholarship is practically unheard of in Bangladesh more than 40 years after independence.

Never mind broader historical analysis, we cannot even discuss with a scholarly detachment historical individuals who are long dead. I suppose we pick it up in personal lives and then transpose it to society. How many obituaries, memorials, or even annual articles about a dear departed

words of wisdom every other weekend.”

But the problem raises its ugly head when such fluff is all we can discuss about public figures, policymakers, and politicians. Making demigods out of mortals is as old as civilisation itself.

Indeed no less a personage than the one considered the greatest human being by Muslims -- the Prophet of Islam -- cautioned about this tendency multiple times; there are authentic

Blurring the line between private fond remembrance and public quasi-worship serves neither the dead nor the living

relative follow the standard template of “so and so was born in a respectable Sunni Muslim family in such a place where his father was a great lawyer, mother an awesome social worker, and grandfather a Khan Bahadur … and he went on to be a great man, generous philanthropist, and a member of the Lions Club,” etc.

Trust me, I get it. I would want such impressive stuff written about me too when I am dead. Heck, I’d even want to throw in the line that “Esam’s readers awaited with abated breath his

Hadith of him telling his companions that as a mortal himself, he did not know what would happen to him in the Afterlife.

That was a point driven home again at the Prophet’s death by his successor Caliph Abu Bakr when he gently cautioned the more despondent sahaba against attributing anything super-human to the deceased.

Compare that to the contemporary maulanas who claim to see faces of their leaders on celestial objects or chief executives who claim that their

progenitors predicted the Test status of the Bangladesh cricket team back in the beginning of time!

Respecting one’s ancestors is fine. It is dangerous, however, if such respect turns to adulation of a public figure and, eventually, becomes a shade of hero worship.

In societies like ours, where politics, policies, and ideologies are inextricably linked to persons rather than principles, this hero worship serves as a bulwark against frank debate and honest assessment.

In the hands of more nefarious rulers, this artificial taboo becomes a bludgeon to silence all dissent, squelch probing scholarship, and remove alternative narratives from the public sphere.

The irony is that those who are dead really do not care or hear or see; they are literally beyond appreciating the adulation, or angering at supposed slights. The scriptures of all faith traditions will tell us that nobody is an unalloyed composite of wisdom and grace anymore than being a thorough mixture of idiocy and evil.

The here and now is for the living.

Blurring the line between private fond remembrance and public quasi-worship serves neither the dead nor the living; the former don’t need it, and the latter are all the less enlightened because of it.

Esam Sohail is an educational research analyst and college lecturer of social sciences. He writes from Kansas, USA.

Yet, even until the night before, no one -- neither the organisers, nor the delegates, nor their intended audience -- could be sure that Lahore’s Litfest 2015 would take place.

Rumours ricocheted across Lahore about a possible postponement, even a fatal cancellation. Finally, at 9:30 pm on 19th night, news came that the necessary NOC had been received from the Punjab government.

Overnight, the Lahore Arts Council complex underwent a magical transformation, as every space within its brilliantly malleable design expanded and contracted to accommodate programs at five different locations simultaneously.

On the morning of February 20, pouring rain could not deflect the determined. Sodden but undaunted, they filled Hall 1 to hear Dr Romila Thapar’s keynote address titled “The Past as Present.”

Since the 1960s when her book A History of India appeared, Dr Thapar’s scholarly publications have amassed into becoming the Himalayas of our history. For her lecture, she delved into her study of Somanatha: The Many Voices of a History (2004), in which she traced the various, often conflicting, self-serving versions of the desecration of Somanatha temple by Mahmud Ghazni in 1026.

Persons who could not locate Somanatha on the map or within a millennium of history listened to her, enraptured. They watched her unravel the skeins of memory, demonstrating that history is not simply the version of the victors. Like Kurosawa’s famous film Rashomon (1950), it has as many facets of reality as it has witnesses.

The first formal session paid homage to the late Khushwant Singh, who -- had he lived a year longer -- would have celebrated his centenary this month.

Rahul Singh represented his illustrious father, Basharat Qadir his own no less illustrious father Manzur Qadir.

(Khushwant described the Qadirs as “his closest Pakistani family.”)

The fecund novelist Shobhaa Dé personified the articulate femininity Khushwant so ardently admired.

And Ch. Aitzaz Ahsan demonstrated that, but for the alphabetical aberration of having the initials AA instead of BB, he could have been leading a prominent political party. This lively session ended with thanks to all five participants -- to the four present,

and to the fifth -- the ever-present Khushwant Singh.

Once the Litfest began in earnest, the public had to scuttle between choices. Should they attend a session on “The Cosmic Dance” with Zulfikar Ghose or one on “Cordoba: The Legacy of Tolerance”? Those who chose the second witnessed Pervez Hoodbhoy being pilloried gratuitously by a rival.

Hoodbhoy’s response was Cordoban.

“What happens in Kabul stays in Kabul” -- unless of course it is the topic at Lahore’s Litfest. The moderator Lyse Ducet (of the BBC) tried hard to persuade the young Afghan ambassador to pass through the porous border between the audience and the stage.

He chose, however, to speak from the safety of shadows. He spoke with incisive clarity, reminding one that he represented the new Abdul Ghani government in Kabul, one that speaks with a World Bank twang.

The Indian editor/journalist Shehkar Gupta always provides good copy, especially so when he is in the tinderbox company of Khurshid Kasuri, Hina Rabbani Khar, and Najam Sethi.

The session on Pakistan’s cricket could not have been better timed.

Pakistan is passing through a slough of despondency after its cricket team’s humiliating debacle at the 2015 World Cup. The book launch of Wounded Tiger: A History of Cricket in Pakistan reminded the audience that Pakistan First XI cricketers are not unlike the eighth, last Nizam of Hyderabad Mukarram Jah. They squandered a seemingly limitless inheritance, until it ran out.

Malcolm Muggeridge’s famous quip about Randolph Churchill fits them: “A great future -- behind him.”

A number of sessions on Urdu Poetry translations in Hindi and English, and on the Tilism-e-Hoshruba made some sections of the alternate public cavil at the paucity of sessions dealing with the Urdu literary scene.

Their complaint has substance.

While every educated Pakistani concedes that Urdu is his or her mother tongue, not all of them would confess to matricide.

One of the penultimate sessions on the last day carried the title: Living with Internal Differences: The South Asian Dilemma, discussed by a female trinity of intellect -- Romila Thapar, Ayesha Jalal, and Asma Jehangir.

While every educated Pakistani concedes that Urdu is his or her mother tongue, not all of them would confess to matricide This same issue agitated Dr Ambedkar 75 years ago. In his treatise, Is there a case for Pakistan? (1940), he described Hindus and Muslims as “two armed battalions warring against each other.”

His prescient advice to both was that if they are to live together, they must first “long to belong together.”

FS Aijazuddin lives in Lahore and is a columnist for Dawn, Pakistan’s main Englishlanguage newspaper. This article was first published in Dawn.

Our plan for countering violent extremism n John Kerry

S

how the world the power of peaceful communities, and tackle bad governance that breeds frustration.

Throughout our history, we have faced threats from aggression, genocide, chaos and dictatorship. Today we are asked to wage a new war against a new enemy. The battlefield is different, and so are the weapons that we need to overcome that enemy and triumph.

The rise of violent extremism represents the pre-eminent challenge of the young 21st century. Military force is a rational and often necessary response to the wanton slaughters of children, mass kidnappings of schoolgirls, and beheading of innocents. But military force alone won’t achieve victory. In the long term, this war will be won only by deploying a broader, far more creative arsenal.

A safer and more prosperous future requires us to recognise that violent extremism can’t be justified by resorting to religion. No legitimate religious interpretation teaches adherents to commit unspeakable atrocities, such

as razing villages or turning children into suicide bombers. These are the heinous acts of individuals who distort religion to serve their criminal and barbaric cause.

A safer and more prosperous future also requires us not to be distracted by divisions grounded in hatred or bias. There is no room in this fight for sectarian division. There is no room for Islamophobia or anti-Semitism.

Violent extremism has claimed lives in every corner of the globe, and Muslim lives most of all. Each of us is threatened, regardless of ethnicity, faith or homeland. We must demonstrate to the terrorists that rather than divide us, their tactics unite us and strengthen our resolve.

Toward that goal of unity, and of action, President Obama has been hosting a summit in Washington that is bringing together leading figures from local and national governments, civil society, and the private sector around the world.

This summit at the White House and State Department will expand the global conversation and, more important, adopt an action agenda that identifies, shares and utilises best

practices in preventing and countering violent extremism. And when world leaders gather at the United Nations General Assembly next fall, a key topic of discussion will be the steps we’ve all taken to fight extremism based on the agenda we outline this week.

Put simply, we are building a global partnership against violent extremism.

No legitimate religious interpretation teaches adherents to commit unspeakable atrocities

Success requires showing the world the power of peaceful communities instead of extremist violence. Success requires offering a vision that is positive and proactive: A world with more concrete alternatives to the nihilistic worldview of violent extremists.

Success requires empowering leaders from Los Angeles to Lagos, Paris to Peshawar, and Bogotá to Baghdad to take the reins in this effort -- because terrorists don’t exist in a vacuum.

They require acquiescence from the broader population, if not outright support.

They recruit among the disaffected and disenfranchised, but also among those of all backgrounds on a misguided quest for meaning and empowerment. They exploit anger, ignorance and grievance.

Eliminating the terrorists of today with force will not guarantee protection from the terrorists of tomorrow.

We have to transform the environments that give birth to these movements. We have to devote ourselves not just to combating violent extremism, but to preventing it. This means building alternatives that are credible and visible to the populations where terrorists seek to thrive.

The most basic issue is good governance. It may not sound exciting, but it is vital. People who feel that their government will provide for their needs, not just its own, and give them a chance at a better life are far less

likely to strap on an AK-47 or a suicide vest, or to aid those who do.

We must identify the zones of greatest vulnerability, the places that could descend into the chaos that breeds terrorism -- or that could turn the corner and be the hotbed of growth or innovation. And then we must tailor our efforts and target our resources to meet the specific needs of those places.

It may be training young people so they can get jobs and envision a future of dignity and self-reliance. It may be working to eliminate corruption and promote the rule of law, so that marginalised communities can enjoy security and justice. It’s very likely both, and of course much more.

There are precedents that can lead us. We’ve combated violent extremism before. We know there are tools that work. We also know the power of the international community to make positive progress when we’ve come together to combat other challenges, such as when we combined our efforts most recently to fight Ebola.

We need to funnel more resources, creative ideas, and energy into the fight against extremism and work

closely with effective local organisations and governments to make sure those resources are used properly.

This summit won’t solve all these problems, but it can catalyse a global effort. But let me be clear: We are in this for the long haul. We can send a clear signal to the next generation that its future will not be defined by the agenda of the terrorists and the violent ideology that sustains them; we will not cower, and we will prevail by working together.

Indeed, there are roles for everyone, from religious and government leaders to academics, NGOs and the private sector. Our collective security depends on our collective response.

The 20th century was defined by the struggle to overcome depression, slavery, fascism, and totalitarianism.

Now it’s our turn. The rise of violent extremism challenges every one of us, our communities, our nations, and the global rule of law. But the extremist forces arrayed against us require that we charge forward in the name of decency, civility and reason.

John Kerry is Secretary of State of the United States.

12

DHAKA TRIBUNE Saturday, February 28, 2015

UPCOMING MATCHES

TODAY New Zealand v Australia, 7am India v UAE, 12:30pm TOMORROW England v Sri Lanka, 4am Pakistan v Zimbabwe, 9:30am

14 NZ vs Aus:

A battle for bragging rights

14 Two worlds

19

Number of balls by which AB de Villiers broke the record for the fastest 150 in ODI history. He got there in 64 deliveries. The previous record was 83 balls, by Shane Watson against Bangladesh in 2011.

162

Runs scored by de Villiers, the second highest score by any South African batsman in World Cup history and the fourth-highest by a South African in any ODI. The highest score by any South African batsman in a World Cup match is 188, by Gary Kirsten against UAE in 1996.

52 9 6

collide as India face UAE

Sport

Did you know?

Suranga Lakmal (5) has had the most chances dropped off his bowling at #CWC15, ahead of Haris Sohail & James Anderson (both 3)

162*

66 balls

Balls in which de Villiers got his century, the second-fastest in World Cup history. This is also the third fastest century by any South African batsman. De Villiers has scored three of the four fastest hundreds by a South African, including the fastest in ODI history, off 31 balls, also against West Indies earlier this year.

Number of ODI hundreds for de Villiers as captain, the most for a South African captain. Graeme Smith has scored eight ODI centuries as captain.

Number of batsmen who have scored four or more World Cup hundreds; de Villiers is the sixth. The only batsmen with more World Cup hundreds than de Villiers are Sachin Tendulkar (6) and Ponting (5).

257

South Africa’s margin of victory, the biggest in World Cup history. India also beat Bermuda by exactly 257 runs in the 2007 World Cups.

408

South Africa’s score, their highest in a World Cup and fourth-highest in any ODI. It was also the second-highest score by any team in a World Cup, after India’s 413 against Bermuda in 2007.

0

Dot balls during South Africa’s Batting Powerplay. They scored 72 runs in the Powerplay without losing a single wicket. South Africa’s batsmen hit seven fours and two sixes during this period.

104

Runs conceded by Jason Holder, the most ever by any West Indies bowler and the second-most by any bowler in World Cups. No bowler has previously conceded 100-plus runs when captaining their side in an ODI.

76

Runs scored by de Villiers off Holder, the most by any batsmen off a single bowler since 2001. De Villiers hit 7 fours and 6 sixes off the 21 balls he faced from Holder. The previous record for the most runs scored was 61, by MS Dhoni off Upul Chandana’s bowling in Jaipur in 2005.

24

The run-rate during the partnership between de Villiers and Farhaan Behardien. They scored 80 runs off 20 balls. This is the best run-rate for any 50-plus partnership in ODI history.

222 3

Runs scored by South Africa in the last 15 overs of their innings, the second-most in an ODI since 2001. The most runs scored in this period is 230, also by South Africa against West Indies, in January this year.

Number of times that West Indies have conceded 400-plus runs in an ODI innings, the most for any team. SL and SA have conceded 400-plus twice each

South Africa captain AB de Villiers unleashes one of his brilliant hits during their Cricket World Cup match against the West Indies at the Sydney Cricket Ground yesterday REUTERS

Tigers mocked!

Mazhar Uddin from Melbourne It has been a rather disappointing debut for Bangladesh at the historic Melbourne Cricket Ground as they suffered a morale-sapping 92-run defeat against Sri Lanka in a Pool A game last Thursday. The Tigers were sloppy in the field and their batting performance was also not upto the mark.

For Mashrafe bin Mortaza and his troop though, the defeat is in the past as they prepare to face Scotland this Thursday in Nelson, New Zealand. A win against the Scots will very much rescue their campaign and will take them a step away from the quarterfinals.

The Tigers will board an early morn-

ing flight to Nelson today. Nelson is a picturesque city, sitting on the edge of the South Island, and the Tigers will hope their fortunes will improve with the change of venues.

However, before their crucial clash against the Scots, Mashrafe and his teammates experienced a disappointing occurrence when they went for their Jumma prayers at Huntingdale Mosque in Melbourne yesterday.

Before the prayers started, Mashrafe, Mushfiqur Rahim, Nasir Hossain and a few other cricketers were mocked and harassed by some Bangladeshi expatriates for their loss against Sri Lanka.

None of the cricketers protested as the board officials present there tried to calm things down.

The Bangladesh players were very much disappointed and shocked after facing such behaviour from their own countrymen and left the mosque prem-

Pacers lead the pack n Mazhar Uddin from Melbourne

ises as soon as the prayers ended.

Nazmul Hasan, who is a Bangladeshi expatriate studying and residing in Melbourne, was present at the mosque during the incident and sympathised with the cricketers. “It was a terrible sight watching our own countrymen teasing our cricketers at the mosque.

We never expect such things from a fan. Even though our team did not play well, incidents like this should never happen,” he said.

Apart from the unfortunate incident, the Tigers were in a relaxed mood as there was no practice session scheduled for yesterday.

Shakib al Hasan, Soumya Sarkar, Taijul Islam and team manager Khaled Mahmud visited the farmhouse of a Bangladeshi expatriate while young fast bowler Taskin Ahmed and his friends had a lovely time walking around the Yarra Yarra riverside. l

A lot of “ifs” and “buts” were born among the Bangladesh fans when their team were humiliated by the Sri Lankans at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the biggest ground in the world. The dropped catches lost the match no doubt, but when the team moves ahead with the positives from the defeat, it will surely be the pace bowling.

Known all over the world for having a mighty spin bowling department, especially left-armers, Bangladesh have surprised many in this World Cup with the pace they generated.

Flanked by the rising speedster Taskin Ahmed and Rubel Hossain, Mashrafe bin Mortaza led the threeman pack with brilliance so far. The inconsistent fielding unit let down the pacers against Sri Lanka.

Who knows what might have resulted if Anamul Haque hung on to the sitter at first slip and had Mominul Haque

caught centurion Kumar Sangakkara at point early in his innings.

Australian conditions like always termed as “pacey and bouncy” is the major reason that made the Tigers think tank shift their focus of bowling strength from spin to pace and haven’t the seamers responded superbly!

Sri Lanka had Malinga and anyone would bet on him bowling the fastest ball in the match in Thursday, but no it wasn’t him. Bangladesh’s Rubel hit the top speed - 143.9 km/h - and surprised all while Taskin hit 142.8 km/h to compliment him. Even Mashrafe, who produced annihilating opening spells in both the matches Bangladesh played so far, generated his highest - 140.7 km/h.

Former Australian cricketer Dean Jones even paid glowing tributes to Bangladesh when he said to Dhaka Tribune, “The Bangladesh fast bowlers bowled superbly, especially Mashrafe.

He has been Bangladesh’s best bowler so far.” l

When swing is away, spin comes to play When Australia and New Zealand were the chosen venues to host the 11th ICC World Cup more than five years ago, the one common topic of discussion in the cricketing fraternity was about the wickets Down Under. Historically, both hosts are known, far and beyond, for its YOUSUF RAHMAN playing strips to be (BABU) conducive to seam bowling. New Zealand has always been known for preparing green grassy wickets where its fast bowlers reigned supreme, while Australia has been boastful, since time immemorial, of producing some of the greatest quick bowlers in the history of the game. Over time, this began to change as some playing venues saw a transition of sorts from fast bouncy tracks to wickets that offered some assistance to the slow bowlers. Australia produced some top class “Test Match” wickets that would endure over a five day period with pitch conditions varying on a daily basis. By the fourth and fifth day of the Test Match, quality spinners would become a factor and play a significant role in determining the outcome of the South Africa leg spinner Imran Tahir celebrates his fifth wicket against West Indies in their match. So, over the past decade or so, very few Test Matches have ended in a draw.

2015 Cricket World Cup Pool B match in Sydney yesterday AFP

The adoption of “drop in pitches” in several venues of the 11th World Cup, barring a few matches, has produced a run fest. Most matches have seen scores beyond the 300 mark, which is a clear indication that the pitches are a batter’s paradise (although we have seen a few teams batting second prove otherwise). West Indies has hit the 300 plus mark in all matches they have played so far as have India and Australia, while several teams have come close to it.

While fast bowlers from most teams have been put to the sword primarily due to the lack of prodigious swing, this tournament has seen the pleasant emergence of the spinners, a species that was placed in the lost column.

Shane Warne has been traveling the world passionately chasing teams that have the unique luxury to carry a leg-spinner, which until recent times, has been a dying breed. Since this blonde leggie’s departure from the game, carrying a leg spinner in the side was a thing of the past. This changed with the advent of Imran Tahir, the Pakistani born and raised South African. In the 2011 World Cup, Tahir was one of the most successful bowlers of the tournament and along with Shahid Afridi, dominated the headlines in the wicket taking column.

While Afridi seems to have lost his bite, Tahir has been the most effective bowler for the Proteas in the middle overs in the ODI format. He has an extraordinary wicket taking rate of about 27 balls with an average of just over 20, which, for a leg spinner

is pleasantly remarkable.

Some of the best came from India and Pakistan and both fielded leg spinners from time to time, however, for more than a decade, other than Afridi, there hasn’t been one that has permanently sealed his place in the squad. The world saw Yasir Shah for the first time in Pakistan’s home series in the UAE against Australia and New Zealand in 2014 and Mr. Warne started to cartwheel in excitement. Similar to the great Abdul Qadir, he looks like a natural wicket taker who has not been taken advantage of by Pakistan.

In my initial assessment of the teams, I had mentioned the name of Ravichandran Ashwin of India creating an impact for his nation. In the matches India played so far, his role has been crucial in not only picking up vital wickets but also in successfully stifling the opposition. Similarly, we have seen Glenn Maxwell of Australia, veteran Daniel Vettori of New Zealand, Rangana Herath of Sri Lanka, Moeen Ali of England and Bangladesh’s own Shakib al Hasan come good in the matches they played in. Even George Dockrell of Ireland and Mohammed Nabi of Afghanistan have made their presence felt in this World Cup. The fact that the spinners are making a significant statement is adequately justified when we see Tillakarante Dilshan and Chris Gayle bowling regularly against good opposition.

While the main weapon for most teams is in the fast bowling department, the effective execution of which we have seen

in so many matches, one cannot ignore the role of the spinners not only in the middle overs, but also in the death overs (41 to 50). Herath is one of the best there is in the death overs with an average run rate of just over six. In an era when new laws have made it a costly affair for all bowlers in the death and we are regularly seeing some of the best seamers getting smashed for over 10 runs per over, his performance is a testament to his quality and consistency.

It is a pity that two of the best spinners of modern day cricket are not in action. Saeed Ajmal and Sunil Narine because of their controversial elbows had to stay away. With the bounce on these tracks, what a delight it would be to see these two perplexing spinners go after the best batters. World cricket needs them back.

Spinners such as Warne, Muttiah Muralitharan, Anil Kumble, Saqlain Mushtaq and Mushtaq Ahmed have given the game so much joy that it would be incomprehensible that these greats would not leave a huge following behind. And so the torch is passed on as we see a new generation of tweakers prepare themselves to be the next Warney or Murali. The game of cricket is just not the same without these men that are best known for their ability to control the game by deception.l Yousuf Rahman (Babu), former national cricketer, vice captain and first centurion writes from New York for Bangladesh fans all across the globe.

Sport

DHAKA TRIBUNE

WORLD CUP POINTS TABLE Pool B

Teams

P W

L N/R Pts

India South Africa

2 3

2 2

0 1

0 0

4 +2.060 4 +1.260

NRR

Ireland

2

2

0

0

4

+0.338

West Indies Zimbabwe

4 3

2 1

2 2

0 0

4 2

-0.313 -0.827

UAE

2

0

2

0

0

-0.175

Pakistan

2

0

2

0

0

-2.260

SAvWI South Africa Q de Kock c Russell b Holder HM Amla lbw b Gayle F du Plessis c Ramdin b Gayle RR Rossouw c Ramdin b Russell AB de Villiers not out DA Miller c Taylor b Russell F Behardien not out Extras: (lb 2, w 11, nb 3)

R 12 65 62 61 162 20 10 16

Total: (5 wickets; 50 overs)

408

B 19 88 70 39 66 16 5

Fall of wickets 1-18, 2-145, 3-146, 4-280, 5-328

Bowling JE Taylor 8-1-64-0, JO Holder 10-2-104-1, AD Russell 9-0-74-2, MN Samuels 2-014-0, SJ Benn 10-0-79-0, DJG Sammy 7-0-50-0, CH Gayle 4-0-21-2 West Indies DR Smith c Miller b Imran Tahir CH Gayle b Abbott MN Samuels c de Kock b Abbott JL Carter c de Villiers b Morkel D Ramdin b Imran Tahir LMP Simmons lbw b Imran Tahir DJG Sammy st de Kock b Imran Tahir AD Russell c Abbott b Imran Tahir JO Holder c Amla b Steyn JE Taylor not out SJ Benn c Amla b Morkel Extras: (lb 5, w 3)

R 31 3 0 10 22 0 5 0 56 15 1 8

Total: (all out; 33.1 overs)

151

B 34 4 9 20 47 2 11 3 48 18 3

Fall of wickets 1-12, 2-16, 3-52, 4-52, 5-53, 6-63, 7-63, 8-108, 9-150, 10-151

Bowling DW Steyn 7-0-24-1, KJ Abbott8-0-37-2, M Morkel 5.1-0-23-2, Imran Tahir10-2-45-5, F du Plessis 3-0-17-0 South Africa won by 257 runs Man of the match: AB de Villiers

AB Delivers special innings to floor Windies n AFP, Sydney South Africa captain AB de Villiers hammered the second-fastest century in World Cup history as he led his side to a crushing 257-run victory over the West Indies at the Sydney Cricket Ground on Friday.

De Villiers finished on an unbeaten 162 off just 66 balls as South Africa raced to the second-highest World Cup total of 408 for five, behind only the 413 for five made by India against Bermuda, a non-Test nation, in Trinidad in 2007.

The Proteas’ skipper’s innings was also the fastest 150 in ODIs and de Villiers now has the fastest fifty, hundred and 150 in ODI cricket - all coming against the West Indies.

South Africa’s second win of the tournament put them firmly back on track for the quarter-finals after their abject 130-run loss to India and revived their bid for a maiden World Cup title.

On a night for the statisticians, this result also equalled the biggest winning margin, in terms of runs, at a World Cup match set when India beat Bermuda by 257 runs in 2007.

De Villiers demolished the West Indians with eight sixes and 17 fours and was particularly savage on West Indies captain Jason Holder, clouting four sixes off the pace bowler’s final over.

The fastest-ever World Cup century was made by Ireland’s Kevin O’Brien, off 50 balls, against England in Bangalore during the 2011 tournament.

It was a miserable effort in reply by the West Indies as they tumbled to 151 all out off 33.1 overs, with their big guns Chris Gayle and Marlon Samuels succumbing early on to Kyle Abbott.

Gayle, who blasted a World Cup record 215 with 16 sixes in his last innings against Zimbabwe, exposed his stumps, swung his bat and was bowled middle stump by Abbott for three in

the second over.

Samuels, who made an unbeaten 133 in the same match, got an outside edge and was caught behind for a duck.

The West Indies lost any remote chance they had with the pair’s exit.

Jonathan Carter (10), Dwayne Smith (31) and Lendl Simmons (nought) all fell in the space of seven balls to leave their side at 53 for five.

Leg-spinner Imran Tahir triggered the collapse and finished with five for 45 from 10 overs.

De Villiers, who made his century off 52 balls, teed off late on, plundering 34 off Holder’s penultimate over - two sixes, three fours and a two - and then 30 off his last over. Holder finished with one for 104 off 10 overs.

Apart from the spectacular de Villiers show, there was a solid supporting cast from the South African top order with Hashim Amla contributing 65 off 88 balls, Faf du Plessis 62 off 70 and Rilee Rossouw slamming 61 off 39 balls.

Off-spinner Gayle struck in the 30th over with two wickets in three balls, removing du Plessis caught behind for 62 attempting a shot through extra cover and then trapping Amla leg before for 65.

But de Villiers and Rossouw began to dramatically up the tempo, raising their hundred stand off 60 balls.

The skipper brought up his 50 off 30 balls and Rossouw’s half-century came off 31 balls.

De Villiers unfurled some remarkable shots in the closing overs, easily clearing the ropes. In the last 10 overs the Proteas piled on 150 runs.

Rossouw was caught behind off Andre Russell, having struck six fours and a six.

Jerome Taylor claimed the catch of the day to dismiss David Miller for 20 with a splendid one-handed effort on the boundary that prevented what seemed a certain six.l

An action between the Abahani-Muktijoddha Federation Cup quarterfinal at BNS yesterday

Sky Blues ousted by Reds n Raihan Mahmood A red hot Muktijoddha ousted Abahani from the Federation Cup, courtesy a 1-0 win in extra-time, in the fourth quarterfinal at Bangabandhu National Stadium yesterday.

Teamwork and finishing made all the difference as Muktijoddha dominated the match through Enamul Haque, Camara Sarba and Fekri Zieada. Abahani sorely missed the services of their Hungarian forward Szabolcs Czorba, who was sidelined due to a knee injury and his vacuum was hardly filled by the others.

Muktijoddha forward Enamul was cursing lady luck in the 35th minute. The ace forward rightly anticipated a back pass of Abahani defender Ariful Islam intended for goalkeeper Ziaur Rahman,

DAY’S WATCH Star Sports 1 ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 12:30AM India v United Arab Emirates 4:00AM (Sunday) England v Sri Lanka

Star Sports 2 Spanish La Liga 9:00PM Granada v Barcelona 1:00AM UD Almeria v Deportivo Coruna 3:00AM Malaga CF v Getafe CF

Star Sports 4 ICC Cricket World Cup 7:00AM Australia v New Zealand Barclays Premier League 6:35PM West Ham v Crystal Palace 9:00PM Manchester United v Sunderland 1:45AM Italian Serie A Chievo v Milan

Ten Action 2:00PM Australian-League Western Sydney Wanderers v Sydney I-League 2015 04:30PM Goa v Bengaluru 7:30PM Pune FC v Royal Wahingdoh 1:00AM French Ligue 1 Toulouse FC v AS Saint-Etienne

Ten Sports 10:00AM ATP World Tour Mexicano Telcel, Semi Final 2 9:00PM Qatar Total Open Finals

Sony Six 9:30AM NBA Season Portland v Oklahoma City 12:30PM Super Rugby 2015 Chiefs v Crusaders Rugby Six Nation 8:30PM Scotland v Italy 11:00PM France v Wales

13

Saturday, February 28, 2015

kept his cool to go past the onrushing ‘keeper but to his dismay saw the effort hitting the sidepost of an empty net.

Continuing the pressure, Muktijoddha again came close in the 40th minute. Fekri, Muktijoddha’s Egyptian midfielder, unleashed a fierce drive from the edge of the box. However, Abahani netminder Ziaur Rahman punched the ball away to safety.

Abahani’s substitute forward Aminur Rahman Sajib broke through the Muktijoddha defence in the 49th minute but saw his shot rocking the crosspiece. With both the teams concentrating on defence, the rest of the stipulated time hardly produced any notable attacks.

However, the deadlock was finally broken in the fifth minute of the 30-minute extra-time. Former Abah-

MAINOOR ISLAM MANIK

ani wing-back Mohiuddin Ibnul Siraji danced down the right flank and curved a low cross to Senegalese forward Camara. The tall forward rose high in the air and sent the ball crashing into the near post net.

Abahani regrouped and piled up some pressure but the equaliser remained a distant dream for the Sky Blues. In the 107th minute, Ariful’s header from a Shakil Ahmed corner was saved from the goalline by defender Anisur Alam Sweet.

Abahani’s dismay continued in the 119th minute, or the penultimate minute, when Nigerian forward Tayo Fabiyi blasted a fierce left-footer which beat Muktijoddha goalie Titumir but rebounded off the crosspiece. Muktijoddha will face Mohammedan in the second semifinal this Monday.l

WWII bomb found at Dortmund’s stadium n AFP, Dortmund

Schalke, Dortmund clash in ‘Germany’s top derby’

Borussia Dortmund’s Westfalenstadion stadium was evacuated on Thursday after an unexploded WWII bomb was found during renovation work, the club announced.

The 250kg bomb (551 lbs) was found during morning work on the stadium’s VIP area and the surrounding area was quickly evacuated with a scheduled press conference moved to the club’s training ground. The bomb, believed to have been of British origin, was expected to be defused in the afternoon.

Dortmund host rivals Schalke on Saturday in the Ruhr Valley derby with a sellout 80,700-capacity crowd expected.

Borussia will also play their next Champions League match at the Westfalenstadion on March 18 when they host Juventus.l

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang has compared it to an orgasm, Marco Reus says losing it is forbidden, but Schalke’s Marco Hoeger simply believes Saturday’s clash at Borussia Dortmund is Germany’s biggest derby.

With just 35 kilometres separating Dortmund from Gelsenkirchen-based Schalke, the Ruhr Valley derby at Borussia’s Westfalenstadion is perfectly poised with 30 wins for each side and 25 draws in their 85 previous meetings.

Gabon winger Aubameyang, Dortmund’s top scorer, raised eyebrows earlier this week by saying: “Derby wins - even if it sounds strange - are almost like an orgasm”.

Dortmund-born Reus said losing is not an option at their 80,000-capacity Westfalenstadion ground as Borussia

n AFP, Berlin

look to avenge September’s 2-1 defeat in Gelsenkirchen.

Schalke hope to include Klaas-Jan Huntelaar after the Dutch striker returned to training on Monday having

FIXTURES Dortmund Leverkusen Hoffenheim Hannover 96 Hertha Berlin Frankfurt

v v v v v v

Schalke 04 Freiburg Mainz 05 VfB Stuttgart Augsburg Hamburg

bruised his shin in last week’s 2-0 Champions League defeat against Real Madrid.

Dortmund will definitely be without defender Lukasz Piszczek for the next six weeks after the left-back tore ankle ligaments in Borussia’s 2-1 Champions League defeat at Juventus on Tuesday.l

Van Persie injury may hand Besiktas stun Reds, Sevilla progress n Falcao another chance AFP, Paris

n Reuters, London Manchester United striker Robin van Persie will miss Saturday’s Premier League match against Sunderland with an ankle injury that could hand out-ofsorts forward Radamel Falcao another opportunity to prove his worth at Old Trafford.

Van Persie damaged ligaments during United’s 2-1 defeat by Swansea City last weekend and left the Liberty Stadium on crutches with his right foot in a protective boot.

“It is an ankle problem. I do not think it is very heavy but ankle problems can take a long time,” manager Louis Van Gaal told a news conference on Friday. “It is not one or two weeks.”

Dutch striker Van Persie has struggled for fitness and form this season, scoring 10 goals in 24 appearances, and could be replaced by Falcao.

However, the Colombian, who joined United on a season-long loan from AS Monaco for 6 million pounds ($9.27 million), has failed to live up to expectations, scoring just four goals in 19 appearances.

United have the option of paying around 43 million pounds to make Fal-

cao’s move permanent at the end season, but Van Gaal did little to boost the 29-year-old’s confidence when asked if he would start against Sunderland.

“The possibility is higher (that Falcao will play) of course because when a striker is away another has to play,” he said. “We will have to wait and see.”

United could climb above Arsenal

FIXTURES Burnley Man United Newcastle Stoke City West Ham West Brom

v v v v v v

Swansea City Sunderland Aston Villa Hull City Crystal Palace Southampton

into third in the Premier League table if they beat Sunderland at Old Trafford as the Gunners host Everton on Sunday.

Van Gaal admitted it was “a rat race between five clubs” to finish in the top four and said it would be a “big disappointment” if United failed to qualify for the Champions League.

“Our process is continuing and always we are going better,” the Dutchman said. “In spite of the many injuries, we are there.”l

Tolgay Arslan was the hero as Besiktas stunned Liverpool to knock them out of the Europa League on penalties on Thursday.

The Turks went into the game looking to claw back a 1-0 first leg deficit but Arslan scored the only goal of the game at the Ataturk Olympic Stadium and then, following a goalless half hour of extra-time, struck the decisive penalty before Dejan Lovren blazed his effort for Liverpool over the bar.

With a tough clash against Manchester City in the Premier League at Anfield on Sunday, it was the nightmare scenario for Liverpool manager Brendan Rogers.

Not only did they play an energy-sapping 120 minutes of football but also had the mentally draining penalty shoot-out and a morale-sagging defeat to contend with before making the long trip home from Istanbul.

Besiktas had levelled on aggregate in the 72nd minute with a stunning strike from Arslan, assisted by a deft back heel from Senegalese striker Demba Ba, who had been the scourge of Liverpool last season when his goal, following a slip from Steven Gerrard, set Chelsea on the way to a 2-0 win at Anfield that wiped out the Reds’ ad-

vantage over eventual champions Man City in the league.

With penalties level on 4-4 after all the takers had held their nerve, Arslan deftly slotted in. Lovren stepped up for Liverpool but his effort went high, leaving Besiktas fans running onto the pitch in joy.

Title-holders Sevilla are also through to the last 16 following a 3-2 win at Borussia Moenchengladbach on Thursday.

Mauricio Pochettino’s gamble on

resting several first-choice players, including star striker Harry Kane, backfired as Tottenham Hotspur crashed out against Fiorentina.

With one-eye on Sunday’s League Cup final against Chelsea, Pochettino had made seven changes to the team that started against West Ham last Sunday.

Veteran German forward Mario Gomez and Mohamed Salah scored the goals as La Viola won 2-0 on the night in Florence to progress 3-1 on aggregate.l

A picture taken yesterday shows a board with the draw for the Uefa Europa League round of 16 at the UEFA headquarters in Nyon AFP

14

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Sport

Saturday, February 28, 2015

WORLD CUP HEAD-TO-HEAD

NEW ZEALAND

AUSTRALIA

2

Wins

6

286/9 112

Highest totals Lowest totals

348/6 208/9

OVERALL

34

Wins

85

BATTING

Martin Crowe (162) Chris Harris (130)

Most runs Highest scores

Shane Bond (6)

Most wickets

Glenn McGrath (8)

Shane Bond (6/23)

Best bowling

Brett Lee (5/42)

BOWLING

David Boon (201) Geoff Marsh (126*)

PROBABLE XI Martin Guptill, Brendon McCullum (C), Kane Williamson, Ross Taylor, Grant Elliott, Corey Anderson, Luke Ronchi (WK), Daniel Vettori, Adam Milne, Tim Southee, Trent Boult Born in NZ, Ronchi crossed the Tasman Sea and featured in a couple of T20Is and ODIs for the Aussies before returning to the land of his birth.

The stumper-batsman will be full of emotions when he takes the field today against their eternal rivals

David Warner, Aaron Finch, Shane Watson, Michael Clarke (C), Steven Smith, Glenn Maxwell, Mitchell Marsh, Brad Haddin (WK), Mitchell Johnson, Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins

PLAYER TO WATCH

RONCHI

CLARKE

All eyes will be on Clarke as he is all set for a return to competitive cricket from injury. One of Australia’s most dependable batters, Clarke’s experience will come in extremely handy, especially in the latter stages of the tournament

(L-R) New Zealand’s captain Brendon McCullum, former captain Martin Crowe, Prime Minister John Key pose with Australia’s Prime Minister Tony Abbott, former captain Allan Border and captain Michael Clarke ahead of the Trans-Tasman 2015 Gala Dinner, an ICC Cricket World Cup function, in Auckland yesterday REUTERS

A battle for bragging rights Yousuf Rahman (Babu), former national cricketer, vice captain and first centurion writes from New York for Bangladesh fans all across the globe.

Perhaps, the most anticipated match outside of the India- Pakistan fixture is the Kiwi-Aussie group play match today. Both are hosts and both are riding high and are on top of their game.

A New Zealand-Australia clash in any sport has always created lots of interest as well as animosity. Remember the time when the two nations almost cut off diplomatic ties when Greg Chappell bowled the last ball of the match using that infamous under-arm delivery to ensure an Aussie victory. The ICC

subsequently had to change the rules of bowling to ensure that “prevention is better than cure” theory prevailed.

However, this match could very well be a dress rehearsal of the final in late March.

There are many factors at play with both hosts thinking they have a massive chance of winning this tournament, especially on home soil. First and foremost, this match will be a huge spectacle and with the match being played at Eden Park in Auckland, I would tend to believe that this places the Kiwis at a slightly advantageous position because the Aussies will not have played before a more hostile crowd in recent times.

The stakes are huge as the winner of this match will be guaranteed the No.1 spot in the group, which can be a huge

advantage at the back end of this long tournament.

In 1992, these two teams met at the same venue which the Kiwis won and its supporters will hope that the result will be repeated this year. However, neither team managed to reach the final.

Head to head it is not easy to choose one over the other as both teams are primed up for the clash.

Both teams have two of the most successful fast bowling attacks in the competition, closely backed up with a very strong batting line up. What everyone is waiting for is the duel between bat and ball; primarily the Johnson-McCallum and Boult-Warner match ups. Apart from these two prime contests, there are several other com-

Shehzad cleared for Zim match n AFP, Brisbane Pakistan opener Ahmed Shehzad has been cleared to play in the team’s third World Cup Pool B game against Zimbabwe on Sunday after suffering an ankle injury, an official said Friday.

The 23-year-old right-hander was sent for an MRI scan after team practice in Brisbane, complaining of pain in his left ankle.

“Shehzad complained of acute pain in his Achilles tendon. This occurred during a fielding training session,” said team physio Brad Robinson, son of former Zimbabwean umpire Ian. “On examination he had a mild limp and was tender in his Achilles tendon.

Shehzad had an MRI in Brisbane this morning. The results showed a slight soreness. The Achilles tendon was intact and undamaged.

“I am confident he will be available to play against Zimbabwe.”

Pakistan need a win to bolster their chances of reaching the quarter-finals.l

favour of the Black Caps only because they are playing in home conditions in front of a raucous home crowd.

Which team has the X-factor to make the difference? Is it the Aussie fast bowling unit that is so persistent with its pounding of the opposing batters or will it be the duel between the two spinners, Maxwell and Vettori?

The fact that this is in Auckland, underlines the fact that this match will depend on which team has the better day with its bowling. Or will the batters take charge and one or two players from a side will produce a gem to run away with the match; something similar to the Gayle storm or Hurricane AB D’Villiers? Those eagerly awaited cricket enthusiasts are best advised to wait and find out. l

New Zealand captain Brendon McCullum vowed Friday his side will stick with their aggressive approach as they look to maintain their perfect record at this World Cup when they face arch-rivals Australia.

“It’s an aggressive confident style where we are as positive as we can be, trying to endear ourselves to a public with the manner in which we play,” said McCullum, who did exactly that with the fastest World Cup fifty, off 18 balls, against England.

“Look, I have said all along, favourites or underdogs, it’s irrelevant once the game gets under way,” McCullum insisted. “Our focus is very much on how we try and execute the game that has served us so well over the last little while. If we do that, we will be hard to beat.” l

WORLD CUP HEAD-TO-HEAD

INDIA

UAE OVERALL

2

Wins

0

PROBABLE XI Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane, Suresh Raina, MS Dhoni (C & WK), Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin, Mohit Sharma, Umesh Yadav

India’s Virat Kohli (L) and Ajinkya Rahane leave the nets after a training session in Perth yesterday AFP

The proud owner of two ODI double hundreds, Rohit has made a poor start so far, registering scores of 0 and 15 in India’s two games. The right-hander will be looking to cash in on the opportunity of facing the inexperienced Emiratis today

Amjad Ali, Andri Berenger, Krishna Chandran, Khurram Khan, Swapnil Patil (WK), Shaiman Anwar, Rohan Mustafa, Mohammad Naveed, Amjad Javed, Mohammad Tauqir (C), Manjula Guruge

PLAYER TO WATCH

ROHIT

TAUQIR

Tauqir’s four wickets in two matches is a good return for a player from the Associate rank. The right-arm off-spinner is also a handy lower-order batsman and the oldest captain ever in the history of the World Cup

Two worlds collide as India face UAE

Size of 2019 WC still to decided: ICC n AFP, Sydney n AFP, Perth The number of teams taking part in the 2019 World Cup hasn’t been finalised, the International Cricket Council told AFP on Friday as it responded to growing criticism that its proposed cut risked damaging the sport’s development.

Cricket chiefs have come under fire for their plan to reduce the number of teams involved in England in four years’ time to 10 from the 14 taking part in the ongoing tournament in Australia and New Zealand.

But ICC chief executive David Richardson, in a telephone interview with AFP, said Friday: “I’ve learnt never to say never to anything. I’m sure the format of the next World Cup will be debated after this one has finished.”

“I’m pleased with the performances of the qualifiers so far, but the bigger tests are still to come,” said Richardson.l

parisons to consider. Steve Smith and Kane Williamson, Glen Maxwell and Anderson are two that come to mind.

New Zealand’s batting strength lies in the fact that their compilation of big scores has generally not been dependent on one player. It has been a team effort as we have seen in its opening match against Sri Lanka when they crossed the 300 mark without an individual hundred. This speaks volumes about the team’s batting strength. The Kiwi batting will need to fire if they are to win the day.

Michael Clarke will most likely play today. Whether his inclusion will create any sort of an imbalance within a team that has been firing without him in ODI’s remains to be see. In my humble opinion, the odds are slightly in

McCullum promises no let-up vs Aussies n AFP, Auckland

Two worlds collide on Saturday when mighty India tackle the United Arab Emirates’ team of shipping clerks and airline staff, with at least two of the Gulf amateurs relishing the World Cup showdown at the WACA. All-rounder Krishna Chandran and wicket-keeper Swapnil Patil were both born in India but, frustrated by the pedestrian pace of their playing careers in the country’s over-crowded talent market, they decamped to the UAE where they could pursue both jobs and cricket.

Chandran hails from Kerala and once featured for a Bangalore college club alongside Stuart Binny, who is a member of the India squad at the World Cup. “It’s going to be a big moment for people back home,” 30-year-old Chandran, who moved to the Gulf in 2010,

told wisdenindia.com.

“For people who saw me playing in my shorts, with a tennis ball, on the streets of my home village of Kollengode, it’s going to be a big thing to watch me on TV, playing against India, in a World Cup match, at a ground like the WACA.” Chandran, who has become something of a curiosity at the World Cup due to his surname of Karate which adorns some of his playing gear, made a solid 34 runs in the opening loss to Zimbabwe before being dismissed for nought in the heart-breaking two-wicket defeat by Ireland.

Patil is another Indian expat and he is looking forward to meeting up with star batsman Ajinkya Rahane who smashed 79 against South Africa.

Patil and Rahane played in a variety of youth teams in Mumbai before the keeper decamped to Dubai.

But the 29-year-old Patil, one of sev-

en players in the UAE squad who only made their debuts last year after completing residency qualifications, has fond memories of his time spent with Rahane.

“As juniors we have spent much time together. Because of distances in Mumbai, we couldn’t hang out together after games but Ajinkya is like a brother,” Patil told the Indian Express.

“Once I moved from India, we lost contact. But one day at the Dubai airport, he was returning from India’s A tour to South Africa, it was like old times again.”

Reigning champions India’s much-vaunted batting line-up has impressed so far at the World Cup, but captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni said his fielders deserved credit for restricting opposition totals.

“If we score 280, for example, we know with our fielding we can actually add another 15 runs. I think we have

got some excellent fielders, and apart from that we have got fast bowlers who are above average fielders,” said the skipper, whose team were livewires against South Africa.

“Overall I’ve got plenty to play with.”

India have a mixed record at the WACA, winning four times and losing six, with one of those defeats coming against England during the tri-nations series in January.

Now they may use Saturday’s match to test their bench strength.

Waiting in the wings are batsmen Ambati Rayudu, all-rounder Binny, young left-arm spinner Akshar Patel and seamer Bhuvneshwar Kumar.

The United Arab Emirates have made a mark at the tournament, with Pakistan-born Shaiman Anwar scoring the first hundred by a UAE batsman at a World Cup with 106 off 83 balls against Ireland.l

India not taking UAE lightly, says Dhawan n AFP, Perth India will approach Saturday’s World Cup match against the United Arab Emirates in Perth with the same intensity as they do against established teams, key batsman Shikhar Dhawan said.

The Pool B game between the defending champions and the minnows at the WACA ground is being seen as a huge mismatch, but the left-handed opener emphasised the importance of taking it seriously.

“We need to keep the momentum going,” said Dhawan, the hero of India’s emphatic wins over arch-rivals Pakistan by 76 runs and against South Africa by 130 runs in their two matches so far.

“We will approach the match the same way as we have done for other games and play it as we have been playing all along. We will play with the same fighting spirit and keep the same intensity.

“You can’t afford to take any side lightly at the international level.”

The UAE have lost both their matches, going down to Zimbabwe by four wickets before being edged out by two wickets by Ireland in a thriller in Brisbane on Wednesday.

Dhawan’s match-winning knocks of 73 off 76 balls against Pakistan in Adelaide and a glorious 137 off 146 against the Proteas in front of more than 86,000 fans at the Melbourne Cricket Ground provided a batting feast.l

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Entertainment

SOHANA SABA to work in Indian film n

Johansson defends Travolta over Oscar act

n Entertertainment desk If there was something a little creepy about John Travolta’s behaviour at the 2015 Oscars, it was totally wrong. After the veteran US actor’s chin-grabbing antics while presenting an award with Frozen’s Idina Menzel were “revealed” by his representative to have been planned in advance, actor Scarlett Johansson has issued a statement suggesting that photographs of the pair sharing an apparently awkward red carpet embrace did not paint a true picture.

“There is nothing strange, creepy or inappropriate about John Travolta,”

CELEBS ON SOCIAL KIM KARDASHIAN @KimKardashian What color is that dress? I see white & gold. Kanye sees black & blue, who is color blind?

JUSTIN BIEBER @justinbieber And for everyone asking I see blue and black RASHIDA JONES @iamrashidajones What genius pulled off this elaborate metaphor just to teach us the importance of tolerating other perspectives?#blueandblack #whiteandgold SARAH HYLAND @Sarah_Hyland I’m done with this #dress stuff.

Go see #theduff and laugh at @ robbieamell and kenjeong https:// instagram.com/p/zmHyseqguC/

The Colour of Paradise to be screened today

Nadira Sultana Ava

Celebrated actress Sohana Saba is all set to start her journey with the Indian film industry.

With the romantic-thriller “Shoro Ripu,” she is going to embark on the international film fraternity.

Under the direction of Ayan Chowdhury, Saba will be seen playing the central role with three renowned actors of Tollywood – Indraneil Sengupta, Chiranjeet Chakraborty and Rajatava Dutta.

The shooting of the film starts on Monday.

Saba is excited to work with the inspiring celebrities of Kolkata. With enthusiasm and confidence she aims to represent Bangladesh.

“Shoro Ripu” is going to be Saba’s the sixth movie on silver screen.

Previously she gained acclamation for her works in “Ayna,” “Khelaghar,” “Chandra Grahan,” “Priyotomeshu” and “Brihonnola.”

The popular actress is scheduled to work under the direction of Murad Parvez in “Dour” alongside her plays on the small screen. l

n Entertainment Desk “The Colour of Paradise,” a 1999 Iranian film directed by Majid Majidi, will be screened today at the Nanan Bhashar Nanan Chhobi festival at the International Digital Cultural Archive of Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy at 6pm.

The film is about a blind boy. Quick and gentle, in love with knowledge, acutely attuned to the world around him, Mohammad loves his lessons at a school for the blind. He is loved at home by his grandmother and his two sisters. But his father, Hashem, does

not love him. Hashem is a widower, ambitious to marry into a prosperous family, and he fears the possession of a blind son will devalue him in the marriage market.

Majid Majidi’s work feels truly intended for God’s glory, unlike so much “religious art” that is intended merely to propagandise for one view of God over another. His film looks up, not sideways. In this and his previous film, the luminous Oscar nominee “Children of Heaven,” he provides a quiet rebuke to the materialist consumerism in Western films about children. l

n Mosabber Rahman

Johansson told the Associated Press on Thursday, in an apparently unprompted statement in which she referred to her former co-star as a “class act.”

The statement continued: “The image that is circulating is an unfortunate still-frame from a live-action encounter that was very sweet and totally welcome. That still photo does not reflect what preceded and followed if you see the moment live. Yet another way we are misguided, misinformed and sensationalised by the 24-hour news cycle. I haven’t seen John in some years and it is always a pleasure to be greeted by him.” l

WHAT TO WATCH TELEVISION

THE OTHER GUYS HBO Hits, 11:55pm Cast: Will Ferrell, Mark Wahlberg Two mismatched New York City detectives seize an opportunity to step up like the city’s top cops whom they idolize -- only things don’t quite go as planned.

OSCAR 2015: Why must the show go on?

We had yet another lukewarm Oscar event and this year it was poor Neil Patrick’s turn to recite the jokes. But as the saying goes - “the show must go on” - a silly expression like “good morning” (what’s good in the morning anyway?) and “happy new year” (why can’t we say it in February?). My friends, it’s time to bring in Larry David.

But why must the show go on? Well because it’s all about the films really and it was a great year in film. Yes it was disappointing to see “Boyhood” lose big time and Hans Zimmer go home empty handed even though “Interstellar” had the best music. However, they did give an honourary Oscar to my favourite Hayao Miyazaki, the greatest animator of all-time. Plus, Isao Takahata, the maker of “Grave of the Fireflies,” and Miyazaki’s partner at Studio Ghibli, was nominated for his latest animation “Tale of the Princess Kaguya”.

The biggest contenders this year, with 9 nominations each, were “Birdman” and “Grand Budapest Hotel”, and each won 4 Oscars. However, “Birdman” got the major ones – Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography. I was rooting for “Boyhood” which was nominated in 6 categories and won only one, a much

15

Saturday, February 28, 2015

BLUE STREAK Star Movies Action, 6:30pm Cast: Martin Lawrence, Luke Wilson A former convict poses as a cop to retrieve a diamond he stole years ago.

GETAWAY HBO Defined, 8:00pm Cast: Ethan Hawke, Selena Gomez To save his kidnapped wife, Brent Magna must drive at the orders of a mysterious man.

THE ISLAND WB, 3:03pm Cast: Scarlett, Ewan McGregor Lincoln Six Echo is just like everyone else-he’s waiting to go to the island-the only place left in the world to actually live a life. Thousands of people stay at a facility waiting to go to the island.

THEATRE

deserved Best Supporting Actress for Patricia Arquette who acted in the film for 12 years. I was also glad to see JK Simmons win the Best Supporting Actor for his terrific performance in “Whiplash” which won 3 out of its 5 nominations.

I was hoping Michael Keaton would win Best Actor for “Birdman” but it went to Eddie Redmayne for playing Stephen Hawking in “The Theory of Everything.”

The Best Actress went to Julliane

Moore for “Still Alice” for her portrayal of a person suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.

With “Big Hero 6” the John Lasseter team beat Dreamworks Animation yet again. It was amazing to see the documentary on Edward Snowden “Citizenfour” win Best Documentary.

And Best Foreign Film went to “Ida” from Poland, it is about a nun who discovers she is Jewish.

It was a good year film-wise.l

PENGUINS OF MADAGASCAR 3D I ZERO DEGREE I ROMEO V/S JULIET I SEVENTH SON 3D I JESSABELLE @ Star Cineplex SEVENTH SON 3D I ROMEO V/S JULIET I EXODUS 3D I INTERSTELLAR I NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM: SECRET OF THE TOMB I THE HOBBIT: THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES I THE PENGUINS OF MADAGASCAR 3D I ZERO DEGREE @ Blockbuster Cinemas

FILMFARE GLAMOUR AWARDS: Kareena, Alia most stylish n Entertainment Desk Bollywood stars dressed to kill in high-end designer wear at the Filmfare Glamour and Style Awards held in Mumbai on February 26.

Kareena Kapoor and Alia Bhatt stole the show - the former in a vibrant Roberto Cavalli Atelier gown and the latter blooming in a pale rose ballgown by Isabel Sanchis. Both Kareena and Alia walked home with an award each - Kareena won the Most Glamorous Star (Female) and Alia won the Emerging Face of Fashion (Female) award.

The leading men also arrived in crisp formals. Amitabh Bachchan, who won Timeless Glamour and Style Icon (Male) award, looked dapper in a

cream satin shirt and black suit.

Akshay Kumar and Sidharth Malhotra were seen smiling away for the shutterbugs with director Karan Johar. While Akshay bagged the

Police investigate theft of $150,000 Oscars dress worn by Lupita Nyong’o n Entertainment Desk Police in Los Angeles are investigating the theft of the dress worn by Lupita Nyong’o to the Oscars on Sunday evening, the sheriff ’s office has confirmed.

The white dress, which was designed by Francisco Costa for Calvin Klein and contains 6,000 white Akoya pearls, according to TMZ, is reportedly worth $150,000.

Sergeant Richard Bowman, the detective bureau supervisor at the West Hollywood office of the Los Angeles County sheriff ’s department, told the Guardian that they received a call at around 11.20 on Wednesday evening from a member of Nyong’o’s team to report the theft.

The dress was the only thing that was reported missing.

Police are currently trying to find out if the thief was captured on any of the hotel’s security cameras.

There are currently no suspects, Bowman said.

Nyong’o is not the first person to fall victim to this kind of high-fashion theft.

In 2013, jewellery worth a million dollars was stolen from a hotel in Nice, after model Cara Delavigne wore them to the Cannes film festival.

Earlier this month, thieves stole the Oscar statuette won by Charlie Chaplin in 1929 from a museum in Paris.

Representatives for Nyong’o declined to comment. l

Most Glamorous Star (Male) award, Sidharth was honoured for being the Emerging Face of Fashion (Male).

Director Karan Johar won the Most Glamorous Director award. l

Rusty Ramblers render the sounds of Motown, a Detroit based record company that is attributed to the promotion and popularising of a large number of American artists, at the EMK Center on Thursday. The event took place to mark the Black History Month, an annual observance for remembrance of important people and events in the history of the African diaspora

Robin Wright: Barack Obama compared Michelle to Frank Underwood n Entertainment Desk President Obama compared his wife, Michelle, to the manipulative, reptilian Frank Underwood in the TV political drama “House of Cards,” Robin Wright revealed on February 26.

The actress, who in the programme plays the Lady Macbeth-like Claire Underwood opposite Kevin Spacey’s newly elected President, was attending its lavish third season premiere in London’s West End. Speaking of Obama’s much-publicised fondness for “House of Cards,” the slick US remake of the justly celebrated 1990 BBC series, Wright, 48, said that the President once told her jokingly: “I’m not as bad as your husband, but my wife is.”

The show, which charts Frank Underwood’s rise to power, from Democratic Majority Whip in the United States House of Representatives to President, has plenty of other political admirers, including Spacey’s friend, former president Bill Clinton.

“He’s a big fan of the show,” said Spacey, who won a Golden Globe for his portrayal of Underwood. “He’s not allowed to watch it without Hilary.”

Spacey, a two-time Oscar winner for The Usual Suspects and American Beauty, said he found it interesting to see how different politicians responded to the show. “Some say it’s really cynical,” he said. “Others say it’s closer to the truth than you could ever want to imagine.” l

DT

16 BACK PAGE

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2015

EU eager to invest in IT, shipbuilding n Tribune Report EU (European Union) Ambassador in Dhaka Pierre Mayaudon yesterday said the EU was interested in investing in a number of industries, including information technology and shipbuilding, in Bangladesh.

“We have taken good note of the interest of Bangladesh to see more foreign investments in the pharmaceutical industry, information technology, shipbuilding and laser products,” he said while addressing a press briefing after a meeting with Bangladesh officials at State Guest House Padma in the capital.

An agreement on aviation was inked at the meeting with a view to boost connectivity between Bangladesh and the EU countries.

Mayaudon said the deal was a key step towards enhancing economic relations between the EU and Bangladesh.

“This is a technical agreement but is also aimed at enhancing connectivity between the EU and Bangladesh,” he added.

The meeting’s agenda included expansion of bilateral trade between the EU and Bangladesh, and the progress of Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement among others.

Additional Commerce Secretary Manoj Kumar Roy represented the Bangladeshi team while Diana Acconcia, deputy head of unit for EU South and South East Asia, led a 14-member delegation.

“There remain some tariff-related diffi-

Avijit’s murder protested at Boi Mela n Nure Alam Durjoy

culties in investing in Bangladesh. In some cases, import duty is too high while non-tariff barriers include lack of better stability, more transparency and legally established regulatory framework,” said Mayaudon.

He said the meeting had discussed the economic and investment environment of the country in relation to the recent formation of the EU Business Council in Bangladesh. “We discussed EU research and innovation programme named Horizon 2020, which could assist Bangladesh in becoming a knowledge-based economy.”

There was discussion on the progress of Sustainability Compact that was jointly signed by the Bangladesh government, International Labour Organisation, the EU and the US after the Rana Plaza tragedy.

“The EU received renewed commitment from the Bangladesh government that regulations related to the implementation of the amended labour law would likely be prepared by April,” added the EU ambassador.

The additional commerce secretary said the key focus of the meeting was EU-Bangladesh trade ties.

He said the recent development in the readymade garment sector was discussed.

“We are currently getting no foreign investments in our service sector as there are some legal hassles involved because of a writ petition. The EU has urged to resolve these as early as possible,” added Manoj.

In 2013-14, bilateral trade between EU and Bangladesh stood at $18.78bn. l

The air was heavy at Amar Ekushey Boi Mela yesterday as writers, publishers and readers joined together to AMAR EKUSHEY protest the murder BOOK FAIR 2015 of secularist blogger and writer Avijit Roy. They also commemorated late author and scholar Humayun Azad, standing in silence raising their fists in memory of the writers, both believed to be killed by the Islamic extremists.

Avijit was hacked to death on Thursday night, while Humayun was attacked on February 27, 2004, eventually dying six months later. Both were attacked on their way back from the book fair.

The protesting publishers, writers and readers gathered around 6pm in front of the Burdwan House in Bangla Academy, holding the slogan “Books Against Violence.”

Addressing the protest, Shamsuzzaman Khan, director general of the Bangla Acdemy, said: “It is an attack on civil society when alternative thinkers and writers are killed by militants. We demand immediate justice of this murder.”

He said the fair will be open at 10am today, instead of the usual 11am, in protest of these killings.

Osman Gani, president of the Academic and Creative Publishers’ Association of Bangladesh, said: “Humayun Azad

Writers-Readers-Publishers Forum protests murder of blogger and writer Avijit Roy and Professor Humayun Azad at the Ekushey Boi Mela inside the Bangla Academy premises yesterday RAJIB DHAR and Avijit Roy will survive in their writings. They (the militants) cannot kill their thoughts and writings.”

He urged the readers to show their protest by reading their books.

Claiming this attack “is on Bangladesh,” Dhaka University’s Professor Muntassir Mamoon said: “Our grief must be turned into our strength now. These militant groups will not spare anyone.”

“These murders are happening because the killers of Humayun Azad were not punished. We demand justice immediately,” said Professor Rafikullah Khan of Dhaka University.

Last weekend sees heavy traffic

The first day of this weekend, also the sec-

ond last day of the fair, saw a heavy sales of books. As soon as the fair gates were opened at 11am a good number of visitors poured inside the premises of the Bangla Academy and Suhrawardy Udyan.

As the day progressed, the number of visitors increased, and by the sun set, the entire venue was packed. Stall attendants were seen incredibly busy attending the customers.

“It is difficult to buy books like this, in this heavy crowd where even moving is quite hard,” said Adil Rahman, who came from Savar to visit the fair.

The Bangla Academy will hold a concluding ceremony at 6pm today, to be attended by Cultural Affairs Minister Asaduzzman Noor as chief guest. l

Two more arson victims die at burn institute n Tribune Report Two more arson victims, firebombed during the nationwide blockade enforced by the BNP-led 20-party alliance, died at Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) yesterday.

The deceased were truck helper Jahangir Alam, 30, from Bogra, and rickshaw puller Lutfur Rahman, 35, from Gaibandha, sources said.

With these deaths, the total number of death by petrol bomb attacks during the ongoing blockade now stands at 45, 15 of which were at the National Institute

of Burn and Plastic Surgery of the DMCH. Sources at the burn institute said Jahangir suffered 46% burn injuries and his respiratory system was damaged when his truck was firebombed in Char Matha area in Bogra town on January 23. His sister Shapla and her husband Masud, who is a truck driver, were also injured in the incident.

Jahangir was brought in to the burn institute the next day, where he died around 3:15am yesterday after fighting for his life for 36 days.

Lutfur, on the other hand, was attacked on his way to Maulvibazar from

Dhaka on February 10. He was first admitted to the neurosurgery department the next day, but was later moved to the intensive care unit (ICU) as his condition deteriorated. He struggled for 17 days before succumbing to his injuries around 7:30am yesterday.

Since the blockade began on January 6, a total of 150 arson victims have been treated and released at the burn institute, while 45 are currently undergoing treatment, sources said.

Both the victims were the sole earning members in their families.

Jahangir was the elder son of his

family, and had two children – a daughter and a son.

His wife said: “My daughter has been asking for her father. What am I supposed to tell her?”

Lutfur left behind his wife and three sons. His wife Momena Khatun said: “I don’t see a way ahead. My future has been snatched away from me. My husband was the only earning member in my family. The miscreants took him away from us. We have nothing, except for a small piece of land. How am I going to take care of my family now? How am I going to feed my sons?” l

Neighbour violates minor girl in Chuadanga

BSF kills Bangladeshi on Kurigram border

n Our Correspondent, Chuadanga

n Our Correspondent, Kurigram

A four-year-old girl was hospitalised hours after she was raped allegedly by a neighbour in Alamdanga upazila of Chuadanga on Thursday evening.

The accused, Milon Hossain, was also admitted to a hospital as he took poison.

The father of the girl claimed that 22-year-old Milon of Nawlamari village lured the victim outside and took her to his house where he violated her.

Milon, son of Buroichand Mia, was at a loss when the incident was revealed and took poison. The amount of poison was little but he pretended that its effect was intense.

Milon’s family took him to Harinakundu Hospital in Jhenaidah but doctors told him to return home as they did not find any poison in his stomach.

Police later detained him around 9pm but he told them he was feeling very unwell for taking poison. Law enforcement officials then took him to Hardi Hospital in the upazila.

Deputy Inspector of Alamdanga police station Nurul Islam said no written complaint had been lodged by the victim’s family.

“An oral complaint has been made which is why Milon is being treated at the hospital under police protection,” he said, adding that actions would be taken if a written complaint was filed. l

The Indian Border Security Force (BSF) shot and killed a cattle trader on Khalisha Kotal border in Fulbari upazila, Kurigram yesterday.

The victim, Shyamol Chandra, 35, was from Naodanga union in the upazila.

According to the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) and local sources, BSF members of Boskotal camp in India shot at Shyamol around 5am, when he was smuggling cows near pillar 934 on the border.

Shyamol died on the spot and

his body fell on the Bangladesh side of the zero line.

Subedar Abdul Motir, Shimulbari company commander of 45 BGB battalion stationed in Kurigram, confirmed the death and said: “We recovered the body around 10:30am and handed it over to Fulbari police. A formal protest has been sent to the BSF over the incident.”

Fulbari police OC Bajlur Rashid also confirmed the matter to the Dhaka Tribune and added that the body was later sent to Kurigram Sadar Hospital for an autopsy. l

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