12 July, 2016

SECOND EDITION

TUESDAY, JULY 12, 2016

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Ashar 28, 1423, Shawwal 6, 1437

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Regd No DA 6238, Vol 4, No 76

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www.dhakatribune.com | 32 pages | Price: Tk10

Suspect in Panchagarh murder involved in Sholakia attack Rahman Sazzad, n Sazzadur Panchagarh and Tafsilul Aziz,

tered by militants right in front of his house beside Sonto Gourio temple, where he was a priest, in Debiganj on February 21 this year.

Shafiul was one of the three assailants who actively took part in the murder.

Police submitted the charge sheet regarding the murder case to a Panchagarh court on Sunday, but the court has not yet fixed a date for the hearing of the charges,  PAGE 2 COLUMN 1

 PAGE 2 COLUMN 5

Police in action after Sholakia terror attack

the largest Eid congregation in Bangladesh – leading to a gunfight between them and law enforcers on Thursday, the day of Eid-ul-Fitr.

Two police constables and a woman was killed in the attack, as well as a militant suspect later identified as Abir Rahman, a Dhaka native who went missing nearly eight months ago and is believed to be a part of the attack.

Police said Shafiul and another suspect, Zahidul, were shown arrested in a case filed regarding the attack, while the five others had been released after interrogation.

Joggeshwar, 50, was slaugh-

Theresa May to replace David Cameron Wednesday n Reuters, London

Theresa May

Interior Minister Theresa May is set to become Britain’s prime minister on Wednesday with the task of steering its withdrawal from the European Union after her only rival abruptly pulled out.

May, 59, will succeed David Cameron, who announced he was stepping down after Britons unexpectedly voted last month to quit the EU. Britain’s planned withdrawal has weakened the 28-nation bloc, created huge uncertainty over trade and investment, REUTERS

 PAGE 2 COLUMN 1

Rahman Rabbi and n Arifur Kamrul Hasan The attackers of the Gulshan and Sholakia incidents were trained somewhere in Gobindaganj of Gaibandha before they carried out the attacks, said a RAB high official involved in the shadow investigation into the cases.

The source said they were yet to ascertain the number of the trainees there. He, however, said two persons trained them and one rented a room to facilitate their training.

Another person seemed to have given them instructions, the source said.

Asked about the matter, RAB Intelligence Wing Director Abul Kalam Azad yesterday told the Dhaka Tribune that they had received information on the training and they were verifying it.

Meanwhile, Dhaka Metropolitan Police sources said investigators were closely analysing the CCTV footage of Gulshan cafe attack collected from adjacent buildings.

As there were very few CCTV cameras installed on the streets, investigators were yet to confirm the entry route of the attackers to the diplomatic zone.

They are also working to figure out the exits of several suspects who were believed to have assisted the attackers from outside.

Mohammad Saiful Islam, acting deputy commissioner of DMP’s Counter-Terrorism and Transnational Crime Unit, said police had

Kishoreganj Shafiul Alam, 20, who was arrested for his alleged involvement in a terror attack in Sholakia, Kishoreganj, is also one of the 10 suspects in the murder of Hindu priest Joggeshwar Roy in Panchagarh, police said.

Panchagarh Superintendent of Police Md Giasuddin Ahmed confirmed the matter to the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.

He is the last on the list of suspects mentioned on the charge sheet in the murder case, which was submitted to a Panchagarh court on Sunday, said Md Aiyub Ali, OC at Debiganj police station in Panchagarh and the investigation officer of Joggeshwar murder.

Shafiul, who also goes by the names of Don and Sohan and is from Debiganj, is a suspect in another case filed under the Firearms and Explosives Act in connection with the murder, according to police.

In addition, Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) has information that Shafiul has been involved in at least four murders in the northern part of the country since October last year, RAB Director General Benazir Ahmed told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday evening.

Shafiul and six others were detained after terrorists hurled bombs at police in front of a check point near Sholakia Eid ground –

‘Attackers given training in Gaibandha’

FILE PHOTO

INSIDE

US offers full support to end militancy

US special envoy Nisha Desai after a meeting with the home minister told media that the US will share intelligence and information in combating terrorism.  PAGE 3

Muhith rubbishes Moody’s warnings

AMA Muhith has rejected predictions from the global credit-rating agency Moody’s that the Gulshan terror attack will have a long term affect on Bangladesh’s economy.  PAGE 5

Housewife tied to tree, tortured for dowry

A housewife was tortured by her husband and in-laws for a dowry at Falia village in Sadar upazila of Gaibandha on Saturday.  PAGE 6

FF ‘beaten to death’ by railway police

A freedom fighter has died, allegedly after railway police beat him at the Jamalpur Railway Station. Eight police officers have been suspended over the incident.  PAGE 32

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‘Attackers’

Different organisations and platforms form a human chain in Shahbagh, Dhaka yesterday urging people to raise voice against terrorism, communalism, impunity and conspiracy RAJIB DHAR

Suspect in Panchagarh murder involved in Sholakia attack said Panchagarh Public Prosecutor Aminur Rahman.

Sholakia attack suspect put on 10-day remand

A Kishoreganj court has placed Zahidul Haque Tanim, 24, the other

suspect in Sholakia attack who was shown arrested by police, on a 10day remand.

Kishoreganj Chief Judicial Magistrate Abdus Salam Khan passed the order yesterday after Kishoreganj Sadar police station OC Morshed

Jahan, who is also the investigation officer in the case, produced Zahidul before the court with a petition to place him on remand for 10 days.

Zahidul, who is from Paschim Tarapasa area in Kishoreganj, was detained from the campus of Azim

Uddin School near the Eid congregation ground for suspicious movement on the day of the attack.

However, his father Abdus Sattar has claimed that Zahidul has been suffering from mental illness triggered by his mother’s death two years ago. l

Theresa May to replace David Cameron Wednesday and shaken financial markets.

May and energy minister Andrea Leadsom had been due to contest a ballot of around 150,000 Conservative party members, with the result to be declared by September 9. But Leadsom unexpectedly withdrew on Monday, removing the need for a nine-week leadership contest.

Cameron told reporters in front of his 10 Downing Street residence that he expected to chair his last cabinet meeting on Tuesday and take questions in parliament on Wednesday before tendering his resignation to Queen Elizabeth.

“So we will have a new prime minister in that building behind me

by Wednesday evening,” he said.

May will become Britain’s second female prime minister after Margaret Thatcher.

Her victory means that the complex process of extricating Britain from the EU will be led by someone who favoured a vote to Remain in last month’s membership referendum. She has said Britain needs time to work out its negotiating strategy and should not initiate formal divorce proceedings before the end of the year, but has also emphasised that ‘Brexit means Brexit’.

In a speech early on Monday in the central city of Birmingham, May said there could be no second referendum and no attempt to rejoin the EU by the back door.

“As prime minister, I will make

sure that we leave the European Union,” she said.

Relative unknown

Leadsom, 53, never served in cabinet and was barely known to the British public until she emerged as a prominent voice in the successful Leave campaign.

She had been strongly criticised over a newspaper interview in which she appeared to suggest that being a mother meant she had more of a stake in the country’s future than May, who has no children. Some Conservatives said they were disgusted by the remarks, for which Leadsom later apologised, while others said they showed naivety and a lack of judgement.

Leadsom told reporters she was pulling out of the race to avoid nine weeks of campaign uncertainty at a time when strong leadership was needed. She acknowledged that May had secured much greater backing in a vote of Conservative members of parliament last week.

“I have ... concluded that the interests of our country are best served by the immediate appointment of a strong and well supported prime minister,” she said. “I am therefore withdrawing from the leadership election and I wish Theresa May the very greatest success.

I assure her of my full support.”

Graham Brady, head of the Conservative party committee in charge

of the leadership contest, said there were still constitutional procedures to be observed before her appointment could be confirmed, but he aimed to make a confirmation announcement as soon as possible.

“We’re not discussing coronations, we’re discussing a proper procedural process which should conclude very soon,” he told reporters.

The pound, which has hit 31year lows since the June 23 referendum vote on concern about potential damage to the British economy, bounced briefly on the news that the Conservative leadership question would be resolved much sooner than expected.

“Welcome news we have 1 candidate with overwhelming support to be next PM. Theresa May has strength, integrity & determination to do the job,” finance minister George Osborne tweeted.

Forging new role

The 52-to-48 percent vote to quit the EU after 43 years of membership was a stunning rebuke to Britain’s political leaders and especially Cameron, who had argued that breaking away would bring economic disaster.

Britons ignored his warnings, swayed by the arguments of the Leave campaign that ‘Brexit’ would enable them to regain ‘independence’ from Brussels and

clamp down on high immigration, something hard to achieve under EU rules allowing people to live and work anywhere in the bloc.

May’s leadership hopes had appeared at risk of being damaged by her failure, in six years as interior minister, to bring immigration down, and the fact she found herself on the losing side of the referendum campaign.

But her two best-known rivals on the Leave side were felled by political back-stabbing when Justice Secretary Michael Gove brought down former London mayor Boris Johnson and was then punished for his perceived treachery by being eliminated from a ballot of Conservative MPs. In her speech in Birmingham on Monday, May set out her vision for the economy, calling for “a country that works for everyone, not just the privileged few”.

In a pitch for the political centre, she said she would prioritise more house-building, a crackdown on tax evasion by individuals and companies, lower energy costs and a narrowing of the ‘unhealthy’ gap between the pay of employees and corporate bosses.

“Under my leadership, the Conservative Party will put itself completely, absolutely, unequivocally, at the service of ordinary working people ... we will make Britain a country that works for everyone,” she said. l

collected some 50 pieces of CCTV camera footage from the area around the Holey Artisan Bakery.

They are analysing the CCTV footage to find out the new leads in the case. Anything specific could not be said until the end of the investigation, he said.

The CCTV camera of a nearby building revealed that Hasnat Karim was holding a gun but during the interrogation he reportedly claimed that he was forced to carry the gun.

Meanwhile, a New York Times report dated July 8 quoted two hostages as saying the attackers had ordered Tahmid Hasib Khan and Hasnat Karim to perform specific tasks for them.

“At one point, the attackers directed Tahmid Hasib Khan to carry a gun and go with them to the roof of the restaurant, the hostages said.

They said Tahmid Hasib Khan resisted and to persuade him to hold the weapon the attackers fired it to show him its magazine was empty.

Tahmid Hasib Khan broke down in tears at their insistence, one of the hostages said, but reluctantly complied,” the report said.

“Hasnat Karim was twice ordered to go outside the restaurant, once to lock the gate and then in the morning to open it, one of the hostages interviewed said,” it added.

The NY Times report also said attackers took Tahmid Hasib Khan and Hasnat Karim to the roof in the morning of July 2 to discuss what to do with the group of Bangladeshi Muslims they had spared.

“Tahmid Hasib Khan persuaded the attackers to spare the group, and soon after, at about 6am, they were released,” the report said quoting two hostages who were released afterwards.

Investigators yesterday said they received some important information from the two and were working on it. They, however, could not clarify if they were involved in the attack or not, but said they had already released them after completing interview.

But family members of Hasnat and Tahmid said the two had not returned home as of yesterday.

Meanwhile, RAB Director General Benazir Ahmed yesterday said some misguided youths inspired by the Islamic State activities are professing to have link to the IS. No evidence of their link to the IS has so far been found in the investigation, Benazir said.

He denied any sort of IS link to the Gulshan cafe attack and Sholakia Eidgah attack.

He was speaking at a press briefing at the RAB headquarters in the afternoon.

Benazir echoed the view of the home minister that all the attacks were carried out by the Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB). l

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GULSHAN ATTACK

Survivor Tahmid’s father hospitalised n Tribune Desk

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Nisha Desai Biswal in conversation yesterday at Ganabhaban after the latter came to meet the premier BSS

US offers full support to end militancy n Ashif Islam Shaon The visiting US special envoy Nisha Desai after a meeting with Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan at the Home Ministry yesterday afternoon told media that the US will share intelligence and information in combating terrorism.

The US is prepared to work with Bangladesh to overcome the great challenges in fighting terrorism, she said.

“Violent extremism is a global threat. As we have seen all too frequently, international terrorist groups can recruit and operate anywhere,” she said in a statement.

“I am here to offer US assistance

and support for Bangladesh’s own efforts against terrorism and extremism. This is an extension of our long and deep partnership based on shared values of democracy, tolerance, and inclusion, and the United States remains committed to this broad-based relationship with Bangladesh of which CT [Counter Terrorism] is but one part,” she added.

She also visited Holey Artisan Bakery yesterday morning and offered her condolences for the victims of the recent terrorist attacks and said: “Our support for and cooperation with Bangladesh remains as robust as ever.”

Meanwhile, the home minister

said that they discussed how the US can help Bangladesh in fighting terrorism.

“We will assess what kind help we need,” he said.

The home minister had a meeting with Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Nisha Desai Biswal and US Ambassador to Bangladesh Marcia Bernicat at the Home Ministry.

The home minister had another meeting with a visiting US team that included the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Manpreet Anand, RAB DG Benazir Ahmed and DMP Commissioner Asaduzzaman Mia.

Prior to the meeting with Bangladesh home minister, Nisha Desai had a view exchange meeting with the High Commissioner of Canada Benoît-Pierre Laramée, the Australian High Comissioner Greg Wilcock and the British High Commissioner Alison Blake at the US envoy to Bangladesh Marcia Bernicat’s residence.

US Ambassador to Bangladesh Marcia Bernicat and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Manpreet Anand accompanied her all the day.

Nisha Desai is on a two-day visit to discuss security issues after the recent terrorist attacks in Dhaka and Kishoreganj. l

Fazle Rahim Khan Shahriar, father of Tahmid Hasib Khan who was one of the hostages in Gulshan terror attack, was hospitalised yesterday at a private hospital in Dhaka.

Shahriar, managing director of Aftab Bohumukhi Farms, collapsed yesterday morning and was hospitalised in a critical condition, Tahmid’s cousin Rasheek Irtisam told the Dhaka Tribune.

He is undergoing treatment at the critical care unit in the hospital, Rasheek added. However, the further details on Shahriar’s condition have not been disclosed.

The surviving hostages of the terror attack on Holey Artisan Bakery in Gulshan, Dhaka who were rescued by a joint commando force on July 2 morning were all taken to the Detective Branch of police.

Tahmid’s family and Hasnat Karim, a former North South University teacher who is also among the survivors, say they have not returned home, although Dhaka Metropolitan Police Deputy Commissioner Masudur Rahman told the Dhaka Tribune on Saturday that police had released “all the rescued hostages after questioning them about the incident” before Eid. Tahmid’s family said he is epileptic and they have tried to get him medical attention and legal representation, but couldn’t do so.

The friends and family of the University of Toronto student are running a social media campaign to help secure his release and get some answers as to what has happened to him. l

Mother files GD over son KUNIO HOSHI MURDER Charges brought against eight missing in Australia Islam Swapan, n Saiful Lakshmipur A woman in Lakshmipur filed a general diary with police on Saturday night after it was reported that his son had gone missing.

Tajuddin, son of late Abdullah Bhuiyan of Atiatali village in Lakshmipur Sadar upazila, went to Australia for higher education in 2006.

He secured Australian citizenship in 2008 after marrying a native girl.

In 2013, Tajuddin came to his village home to visit his ailing father and returned to Australia after a week.

Tajuddin’s mother Tahera Begum, a teacher at Atiatali Government Primary School, said her husband died in September 2013 but she could not inform Tajuddin.

“He got the news of his father’s

demise almost a year later when he called from Australia,” she said.

Tahera said she got worried after her son’s missing report in the media.

In the wake of the July 1 terrorist attack at Holey Artisan restaurant in Dhaka’s Gulshan, the law enforcement agencies published a list of 10 men who had gone missing and Tajuddin was among them.

“After he went back to Australia in 2013, he maintained limited contact with us and even stopped sending us money. The last time I talked to him was a few days ago before Ramadan. He called and enquired after me,” said Tahera.

Md Shariful Islam, acting superintendent of police in Lakshmipur, said police have no information of Tajuddin’s whereabouts. l

n Liakat Ali Badal, Rangpur Police in Rangpur have pressed charges against eight members of the terrorist group Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), including leader Masud Rana, in the Japanese citizen Kunio Hoshi murder.

In a separate case, 14 JMB men were named in the murder of 57-year-old village doctor Rahmat Ali. The charge sheets were submitted to Rangpur Chief Judicial Magistrate’s Court yesterday morning.

JMB’s Rangpur regional commander Masud Rana, 33, Ishaq Ali, 34, Liton Miah, 32, Abu Sayed, 28, Saddam Hossain, 32, Ahsan Ullah Ansari, 31, Nazrul Islam, 32, and Sakhawat Hossain, 30, were named in the Kunio murder, Rangpur Pub-

lic Prosecutor Abdul Malek said yesterday at a press briefing. JMB’s killing mission was aimed at creat-

Kunio Hoshi was gunned down in October last year while Rahmat Ali’s throat was slit in November ing panic among foreigners to stop foreign investment and destroy Bangladesh’s economy, the charge sheet said.

The charge sheet also urged the court to dismiss local BNP leader Rashedunnabi, four Juba Dal lead-

ers and Kunio’s business partner Humayun Kabir Hira, who have been in jail for eight months now, saying no evidence of their involvement has been found.

Their lawyer and local BNP Vice President Aftab Hossain called it a political harassment and demanded compensation.

Kunio Hoshi was gunned down in October last year while Rahmat Ali’s throat was slit in November.

According to JMB member Ishaq Ali’s confessional statement, he, Masud and Liton rode a motorcycle to Alutari village on October 3, 2015. Masud shot Kunio.

The court has fixed August 3 for the next hearing on the case.

These eight men were also named in the Rahmat Ali murder case along with six others. l

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BNP to mourn for Gulshan café victims today n

UNB

BNP will observe a mourning day across the country today to condole the killings of foreigners and Bangladeshis in a terror attack on a Gulshan café.

As part of the programme, the party will hold a condolence meeting at the Institution of Engineers, Bangladesh in the city at 2pm on the day, said a press release yesterday.

Earlier on July 5, the party an-

nounced to observe the countrywide mourning day on Tuesday in memory of the café attack victims.

The party followers will bring out mourning processions and hold rallies in all cities and district towns in observance of the day.

Black flags will be hoisted and party flags kept half-mast at all BNP offices across the country on the day.

Besides, the party leaders and activists will wear black badges to

mourn the heinous killings.

Twenty-two people, including nine Italians, seven Japanese, one Indian national and two police officials, were killed as terrorists attacked Holey Artisan Bakery at the city’s Gulshan diplomatic zone on July 1.

The nation observed a twoday mourning last week in commemoration of those killed in the worst-ever terror attack in Bangladesh. l

World Population Day observed n UNB The World Population Day was observed in the country as elsewhere across the globe yesterday.

The theme of the day this year was “Investing in teenage girls.”

According to UNFPA, teenage girls around the world face enormous challenges. Many are considered by their communities or parents to be ready for marriage and motherhood.

Many are forced from school, damaging their future prospects.

Even among girls who stay in

school, access to basic information about their health, human rights and reproductive rights can be hard to come by, leaving them vulnerable to illness, injury and exploitation.

These challenges are exacerbated among marginalised girls, such as members of ethnic minorities or those living in poverty or remote areas.

Yet when teenage girls are empowered, when they know about their rights and are given the tools to succeed, they become agents of positive change in their communities. l

Four ABT members held in Chittagong n FM Mizanur Rahaman, Chittagong

Police arrested four members of banned militant outfit Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT) in possession of sharp weapons, laptops and mobile phones in Chittagong’s Sitakunda upazila yesterday.

The details of the detainees were not disclosed. Chittagong Additional Superintendent of Police (Special Branch) Rezaul Masud told the Dhaka Tribune that one of the four men is ABT’s Baitul Mal Secretary of Sitakunda upazila.

“They are the followers of ATB chief Mawlana Jasimuddin Rahmani Ansari, and police seized four machetes, four daggers, a laptop and

five cell phones from their possession,” he said.

On Saturday, Chittagong Superintendent of Police AKM Hafiz Akter told the Dhaka Tribune police had detained three people from Sitakunda for suspicious movement and they had been interrogated.

On June 17, police arrested two Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) operatives - Julfikar and Rubel – in Sitakunda’s Mosjidda area.

Police at the time said Julfikar and Rubel are the cohorts of JMB leader Bangla Bhai, and they were operating secretly.

ABT chief Jasimuddin Rahmani was arrested in Dhaka in September last year and he is now behind bars. l

Chittagong University student sent to jail over rape allegation n FM Mizanur Rahaman, Chittagong A student of Chittagong University (CU) was sent to jail yesterday after he was produced before a Chittagong court on charge of violating a schoolgirl in the port city’s Bayezid area.

The court also fixed June 13 for a remand hearing of the accused, said Mohammad Mohsin, officer-in-charge (OC) of Bayezid police station.

The arrestee Mizanur Rahman Mishu, 22, son of an expatriate Abdul Monaf, is a fourth year student of psychology department at CU.

Mishu lived with his mother, a teacher of a local primary school, in Bayezid’s Mohammed Nagar area, said the OC. As per the case statement, Mishu allegedly violated the girl, who was a former student of his mother, inside the school compound on Sunday, said the OC. Later, the youth left the victim, a student of class six, at one of her friends’ house.

The police arrested the accused at night soon after the filing of the case by the girl’s mother, said Mohsin. l

13th death anniversary of Barrister Syed Ishtiaq Ahmed n Tribune Desk Today is the thirteenth death anniversary of Barrister Syed Ishtiaq Ahmed, a prominent lawyer and former advisor to the caretaker government of Bangladesh.

On this occasion, Syed Ishtiaq Ahmed Smriti Parishad has organised different programmes which include the placing of floral wreaths at his

grave in Banani, Dhaka and offering of fateha.

A milad mahfil will also be

held at an orphanage.

It may be noted that during his eventful life, Barrister Ahmed made immense contribution in the legal arena of Bangladesh and acted as an attorney general for Bangladesh and an advisor to the caretaker government in 1996 and 2001.

He also made great contribution towards the democratic movement in Bangladesh. l

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Muhith rubbishes Moody's warnings n Asif Showkat Kollol Finance Minister AMA Muhith has rejected predictions from the global credit-rating agency Moody’s that the Gulshan terror attack will have a long term affect on Bangladesh's economy.

While the terrorist attack that took at least 22 lives was a shock to the economy, Muhith believes it will have no effect on the economy in the long run.

Asked by reporters yesterday at his secretariat office about dire warning from Moody's that the attack would erode investor confidence and have adverse impact on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), Muhith replied, “In my view it's totally rubbish. It will have no effect.”

Bangladesh's development partners had already demonstrated their commitment, the minister said.

“Japan has already nominated five successors for the unfortunate victims killed in the Gulshan terror attack, even though they are the ones who have been affected the most by the incident,” he said.

“Yes, a tragedy has happened. It can happen in a most sophisticated

country too. There's no reason to be upset over this,” he said.

Among the victims of the terrorist attack, seven were Japanese and nine were Italians. The Italians were involved with apparel trade while the Japanese worked with Jica.

Muhith said the main point that had been revealed was that Bangladesh and its current government were strongly against terrorism and would take drastic action to end the crisis.

“In waz mahfil, the Imams said that modern educated young people did these attacks, though the authorities always blame madrasa students,” the minister said.

“We do not blame the madrasas but the education system of Quomi madrasa is too old. It should be reformed and they should prepare for modern life,” he said.

Muhith said young people were getting involved with terrorist groups due to weak relations between children and parents.

“It is shameful that these types of brutal terrorist incidents happened in our society, although, we also saw a young man named Faraaz sacrifice his life for his two friends,” the minister remarked. l

Police are seen to thoroughly check people who came to attend 14-party alliance's rally at Central Shaheed Minar in Dhaka yesterday a measure taken to heighten security at the venue MEHEDI HASAN

14-party leaves no room for introspection n UNB The ruling Awami League-led 14-party alliance yesterday announced successive guardians’ and women’s rallies in the capital on July 20 and 21 respectively protesting the recent militant attacks and communal violence.

“We will arrange guardians’ rally on July 20 and women’s rally on July 21 in Dhaka,” the alliance’s spokesman and Health Minister Mohammad Nasim announced at an anti-militant rally at Central Shaheed Minar.

The ruling alliance is going to form anti-terrorism committees at every locality and village across the country from July 12 to July 30, he said.

The rally started at 3pm amid tight security. The 14-party central leaders addressed the rally presided over by Mohammad Nasim.

The alliance leaders said local and international conspiracies have begun to topple the current government and the recent militant attacks and secret killings were parts of the conspiracies.

They claimed that BNP and Jamaat are involved in the conspiracies, the militant attacks and violence.

Mentioning the government’s continuous success in developing the country, Nasim said: “They think this is time to stop Sheikh Hasina…This is why local and inter-

RAB launches app as a counter terrorism measure n Tribune Report

Rapid Action Battalion yesterday launched a mobile application called Report 2 RAB as part of their community engagement in gathering intelligence.

The app can be downloaded from the RAB website directly or from the Google play store.

RAB Director General Benazir Ahmed inaugurated the launching of the app at the RAB headquarters and said they were keen to launch similar strategies in combating terrorism.

“We want information, especially on terrorist activities and information on Facebook campaigns that are spreading fundamental radicalisation.”

The DG also said they were working on an IOS version of the app along with a Bangla font which

will be launched within the next 10 to 12 days.

RAB sources said that after the Gulshan attack high officials decided to emphasized more on terrorist activities and they were planning to engage with the community in a way that would encourage them to speak to law enforcers without hesitation in passing on any information they have on impending attacks or people they suspected as terrorists.

Earlier, Wing Commander Forhad Hossain Mahmud gave a presentation on how to use the app and said that it made under the campaign “If you see something, say something.”

He said anybody could take a photo and upload the image with descriptions onto the app.

The sender’s identities would not be revealed unless they want to disclose it, he added. l

TEMPERATURE FORECAST FOR TODAY

THUNDERSHOWER WITH RAIN TUESDAY, JULY 12

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DHAKA TODAY SUN SETS 6:49PM

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national conspiracies have begun.

The mastermind of the conspiracies is BNP leader Khaleda Zia.” He said the former Shibir activists have now become militants and they want to topple Sheikh Hasina’s government.

Turning to BNP Chairperson Khaleda’s recent demand for fresh election to solve the militancy crisis, the Awami League presidium member said the election is no easy matter. “The election must be held, but it will be held in 2019 and not a single day before that.”

Nasim said it is time to cooperate with the government not to criticise the government.

He urged all to cooperate with the committees and inform law enforcers about missing children.

The AL leader said the 14-party leaders will visits various parts of

Khulna

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Barisal

YESTERDAY’S HIGH AND LOW

TOMORROW SUN RISES 5:19AM

35ºC Sylhet

25ºC Cox’s Bazar

Source: Accuweather/UNB

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the country, including Rangpur, Panchagarh, Bogra, Sirajganj and Comilla as part of anti-militant campaign.

At the programme, Agricultural Minister Matia Chowdhury criticised Khaleda Zia for terming Gulshan restaurant attack as “bloody upsurge” in her statement.

Disaster Management and Relief Minister Mofazzel Hossain Chowdhury Maya said Khaleda Zia wants to catch fish in troubled water with her demand for fresh election.

Information Minister Hasanul Haque Inu, Shipping Minister Shajahan Khan, Food Minister Quamrul Islam, Sahara Khatun, Mahbub-ul Alam Hanif, AFM Bahauddin Nasim, Nazibul Bashar Maizvandari, Dilip Barua, Dr Abdur Razzak, Jahangir Kabir Nanak, among others, addressed the rally. l

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Fajr: 4:45am | Zohr: 1:15pm Asr: 5:15pm | Magrib: 7:00pm Esha: 8:45pm Source: Islamic Foundation

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TUESDAY, JULY 12, 2016

News

Housewife tied to tree, tortured for dowry n Md Tazul Islam, Gaibandha

Atia Begum, a housewife, is tied to a tree and is being tortured by her husband and in-laws in Gaibandha Sadar upazila on Saturday for a dowry of Tk20,000 DHAKA TRIBUNE

A housewife was tortured by her husband and in-laws for a dowry at Falia village in Sadar upazila of Gaibandha on Saturday.

Victim Atia Begum, 32, is now under treatment at Sadar Hospital.

Police of Sadar police station and the housewife’s family members said Atia, a resident of the village, got married with Faruk Hossain of the same village nine years ago.

Atia’s father gave Faruk Tk80000 as dowry, while Faruk demanded one lakh.

Since then Faruk used to beat his wife very often for rest of the amount. In 2013, the man had left for Sylhet to work there and since then had not sent any money for his wife and their two children, compelling Atia to work as a housemaid in the village.

Atia went back to her parents’ house in 2015, as Faruk told that he would not come back if she failed

to give Tk20000.

On Saturday, she went to her in-laws’ house along with her two children, as Faruk came home in the Eid vacation.

Faruk became furious seeing her and asked for the money. When Atia said she was unable to give him the money, Faruk tied her to a tree and started beating.

Bachhu Mia, a newly elected union parishad member of Boali union of the upazila, rescued the housewife and sent her to home.

Later, being informed by local journalists, the police went to Atia’s house and got her admitted into the hospital on Sunday night, said the police.

The police arrested Faruk and his elder brother that night after Atia filed a case with the police station in this connection against six persons.

Faruk told the reporters that he beat Atia, as she refused to leave his room after entering there by breaking the lock of the room. l

Filaria Hospital facing fund crisis Taieyb Ali Sarker, n Md Nilphamari Doctors, nurses and other staffs of the Filaria Hospital at Syedpur under Nilphamari district have been suffering as they have remained unpaid for long due to fund crisis.

According to local sources, Dr Moazzem Hossain constructed the 30-bedded hospital in Dhalagus area in 2002 with the grant from the Embassy of Japan.

He said the hospital had been built in the area as many districts in northern region including Nilphamari, Thakurgaon, Panchagarh, Lalmonirhat, Dinajpur, Rangpur, Kurigram, Bogra, Pabna, Rajshahi, Naogaon and Kushtia districts are Filaria prone area.

The hospital has started functioning from 1 January 2003.

It is the only specialized hospital of this kind in Bangladesh and Globally.

The hospital was expanded in 2009 with the support from govt of Japan and also with support from Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

From the beginning, the hospital has been providing morbidity control services to filariasis patients to reduce their sufferings. As a part of this activity the hospital has been conducting training to Government health and paramedical health staff, NGOs, Rural Medical practitioners, JOCV volunteers.

In 2012, Dr Moazzem left the hospital and Dr Surut Ali took the charge.

The sources said the donor organisations stopped contribution after Dr Moazzem resigned the job and the hospital was operated from its own income.

Gradually doctors, officers and other staffs started to leave the job and now only 18 staffs are operating the institution.

Dr Surut Ali said:“The

hospital cannot be operated with so small bunch of staffs and without fund.”

The doctors and other staffs had not been given Eid bonus and salary this year, he said.

Bulbuli Begum, 32, a cleaner of the hospital, said her family members were deprived of Eid festival this year as she did not get salary and bonus.

“During the year, we have worked hard. But no payment has been given. In this situation to continue the job for me is impossible,” she added.

Dr Surut said without the government help, the hospital could not be run more.

The suffering of the staffs started to impact the presence of the patients. In Ramadan there was no patient, he added.

When contacted, Dr Moazzem said the government should continue the function of the hospital for the interest of poor patients. l

2 JMB men held with crude bombs n Tribune Desk Detective Branch of police arrested two alleged members of Jama’at ul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) in possession of 20 crude bombs at Baghdanga, Chapainawabganj Sadar Upzila in

the early hours of yesterday, reports our Chapainawabganj correspondent.

The arrestees were identified as Saifuddin alias Saiful Islam, 40, and Md Abul Kashem alias Tariqul, 35.

Police said acting on a tip

off, they conducted a drive at Baghdanga while 25-30 members of the JMB were conducting a secret meeting.

But sensing the presence of law enforcers, all of the militants except the duo managed to flee from the scene. l

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TUESDAY, JULY 12, 2016

Mother, daughter still wandering as police yet to ensure safety n Hedait Hossain, Khulna A woman and her daughter, who were forced to leave their house because of the threats made by local thugs, are still wandering as police allegedly failed to ensure their safety.

The security concern of Momotaz Begum and her daughter Farzana Akter Anamika came to light after they took shelter at Khulna press club on Sunday in a bid to save themselves from attack from local goons.

She then said Naim, son of Nantu Mollah of Fulbari gate area in Khulna city, had been harassing her daughter for a long time.

Deputy Comissioner of Khulna Nazmul Ahsan yesterday talked to

Momotaz Begum and her daughter yesterday following reports made on various newspapers and news portals, but was unable to arrange security for them.

Momotaz Begum told the Dhaka Tribune that they went to Daulatpur police station as deputy commisioner assured her of security measures were made for them.

She said when they had gone to police station, police told them that they would only drop them to their house, but they would not take their further responsibilies. ‚’They also advised me to marry off my daughter with Naim. Why should I go back to my house when the state is not providing us with safety?,” she asked.

She also informed that they would stay at the house of their relative until administration ensured safety for them.

She said: “I have talked with his parents and local elders about the mater, but no progress has been made.

Naim and his cohorts also vandalised my house two days ago.

They also took signatures from us on a white paper.”

She alleged that the thugs also assaulted her husband Moshiur Rahman.

Earlier, police arrested Naim following a complain made by Momotaz on June 11. He was sentenced to six months of imprisonment for harassing the girl by a mobile court on the same day.

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Momotaz alleged that family members of Naim who are nfluential in the area had been threatening them with dire consequences since then.

Police, however, said local residents were annoyed with the mother-daughter as they were involved in “anti-social” activities.

Mominul Islam, coordinator of the Bangladesh Society for the Enforcement of Human Rights (BSEHR), told the Dhaka Tribune that Momotaz Begum had taken shelter at the press club as they had not got any assistance from law enforcement agencies.

He said as police could not play satisfactory role, they did feel safe enough to go back to their house. l

Pakistani citizen among six killed in road accidents n Tribune Desk

AZAHAR UDDIN

At least six people, including a Pakistani national, were killed in separate road accidents that took place in Barisal, Chittagong, Syhlet, Bagerhat and Magura.

Two people were killed and eight others injured in two separate road accidents on the Barisal-Dhaka Highway.

Ejajul Islam, officer-in-charge of Gournadi highway police station, said a motorcycle losing control hit a roadside tree near Barthi yesterday afternoon, killing Ferdous, 35, a resident of Kashimpur, Kalkini upazila, Madaripur, on the spot.

Meanwhile, nine people were injured as a microbus plunged into a roadside tree at Bezhar, Gournadi on Sunday afternoon.

The injured were taken to Barisal Sher-e-Bangla Medical College Hospital where Farida Begum, 40, died at night.

In Chittagong, a Pakistani national was killed while three others sustained injuries in a road accident on Sunday night.

A private car carrying four people hit a roadside tree after losing control and later overturned in Chhoto Darogahat area, Sitakunda upazila , leaving Rana Jahir, 55, dead on the spot.

Jahir used to work as a general manager at Sunman Textile Ltd located in Kadam Rasul area.

Nayek of the CMCH police outpost Md Hamid said: “One of the three officials of Sunman Textile Ltd is now undergoing treatment at the hospital.

In Sylhet, an NGO activist was killed as a truck ran over him in Katakhal area on the Sylhet-Companiganj Highway yesterday morning.

In Bagerhat, a man was killed and nine others were injured as a human haulier turned turtle losing control in Karapara area, Bagerhat sadar upzila yesterday afternoon. The deceased is Md Izabojabul Haque.

Meanwhile, a woman was killed falling from a motorcycle at Borunatoil, Maguran yesterday afternoon. l

60-buses in Khagrachhari-Chittagong and Khagrachhari-Dhaka routes every single day for the last 15 days and it will continue for the next couple of days,” Shafi added.

Liyakat Ali Chowdhury, president of Khagrachhari Bazar Babosayee Samity, said they had done a great business this year.

Shamim Ahmed Khan of Dhaka, Mahabub Alam of Hathazari in

Chittagong, and Hasina Banu of Kashinathpur in Pabna said Khagrachhari is a place of natural beauty and living in a pollution free natural environment was a great experience for them.

Superintendent of Police Md Abdul Majid said they had given all out efforts to ensure the tourists’ safety during last two weeks and it would continue. l

Rajshahi Railway Station sees a crowd yesterday, as people continue returning to Dhaka after celebrating Eid-ul-Fitr at native homes

Tourism sector thrives in Khagrachhari Majumder, n Jasim Khagrachhari

Hundreds of tourists thronged Khagrachhari during the Eid vacation this year, far exceeding the number of previous year’s visitors.

Khagrachhari district administration sources said all the hotels, motels, resorts, rest houses, guest houses and circuit

houses remained booked for the last 15 days and it would continue till next week. As per the statistics given by hotel owners to police, around one lakh tourists visited different tourist spots in nine upazila of the district, according to the sources.

People related to tourism business are happy after pocketing a huge profit from the business.

Ananta Bikash Tripura, general secretary of Khagrachhari Hotel Owners Association, said they were happy, as they had got tourists three times higher than last year.

SM Shafi, general secretary of Khagrachhari Bus Owners Association, said Khagrachhari had seen a record number of tourists this year.

“We had provided around

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TUESDAY, JULY 12, 2016

SOUTH ASIA

Pakistani Christian charged with blasphemy over Whatsapp poem

A Pakistani Christian was charged with blasphemy Monday after his Muslim friend alleged he had sent a poem on Whatsapp that insulted Islam, police said.

Yasir Bashir said Nadeem James had sent him a poem on the messaging app that was derogatory about the Prophet Mohammed and other holy figures.

-AFP

INDIA

Floods kill 22 people in India, 170,000 homeless Flash floods triggered by torrential rain have killed at least 22 people in India and forced more than 170,000 from their homes, officials said on Monday, as forecasters predicted more downpours in coming days. India’s monsoon rains, though vital for agriculture, regularly bring death and destruction.

The rain was 35% above average in the week.

-REUTERS

CHINA

China intensifies opposition ahead of South China Sea ruling

China has intensified the drumbeat of its opposition to an international tribunal’s ruling expected Tuesday that could threaten its expansive claims in the South China Sea. How Beijing responds to the ruling in the case filed by US ally the Philippines could chart the course of global power relations in an increasingly dangerous hotspot.

-AP

ASIA PACIFIC

Filipino troops kill 40 Abu Sayyaf extremists Philippine troops have killed 40 Abu Sayyaf extremists and wounded 25 others in two battlefronts in the first major counterterrorism offensive in the south under the new president, the military said Monday. Battles on Basilan and Sulu islands since Wednesday killed one soldier and also wounded some two-dozen members of the al Qaeda-linked Islamist group.

-REUTERS

MIDDLE EAST

Families of US-Israeli victims sue Facebook for $1bn Israeli and American families of victims of Palestinian attacks filed a $1bn lawsuit against Facebook, claiming the social network is providing a platform for militants to spread incitement and violence.

Shurat Hadin, an Israeli legal advocacy group, filed the suit on behalf of the 5 families in a New York court late Sunday.

-REUTERS

FACTBOX

South Sudan: The never-ending fight Days of fighting in South Sudan’s capital Juba is some of the worst seen since civil war broke out in the world’s newest nation in December 2013 Pitting soldiers loyal to President Salva Kiir against troops backing his long time rival Vice-President Riek Machar -- who technically ended rebellion in April to forge a unity government -- the fighting has also drawn in other forces.

Here are some of the key players in the violence: some driving it and others trying to stop it--

Kiir and Machar Kiir and Machar are former rebel leaders who rose to power during Sudan’s 1983-2005 civil war between north and south -- a conflict in which the two men fought each other -- before South Sudan won independence in 2011. They come from the south’s two main ethnic groups -- Kiir from the Dinka people and Machar from the Nuer -- tribes that are themselves split into multiple and sometimes rival clans. UN experts say Kiir and Machar are both responsible for most of the violence committed during the war, which has seen tens of thousands killed.

Civil war began in late 2013 when Kiir accused Machar of plotting a coup. Following an August 2015 peace deal Machar returned to Juba in April, along with 1,500 troops who are based in basic camps on the outskirts of the city and were only permitted to carry light weaponry.

Kiir’s army -- equipped with tanks, artillery and attack helicopters -were supposed to withdraw from the city leaving only a similar-sized force behind.

Hardliners The fighting has fragmented and multiple militia forces now pay no heed to either Kiir or Machar. There are also reported divisions within both camps. Both Kiir and Machar were at the presidential palace to issue a joint appeal for calm on Friday when heavy fighting erupted outside. Analysts say hardliners on both sides never supported the August 2015 peace deal and instead want to end the conflict through military means. Key figures include army chief Paul Malong, a top general and powerful politician who commands an ethnic Dinka militia.

He is a long-time ally of Kiir and opposes power-sharing with Machar.

Machar’s authority over generals and troops is also in question, in particular his command over ethnic militia such as the so-called ‘White Army’, a fearsome force of cattle-raiding youth who pay little

heed to anyone but their direct leaders.

Neighbouring nations Past peace efforts have been led by regional nations, including the East African bloc IGAD. Ethiopia and Kenya have hosted multiple rounds of peace talks. But neighbouring states are also accused of taking sides in the conflict. Sudan is accused of backing rival forces to destabilise the country, claims it denies, while Uganda sent in troops in 2013 to prop up Kiir.

SOUTH SUDAN SLIDES INTO CHAOS The world’s newest country suffers from widespread poverty, security gaps and political instability.

The country’s largest employer-the military doles out wages irregularity, thereby resulting inoccasional riots and desertions.

The nation also has abundant natural resources-its most lucrative being oil - but much of it is primarily located in contested land with its northern neighbour, Sudan.

Many of the oil-rich lands are occupied by competing ethnic groups, including heavily armed militias.

International pressure?

Internationally-backed ceasefire monitors led by Festus Mogae, a former Botswana president, have pleaded for peace. Their ceasefire teams were repeatedly blocked in recent weeks. Past warnings -- including UN sanctions slapped on top commanders from both sides and stern words from IGAD, the African Union and others -- have done little to stem the violence.

More than half of the 12,000 United Nations peacekeepers are tied up guarding more than 160,000 civilians sheltering behind razor wire in their bases across the country, including more than 30,000 in Juba alone. Thousands more have sought shelter in recent days. Juba’s once-close allies -- especially the United States, Norway and Britain, who helped negotiate peace with the north and have led efforts to pour in billions in failed development projects in the south -- appear to have little influence to end the conflict. China, once the main buyer of South Sudan’s devastated oil industry, is mourning the death of two of its UN peacekeepers in Sunday’s battles.

President Salva Kiir

Over 1,000 people have been killed since the conflict began.

Since fighting began, the rebels have taken two key oil-producing states - Jonglei and Unity. In response, Kiir is open for talks with the “main [rebel] group”, according to South Sudan’s Foreign Minister Barnaba Marial. However, the rebel faction has yet to respond to the government’s request.

ABYEI

UPPER NILE

NORTHERN BAHR EL GHAZAL WARRAP WESTERN BAHR EL GHAZAL

JONGLEI LAKES

WESTERN EQUATORIA

Source: NYT, REUTERS

EASTERN EQUATORIA CENTRAL EQUATORIA

REFUGEES

206,243 IDPs

323,000

POPULATION

11,090,104

GUNS PER 100 PEOPLE

28

OIL PRODUCTION

350,000

BARRELS PER DAY

42%

LITERACY RATE

15%

GDP PER CAPITA

$1,000

NATIONAL BUDGET FROM OIL

98% INFLATION RATE

79%

50.6%

of the population is of the population lives between the age of below the poverty line

POPULATION GROWTH RATE

4.43%

third highest in the world

Church and aid groups Most of South Sudan’s food and healthcare is provided by aid agencies. Heavy fighting will likely see an exodus of foreign aid workers, leaving huge gaps in lifesaving services.

However, church-led aid efforts supported even the most remote and poorest communities through the long years of civil war. Church buildings are sheltering thousands in Juba forced from their homes by the battles. Bishops have been key figures in brokering peace between rival sides in the past, both among top leaders and at local levels. l

Former Vice President Riek Machar

On December 15 last year, ethnic violence erupted in Juba and across the country as divisions came to a head between President Salva Kiir, and former Vice President Riek Machar.

Kiir accused Machar of instigating a coup with portions of South Sudan’s disgruntled military. Machar has denied these claims, but has praised he rebel soldiers, who allegedly occupy border areas that produce the largest percentage of South Sudan’s oil.

0-14years

Ethiopia blocks social media during uni entrance exam

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TUESDAY, JULY 12, 2016

Kashmir seethes as 30 killed in clashes

n Tribune International Desk

n Tribune International Desk

Ethiopian officials have blocked social media sites across the country until the university entrance examination is concluded on Wednesday, reports Associated Press.

Facebook and other mobile apps have been disabled since Saturday, and citizens are complaining.

The government communications office said Sunday that the blocking of sites is meant to ensure an “orderly exam process” that begins on Monday.

“It’s blocked. It’s a temporary measure until Wednesday. Social media have proven to be a distraction for students,” AFP reports quoting government spokesman Getachew Reda.

An online leak of national school exam sheets in May forced the tests to be postponed. Some opposition media claimed responsibility for the leaks. Many have called it an embarrassment for the government.

One noted Ethiopian blogger Daniel Berhane says the government has no legal basis to deny the freedom of expression to millions of citizens. He says that “this is not China.”

“There’s no transparency on who decides why it’s necessary or who decides for how long,” he said.

Ethiopia’s Education Ministry says 254,000 students are expected to sit for the national exams.

Ethiopia is one of the first African countries to censor the internet, beginning in 2006 with opposition blogs, according to experts. l

Indian authorities struggled to contain street protests Monday

by Kashmiris defying patrols and a stringent curfew after at least 30 people died in clashes that followed the killing of a top insurgent leader, reports Associated Press.

Paramilitary troops and police in riot gear patrolled villages and towns in the Himalayan region. Most shops were shuttered, businesses were closed, and cellphone and mobile internet services were suspended in parts of the region. But crowds ignored the clampdown and clashed with government troops in parts of the main city of Srinagar and several other places in the region.

At least two teenagers injured in the clashes died in a hospital on Monday, said a police officer who spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to speak to reporters.

The protests erupted Saturday, a day after Indian troops killed Burhan Wani, the young leader of Kashmir’s largest rebel group, Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, which has been fighting since the 1990s against Indian rule. Wani, in his early 20s, had become the iconic face of Kashmir’s militancy, using social media to rally supporters and reach out to other youths like him who had grown up while hundreds of thousands of Indian armed forces have been deployed across the region.

US, EU resume trade talks despite doubts The US and the EU on Monday resumed talks to clinch a trade deal this year, despite rising opposition and Britain’s shock vote to exit the bloc. Negotiators met in Brussels for the 14th round of negotiations on the proposed trade pact that would create the world’s largest free trade area.

But it is facing increasing headwinds from Germany and France.

-AFP

Canada vows Baltic battalion to counter Russia

A woman walks past a closed shop painted with graffiti during a curfew in Srinagar July 11 REUTERS Police Inspector-General Syed Javaid Mujtaba Gillani described Wani’s killing as the “biggest success against militants” in recent years.

As news of his death spread, spontaneous protests erupted and crowds of youths threw rocks at Indian police and paramilitary soldiers, shouting “Go India, go back!” Police said protesters attacked and burned scores of police and paramilitary posts, and that some homes of pro-India politicians were burned.

At least 24 civilians and one policeman have died from wounds sustained in clashes since Saturday, as law enforcement officers used live ammunition, pellet guns and tear gas to try to break up the protests.

Most of those killed were teens

and men younger than 26 from southern Kashmir, police said. In addition, more than 150 civilians and 100 government troops have been injured. At least 10 of the injured civilians were in serious condition.

In several neighbourhoods in Srinagar, activists painted graffiti on iron shutters of shops and walls, deploring India and eulogizing Wani. Messages that they wrote included “Burhan our hero” and “Burhan still in our hearts.”

Opposition to India is strong in the portion of Kashmir it controls, a region of 12m people, about 70% of whom are Muslim. Many resent the deployment of hundreds of thousands of Indian troops, and openly voice support for rebels fighting to demand independence or a merger with neighbouring Pakistan. l

Clinton’s conundrum: Caught between protesters and police n Reuters, Washington, DC

Hillary Clinton speaks to the General Conference of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia REUTERS allow more moderate voters worried about the violent images on their TV screens to gravitate to her Republican rival, Donald Trump, who has attempted to use the tragedy in Dallas to argue that he is the better law-and-order candidate.

Clinton herself recognises the fine line she is trying to navigate.

In remarks Friday following the

USA

THE AMERICAS

ANALYSIS

The shocking shooting deaths of five Dallas police officers have magnified the challenge that Hillary Clinton faces as she tries to reassure both voters jittery about social unrest and activists angry about law-enforcement abuses that she is on their side.

For Clinton, the likely Democratic presidential nominee, the political concerns going forward are two-fold. She can’t afford to alienate black and progressive voters she needs to show up in large numbers in the November election by taking too strong a stand against the protests like those recently in Louisiana and Minnesota that resulted in hundreds of arrests.

At the same time, Clinton can’t

DT

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Dallas sniper attack that left five officers dead, she acknowledged she was sending a mixed message in advocating for reform to curb police misconduct while at the same time praising the honour and bravery of police officers.

“I know that, just by saying all these things together, I may upset some people,” Clinton said in Phil-

adelphia. Polling by Reuters/Ipsos has revealed sharp differences in how Trump and Clinton’s supporters view the police when it comes to African-American suspects. Just 24% of Trump voters believe that black people are treated worse than whites compared to 55% of Clinton voters, according to a poll conducted between May 13 and June 7.

African-Americans were also almost twice as likely as whites to describe the police as “too violent,” according to Reuters polling.

Prior to the attack, Clinton had tried to demonstrate her solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement after black men were killed by police in a suburb of St Paul, Minnesota and Baton Rouge, Louisiana. “White people” need to start listening, she said, “to the legitimate cries that are coming from our African-American fellow citizens.”l

Canada vowed Monday to keep a soon-to-be deployed battalion in Baltic state Latvia for as long as Russia remains a troublemaker in the region.

Ottawa’s pledge refers to Nato’s planned deployment of 4 battalions of around 1,000 troops each in Poland and the Baltic states as a tripwire against fresh Russian adventurism in its Soviet-era backyard.

-AFP

UK

‘Article 50 doesn’t require parliamentary approval’ The British government believes the legal process required to trigger a divorce from the EU, known as Article 50, does not legally require parliamentary approval, a government minister said on Monday.

More than 1,000 prominent British lawyers have written to Prime Minister David Cameron to say that lawmakers in parliament should decide whether Britain leaves the EU because the June 23 referendum was not binding.

-REUTERS

EUROPE

Turkey blocks investigations into southeast killings Turkey’s government is blocking access to independent investigations into alleged mass abuses against civilians in southeast Turkey, where security forces are fighting Kurdish militants, Human Rights Watch said on Monday. Thousands of civilians have been caught up in fighting between the Kurdistan Workers Party militants and security forces that flared in July after a two-year-old ceasefire collapse.

-REUTERS

AFRICA

South Africa twins accused of plot to blow up US mission Twin brothers have been charged with conspiring to blow up a US mission and various Jewish institutions in South Africa and planning to join the Islamic State.

Police spokesman Hangwane Mulaudzi said Monday that Brandon-Lee Thulsie, Tony-Lee Thulsie and two other people who are yet to be charged were arrested in Johannesburg on Saturday.

-AP

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World

TUESDAY, JULY 12, 2016

INSIGHT

Finger-pointing over fingerprinting n Tribune International Desk Michigan resident Raquel Vanderpool found out the hard way that while fingerprints don’t lie, they don’t always tell the whole truth.

Vanderpool had been working as a nurse’s aide for nearly a decade when a change in Michigan state law required her employer to conduct US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) fingerprint background checks on employees. It turned up a conviction for falsifying a prescription for painkillers years earlier, when she was 19.

Except the charge actually had been dismissed and the record sealed after Vanderpool went through a diversionary programme for youthful offenders. That didn’t prevent the mother of two from losing her job and, eventually, her house.

“I completed my end, and unfortunately the state failed to remove that from my record,” said Vanderpool, now 34. “Because somebody didn’t do their job, I lost mine and a whole lot more.”

Her story is far from unique.

According to studies by the federal Government Accountability Office and the Department of Justice, depending on which state you live in, as many as one-half of the criminal records in the FBI’s fingerprint system could have missing or inaccurate information on how criminal cases were resolved.

It worries civil rights and employment rights advocates at a time when job-related requests for fingerprint background checks have soared since 9/11. The non-profit National Employment Law Project estimated the FBI performed about 2.8m checks in 2002; an FBI spokesman said recently the bureau has processed roughly 24m since October.

And the issue of reliability in fingerprint records has come into sharper focus recently as ride-hailing companies battle states and municipalities over fingerprinting of their drivers.

Uber pulled out of Austin, Texas, over the checks, and recently the Chicago City Council left fingerprinting out of its new ride-hailing regulations after Uber and Lyft threatened to leave the city.

The companies’ concerns that fingerprint data can omit the disposition, or resolution, of a criminal case — whether it ended in a conviction, acquittal or dropping of charges — are grounded in truth, said Maurice Emsellem, programme director for the non-profit National Employment Law Project, which did a study on the issue in 2013 and updated it last year.

The National Employment Law Project (NELP) estimates hundreds of thousands of job applicants in fields

FROM FINGERPRINTS TO BIOMETRICS The science of fingerprint identification, or dactylography, began nearly 4,000 years ago in the “Fertile Crescent,” the land between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in present day Iraq. King Hammurabi (1955-1913 BC) used finger seals on contracts and law officers of the day were authorized to secure fingerprints of arrested persons.

In AD 650, nearly 600 years before Marco Polo visited “Cathay,” Chinese historian Kia Kung-Yen wrote of fingerprints used in an older method of preparing contracts. The law book of Yung-Hwui of the same period listed that the husband in a divorce decree had to sign the document with his fingerprint.

In AD 1100, Chinese novelist Shi-Naingan wrote in his book, The Story of the River Bank, “He compelled them to ink their fingers to record their fingerprints.”

1823 Nine fingerprints patterns documented A different professor named Johannes Evengelista Purkinje documented nine specific patterns to help identify types of fingerprints. Even with his discovery, the use of fingerprints did not catch on quite yet.

1880 Fingerprints are used to identify someone A doctor in Tokyo became very interested in fingerprinting. Dr Henry Faulds used fingerprints to identify who had left a stray bottle lying around—he matched fingerprints left on the bottle with a laboratory worker.

1896 Fingerprints use for criminal identification International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), Establish National Bureau of Criminal Identification, for the exchange of arrest information

1901 Sir Edward Henry develops the first system of classifying fingerprints Sir Edward Henry, an inspector general of police in the then Bengal, India, develops the first system of classifying fingerprints. This system of classifying fingerprints. This system of classifying such as education, health care and security that routinely rely on fingerprint checks have been affected by incomplete or inaccurate records.

For example, the Transportation Security Administration’s post9/11 screening programme for port workers led to more than 50,000 appeals of inaccurate or incomplete criminal history information, according to a 2013 NELP report.

It generally works this way: An

fingerprints was first adopted as the official system in England, and eventually spread throughout.

tems were implemented for three main purposes: physical access control; time and attendance; and personal identification.

1903 America begins using fingerprints

1990 Computerised fingerprinting

The New York Police Department, and others across the state, began using fingerprints as a way to identify people.

Over the next few years, the practice slowly spread westward.

With the advancement in technology, programmes began using Automated Fingerprint Identification Systems. The AFIS’s scanned and stored fingerprints electronically.

1911 First person to be convicted of murder in the US based on fingerprint evidence

1992 Biometric Consortium is established within US government

In December 21, 1911, the Illinois Supreme Court upheld the admissibility of fingerprint evidence concluding that fingerprints are a reliable form of identification. Thomas Jennings was the first person to be convicted of murder in the US based on fingerprint evidence.

1924 Fingerprints move to FBI territory The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) took over the cataloguing of fingerprints in America. By 1971 they had over 200m fingerprints on file.

1969 FBI pushes to make fingerprint recognition an automated process In 1969, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) began its push to develop a system to automate its fingerprint identification process, which was quickly becoming overwhelming and required many man-hours. The FBI contracted the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to study the process of automating fingerprint identification. NIST identified two key challenges: (1) scanning fingerprint cards and identifying minutiae and (2) comparing and matching lists of minutiae.

1974 First commercial hand geometry systems become available The first commercial hand geometry recognition systems became available in the early 1970s, arguably the first commercially available biometric device after the early deployments of fingerprinting in the late 1960s. These sysapplicant for a job or license provides fingerprints that are checked against state criminal records and the FBI’s database. If the FBI check yields a positive match, the FBI sends the criminal record back to the state, which then determines if the offence disqualifies the applicant. The applicant can challenge and correct inaccurate information.

The FBI created a task force in 2009 to address the problem and

The National Security Agency initiated the formation of the Biometric Consortium and held its first meeting in October of 1992. The Consortium was chartered in 1995 by the Security Policy Board, which was abolished in 2001.

1994 Inspass is implemented The Immigration and Naturalisdation Service Passenger Accelerated Service System (Inspass) was a biometrics implementation that allowed travellers to bypass immigration lines at selected airports throughout the US until it was discontinued in late 2004.

1999 FBI’s IAFIS major components become operational IAFIS, the FBI’s large-scale ten-fingerprint (open-set) identification system, became operational. Prior to the development of the standards associated with this system, a fingerprint collected on one system could not be searched against fingerprints on another system.

2002 ISO/IEC standards committee on biometrics is established The International Organisation for Standardization (ISO) established the ISO/IEC JTC1 Subcommittee 37 (JTC1 / SC37) to support the standardisation of generic biometric technologies. The Subcommittee develops standards to promote interoperability and data interchange between applications and systems.

2003 ICAO adopts blueprint to integrate biometrics into machine readable travel documents

il Aviation Organisation (ICAO) adopted a global, harmonised blueprint for the integration of biometric identification information into passports and other Machine Readable Travel Documents (MRTDs).

2004 DOD implements Abis The Automated Biometric Identification System (Abis) is a Department of Defence (DoD) system implemented to improve the US government’s ability to track and identify national security threats.

2008 US government begin coordinating biometric database use Finger image and facial quality measurement algorithms and related toolset development was finalised. An iris quality measurement algorithm was also developed. The FBI and Department of Defence also started working on next generation databases designed to include iris, face and palm data, in addition to fingerprint records.

2010 US national security apparatus utilises biometrics for terrorist identification A fingerprint from evidence collected at the believed 9/11 planning location was positively matched to a GITMO detainee. Other fingerprints were identified from items seized at other locations associated with 9/11.

2011 Biometric identification used to identify body of Osama bin Laden Along with DNA, the CIA used facial recognition technology to identify the remains of Osama bin Laden with 95% certainty.

2013 Apple includes fingerprint scanners into consumer-targed smartphones Touch ID is a fingerprint recognition feature, designed and released by Apple Inc., that was made available on the iPhone 5S, the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, the iPad Air 2, and the iPad Mini 3.

On May, 28 2003, The International Civ-

Sources: Crime Scene Training, Crime Scene Forensics, FBI, HowStuffWorks, Soft Schools

set a goal in 2012 of creating a national strategy for reporting case dispositions. That hasn’t happened, according to the 2015 GAO report, and although some progress has been made, performance can vary greatly from state to state.

Where you live — or where you’re arrested — can make a huge difference. A 2015 Justice Department study found more than 3m unprocessed or partially processed

case disposition forms in 19 states, ranging from 200 in North Dakota to more than 1m in Nevada.

According to the same study, eight states took one day or less to provide final felony case dispositions to their records repositories, while Missouri took 164 days. Similarly, 20 states took a day or less to input a felony case disposition into the repository’s database, while Oregon took more than 100 days. l

Q&A

S China Sea: Why China-Philippines court case matters

A landmark ruling on an arbitration case filed by the Philippines that seeks to strike down China's expansive territorial claims in the South China Sea will be a test for international law and world powers. China, which demands oneon-one talks to resolve the disputes, has boycotted the case and vowed to ignore the verdict, which will be handed down Tuesday by the UN tribunal in The Hague. Here are some key questions about the case--

What is the case about?

The South China Sea has been a potential flashpoint among Asian rivals. But in 2013 the Philippines moved to establish accepted principles in the volatile region with a case it lodged at the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in The Hague, Netherlands. The tribunal will not rule on competing territorial claims between China and the Philippines, but on maritime rights attached to what is being claimed by Beijing. It will question whether islands that China has been building up from outcrops and partially submerged reefs have any legal claims in surrounding waters. It will also rule on the legal validity of the "Nine-Dash Line", geographical markings which define the boundary of China’s claims.

How did it start?

Although the disputes have simmered for decades, they gradually escalated under former Philippine President Benigno Aquino III and culminated in 2012 when China took effective control of the disputed Scarborough Shoal after a tense standoff. US officials brokered an arrangement for Philippine government vessels and larger Chinese maritime surveillance ships to simultaneously withdraw from the tiny shoal, a deal which Aquino said he followed. Chinese ships never left. The Philippines said it had no other choice but to elevate the dispute to international arbitration.

Why does it matter?

The legal status attached to China’s man-made islands has been a growing point of contention not only between Beijing and its neighbours. Territorial waters can extend from 12 to 200 nautical miles from the shoreline of states, depending on whether they are classed as islands, rocks or a national coastline. But the US and the Philippines argue that such rights do not apply to artificial islands. China’s Asian rivals also claim that the Nine-Dash Line is illegal as it cuts through the territorial waters of states, as defined by international law. The energy-rich South China Sea has some of the world’s most important shipping lanes, in which more than $5tn of trade passes every year.

Will the arbitration change anything?

Any ruling will be final and legally binding on China and the Philippines. China's decision to ignore the case and the arbitration tribunal's lack of enforcement mechanism, however, have blunted the Philippines' move.

Why did china refuse to take part in the case?

China has argued that the tribunal does not have jurisdiction to handle the Philippine case, because it says it involves sovereignty issues, which are outside the tribunal's legal purview. While masking its case as an effort to clarify maritime rights under the UN convention, the Philippines is actually trying to undermine China's "indisputable sovereignty," according to Chinese officials. l

Sources: AP, THE TELEGRAPH, FT

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TOP STORIES APG meeting in Dhaka postponed Asia Pacific Group on Money Laundering has postponed its 19th annual general meeting, according to a press release issued yesterday.

PAGE 13

China’s giant savings bank not as safe as it seems Postal Savings Bank of China began life as part of the country’s postal network. But for prospective investors in the lender’s impending Hong Kong offering, it’s not as safe as such staid origins might imply.

PAGE 14

UK’s tax cut goal: Calm business, scare Brussels Could Britain’s future outside the European Union be as a tax haven?

Chancellor George Osborne on July 3 said he wanted to cut the UK’s corporation tax rate to 15%. That raises fears the UK could effectively turn into a refuge for big corporations and impoverish countries who compete with it. Instead, it’s best to see the prospect of tax cuts as a continuation of politics by other means.

PAGE 15

Capital market snapshot: Monday DSE Broad Index

4,505.2

Index

1,106.5

0.2% ▲

30 Index

1,756.8

-0.2% ▼

Turnover in Mn Tk

2,727.6

30.2% ▲

Turnover in Mn Vol

103.6

36.5% ▲

All Share Index 13,829.6

0.3% ▲

30 Index

0.1% ▲

0.2% ▲

CSE

Selected Index

12,774.9 8,414.7

0.3% ▲

Turnover in Mn Tk

148.8

29.4% ▲

Turnover in Mn Vol

7.2

41.3% ▲

Target for 300K new taxpayers in FY17 n Syed Samiul Basher Anik The revenue authorities have targeted to increase the number of total taxpayers by 300,000 in this fiscal year. The current number is 1.2m.

After instructions from the government high-ups, the National Board of Revenue has already started working on the matter.

Finance Minister AMA Muhith last month held a meeting with the NBR and asked tax officials to set strategies for the expansion of tax base.

At present, less than 1% of the country’s population are regular taxpayers, according to the government.

But NBR says there are at least 7m more people in the country earning enough money but not paying taxes. NBR estimated the number considering the country’s economic size and activities.

A little more than 1.75m of them have tax identification numbers (TINs) while around 1.2m submit income tax returns regularly.

Trade bodies including Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry have long been urging the government to raise the number of taxpayers to meet revenue collection target.

NBR has taken various initiatives including external surveys to find new taxpayers. But nothing could produce adequate results mainly due to lack of follow-ups and coor-

National Board of Revenue regularly organises tax fairs to encourage tax payment dination between the departments concerned, officials said.

NBR sources said the surveys were mostly focused on major cities like Dhaka and Chittagong keeping other areas out of the scanner.

“Survey wing and monitoring wing of the NBR work separately.

Although the survey wing found new taxpayers, monitoring wing didn’t maintain proper supervision and follow-up making the effort almost unsuccessful,” a top NBR official said.

He said around 70% of the potential taxpayers found in the sur-

veys were businessmen, but 90% of them dodged paying taxes due to lack of surveillance and monitoring.

According to a 2013 NBR study titled “successes and future action plan, challenges and prospects of tax survey and inspection wing,” the field-level tax offices remained busy doing regular assessment activities in addition to regular activities to meet revenue collection target.

It said therefore the officials didn’t get enough time to carry out external surveys.

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Officials blamed not having a proper database and manpower in field offices for the poor results in the tax base expansion efforts.

In 2012 the NBR conducted a survey and identified 163,000 people who were not paying taxes despite their adequate income levels.

Tax officials said the NBR was able to identify and get 270,000 new taxpayers under the tax net through joint and separate survey activities.

They said initiatives were also underway to find potential taxpayers through spot assessment. l

Bangladesh still not on US trade beneficiary list n Tribune Business Desk Bangladesh has been kept out of the trade beneficiary list from the United States as workers rights are not satisfactory to the United States Trade Representative (USTR).

On June 30, the USTR announced Major Expansion of Trade Preferences for the Least Developed and African countries aiming to promote poverty alleviation and economic growth in poorest countries.

In the annual review, the list of beneficiaries for the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) were upgraded, where Bangladesh was left out of the list on labour rights ground.

Fiji, Georgia, Ecuador, Niger, the Philippines, Thailand, Ukraine, Iraq, Indonesia and Uzbekistan have also fallen from the list this time, mostly due to poor labour rights.

In 2013, the US government suspended trade facilities for Bangladesh under GSP scheme after the Rana Plaza collapse, which

raised question about the workers’ safety and rights in the country’s apparel industry.

On the day, the Office of USTR announced the outcome of the Obama Administration’s Annual Product Review under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) programme.

This review adds new duty-free status for travel goods (including luggage, backpacks, handbags, and wallets) for Least Developed Beneficiary Developing Countries (LDBDCs) and African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) countries.

GSP is a 40-year-old trade preference programme under which the United States provides duty-free treatment to many imports from beneficiary developing countries and additional products for LDBDCs. “Trade preference programs such as GSP and AGOA can make a powerful contribution to lifting people out of poverty and supporting growth in some of the poorest countries in the world,

while also reducing costs to American consumers and businesses,” said U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman.

“We have used these programs to give beneficiary countries a vital leg up vis-à-vis more advanced competitors.”

After the suspension of GSP, the US government has outlined a 16-point Bangladesh Action Plan to get back the trade facilities.

The Bangladesh government has

claimed that it has implemented the conditions and placed reports to the authority concerned, but the US government is saying lots of progress has been made, but it is not up to the mark and it requires more to do to meet the desired level.

According to the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) data, in July-May period of the just concluded fiscal year, Bangladesh’s export earnings from the United State stood at $5.6 billion. l

TUESDAY, JULY 12, 2016

APG meeting in Dhaka postponed n Asif Showkat Kallol Asia Pacific Group on Money Laundering has postponed its 19th annual general meeting, according to a press release issued yesterday.

It was scheduled to be held on July 23-28 in Dhaka. Now it will be held in the United States in September. According to the statement, details of the venue and time will be posted as soon as final arrangements are made.

But earlier on the day Finance Minister AMA Muhith said the APG annual meeting would be held in due time.

He said: “There is no reason to change and postpone or not to participate in the meeting.”

Stocks finish flat in choppy trading n Tribune Business Desk

Stocks closed flat amid extreme volatile trade yesterday with trading activities continued to remain lacklustre despite improvement.

The market moved between negative and positive throughout the trading session as risk-averse investors remained indecisive on putting fresh investment, brokers say.

Mutual fund and fundamental stocks were in buyers’ radar ahead of annual declaration which supported the market to close DSEX in flat green zone, they said.

The DSE benchmark index DSEX rose nearly 9 points to close at 4,505, after registering lower in previous session.

The blue-chip comprising index DS30 rose about 3 points to 1,756.

The DSE Shariah Index DSES saw a marginal gain of 2 points to close at 1,106.

The Chittagong Stock Exchange Selective Category Index CSCX was up 43 points to 8,414.

DSE turnover stood at Tk217 crore, up 30% over the previous session. Pharmaceuticals sector had the highest contribution of 21% of the total turnover.

Mutual funds shined on the day as top 10 gainers were from mutual funds sector that rallied 4.4%, led

by PHP Mutual Fund One with a rise of 8.9%.

Mutual funds also showed the highest turnover increase of over 327% while IT Sector showed the highest turnover loss of 39.4%.

All other large cap sectors posted positive performances. Banks gained 0.7%, extending their gaining streak for the second straight session.

Telecommunication sector increased by 0.58%, power 0.53%, food & allied 0.3% and engineering 0.22%. l

“We have been engaged with APG for last 7 years and worked on anti-money laundering activities.

We have improved anti-money laundering situation in our country after working with the group,” Muhith said.

He said until 2013 Bangladesh was on a list of suspect countries where money-laundering activities are believed to be widespread.

“The current situation regarding money laundering and terrorist financing in Bangladesh is pretty good.”

After the APG press release, Bank and Financial Institutions Division officials said they had got hints earlier that the meeting could be postponed due to security rea-

sons after recent terrorist attacks in the country.

“But we have prepared a progress report on implementing anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing standards in Bangladesh. This will be placed in the meeting,” said an official.

As per earlier arrangement, the representatives from the Philippines and the United States were supposed to attend the week-long meeting which was scheduled to be held Radisson Hotel in Dhaka.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was expected to inaugurate the meeting on July 23.

Bangladesh was kept out of the gray list in 2013 after being placed there alongside countries with a

bad record in regulatory affairs on money laundering in 2008 by the Paris-based FATF. The APG is an affiliate body of the task force.

Members from Philippines, the United States, Hong Kong, Sri Lanka, China, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Russia, and observers from eight countries will also participate in the meeting. A total of 400 foreign and local representatives will also attend.

The UN, UN Office on Drugs and Crime, World Bank, World Customs Organization, IMF and the prevention of money laundering and terrorism financing observers active in various regional and international organisations will also participate. l

Marcel sees robust sales in Ramadan n Tribune Business Desk The local consumer-based electronics’ manufacturer ‘Marcel’ said it has seen a robust growth in the sales of its products during the Ramadan.

During the period, the company’s sale moved up by around 50% compared to that in last year, a release of the company said recently.

Mosharraf Hossain Razib, marketing head of Marcel for the north region, said the application of state-of-the art technology in the production process, world-class quality, unique design and colour, plus reasonable rates and easy installment facility, resulted in gaining the customers’ faith that led to a remarkable business growth in recent times.

The overall turnover in the Ramadan surpassed the Marcel’s sales target of 40% higher than that of the last year’s Ramadan.

In June, about 150% more fridges were sold out against the sales of May. The ‘intelligent inverter’ technology’s no-frost refrigerators are playing a key role in pushing up the overall sale of the products.

Considering the customers’ choices and purchasing power, Marcel has released new models

An outlet of Marcel electronic products in Dhaka of electronics, electrical and home appliances with unique designs at affordable rates in the current year.

The new products include refrigerators and fridges; CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) and LED (Light Emitting Diode) televisions; air conditioner; motorcycle; generator; electric bulb; LED bulb; switch socket; battery; blender, gas stove and other home and kitchen appliances.

A good number of Marcel brand’s frost and intelligent inverter no-frost refrigerators, produced in line with the country’s weather

COURTESY

and people’s food habit, air conditioners, LED televisions, deep freezes, blender, induction cooker and other home appliances were sold out across the country during the Ramadan.

Following the Eid ul-Fitr, the company released two models (1 liter and 1.5 liter) of high quality blender machine, according to the release.

Besides, latest technology-based world-class 28-inch and 32-inch LED televisions at affordable rates have been released recently in the consumer-based electronics’ market. l

Muhith: BB heist report to be published in few days n Tribune Business Desk Finance Minister AMA Muhith yesterday said the final probe report on the Bangladesh Bank cyber heist will be made public in a few days.

The report was earlier submitted by the probe committee formed by the government.

“The report (on Bangladesh Bank account heist) will be published in

a few days. It has been finalised.”

Muhith told reporters at his secretariat office after the exchange of Eid greetings with officials of the finance ministry yesterday.

He claimed actions are underway as per the recommendation made in the probe report.

The probe committee was headed by former Bangladesh Bank Governor Mohammed Farashud-

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din who hinted that there could be assistance from within the Bangladesh Bank staff to the hackers.

After submitting the report, Farashuddin said: “We have to give the government time to disclose the report as the matter is sensitive. A big national interest is involved.”

He feared some of the suspects might escape if the report was disclosed quickly. l

Quader: Terror attacks not to affect metro rail work n Shohel Mamun

Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader said the metro rail and Padma bridge projects would go ahead as per schedule despite security concerns.

“The metro rail work will go on uninterrupted,” he said while exchanging Eid greetings with officers and employees at his ministry conference room yesterday.

Many feared Japan would pull out of the country in the aftermath of the deadly terror attack in a Dhaka cafe that killed seven Japanese among others. Most of the Japanese victims were visiting Bangladesh as metro rail consultants.

“Jica has assured us that it will remain engaged in Bangladesh,” Quader told reporters in Dhaka on Monday.

Japan International Cooperation Agency has also decided to send 10 metro rail feasibility study experts to Bangladesh.

“The government will provide security for Japanese nationals at their residents and workplaces.

Sufficient security measures will be taken to ensure their safety,” Obadiul Quader said.

He said the government has taken necessary measures for ensuring security for all foreigners including the Japan International Cooperation Agency (Jica) staff.

The minister expressed deep shock at the two recent terror attacks. “But we must move forward with the promise.”

BSS reports that reviewing the ministry’s activities, the minister said that no three wheelers would be allowed to ply on the 22 highways. He vowed to bring discipline on the roads. l

LafargeHolcim agrees to sell Lafarge India to Nirma

n Reuters

LafargeHolcim has agreed to sell its Lafarge India business to Nirma Ltd for an enterprise value of around $1.4bn, the world’s biggest cement maker said yesterday.

“This agreement is an important step in our 3.5bn Swiss franc ($3.56bn) divestment programme,” LafargeHolcim Chief Executive Eric Olsen said in a statement.

“With this deal, two-thirds of the programme has been secured and the remainder of the program is well on track. We are confident that we will meet our target by the end of this year.” l

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China’s giant savings bank not as safe as it seems

Planemakers shrug off economy worries as travel demand grows

n Rachel Morarjee

n Reuters

Postal Savings Bank of China began life as part of the country’s postal network. But for prospective investors in the lender’s impending Hong Kong offering, it’s not as safe as such staid origins might imply.

The bank’s broad reach is one of the things that sets it apart from other big Chinese lenders. More than one in three citizens has an account at one of PSBC’s 40,000 branches scattered throughout the People’s Republic. In many rural areas it is the only bank in town, which makes its deposit base fairly sticky – though the growth of internet finance poses a threat to that market position.

PSBC has also made fewer loans to bloated state firms than rivals, which means it has avoided racking up as many bad debts.

Non-performing loans accounted for just 0.81% of the total at the end of March – less than half the official industry average. With a loan book equivalent to just 40% of its deposit base, PSBC has plenty of scope to extend credit to consumers and small businesses.

Yet its sleepy profile masks several risks. For one, profitability is low. PSBC’s return on assets was an anaemic 0.67% in March, up from 0.57% in December 2013 but still well below the industry average of

Top planemakers shrugged off worries about a faltering global economy on the opening day of the Farnborough Airshow on Monday, with Airbus announcing a $4.4bn order and Boeing raising its 20-year forecast for jet demand.

Airbus said it had struck a deal to sell 12 of its biggest twin-engined plane, the A350-1000, to Virgin Atlantic.

Boeing forecast the world’s airlines would need 39,620 new aircraft worth $5.9tn over the next 20 years to meet rising air travel, particularly in Asia, and demand for more fuel-efficient planes.

That is up 4.1% from its estimate last year and would mark a doubling in size of the global commercial aircraft fleet.

Planemakers have enjoyed years of strong demand, with the industry’s order backlog standing at a record 13,500 planes at the end of 2015, or 9.6 years of production at current rates.

But analysts are worried economic risks - from slowing growth in China to Britain’s move to leave the European Union - could see orders dry up and some even canceled, particularly for larger twinaisle jets.

David Joyce, chief executive of aero engines maker GE Aviation,

A man pushes his bicycle past a branch of China Post’s Postal Savings Bank of China REUTERS 1.1%. Its core Tier One capital ratio is a skimpy 8.35% of risk-weighted assets – though the IPO proceeds will help strengthen this.

PSBC has also poured its excess deposits into some questionable investments. Last year, it spent $116bn on long-term bonds issued

by China Development Bank and Agricultural Development Bank of China – two state-owned policy banks – to help fund a government drive to boost construction. That looks more like party apparatchiks following orders than an institution driven by commercial logic.

The lender has also strayed into riskier assets in an attempt to boost its profitability. At the end of March, instruments such as wealth management products, funds and investment products issued by other financial institutions accounted for 12.4% of its $1.2tn balance sheet – up from just 2.7% at the end of 2013.

PSBC may look safer than many of China’s overextended state lenders.

But that doesn’t make it risk-free. l Rachel Morarjee is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The article was initially published at Reuters.

said at the airshow that he did not see any need for further increases in planned jetliner production, which Airbus and Boeing are both considering to meet their order backlogs.

Nonetheless, planemakers remained upbeat, with Boeing forecasting airline passenger traffic would increase by 4.8% a year over the next two decades.

“Despite recent events that have impacted the financial markets, the aviation sector will continue to see long-term growth with the commercial fleet doubling in size,” said Randy Tinseth, vice president of marketing at Boeing Commercial Airplanes.

Narrowbody or widebody?

Opening the airshow, British Prime Minister David Cameron finalised multi-billion dollar deals with Boeing to buy nine P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol planes and to upgrade 50 Apache helicopters.

Airbus’s deal for the A350-1000 with Virgin Atlantic is a shot in the arm for the 366-seat model whose sales have slowed as Boeing develops a larger version of its 777.

Virgin Atlantic said still had options to buy six of Airbus’s A380 superjumbos, although industry sources have told Reuters that long-deferred deal is likely to be canceled. l

Fog of Brexit clouds outlook for central banks seeking clarity n Reuters, Washington For much of this year, the dollar, oil prices, and economic conditions largely behaved as the US Federal Reserve had expected, allowing policymakers to plot further interest rate increases.

Not anymore. Since Britain’s June 23 vote to leave the European Union, every piece of economic, such as Friday’s jobs report, data comes with a question mark - how much does it reflect domestic economic developments and how much the short and long-term implications of an economic reordering that may take years to play out.

For Fed policymakers it means balancing the mainly positive flow of US indicators against the risk that major trading partners fall into recession, the dollar surges again, or the terms of Britain’s divorce stress the global

financial system.

With past overseas events of similar importance, such as the euro zone debt crisis, it has taken the Fed months to get clarity. Brexit may prove

You don’t know how long that is going to last and indeed we don’t know the magnitude just as difficult to decipher, already helping lift the dollar and drive US Treasury yields to historic lows - both trends making it harder for the Fed to move.

“You don’t know how long that is going to last and indeed we don’t know the magnitude,” Federal Reserve Governor Daniel Tarullo said on Wednesday. “I doubt there will be a moment where peo-

ple say, okay, Brexit is done.”

Britain’s decision comes at time when the Fed has grown more sensitive to international events, postponing what seemed to be imminent rate increases twice since last summer because of events far from US borders. In minutes of the June meeting, released on Wednesday, policymakers explicitly tied consideration of further rate increases to “additional data on the consequences of the UK vote”.

No one expects the United States to slip into a recession because of Brexit. However, recent research by the Fed, the Bank for International Settlements, the International Monetary Fund and some private economists has raised the possibility that the Fed may be fundamentally constrained by outside events, like the UK vote, that have made recovery slow and the Fed’s inflation goal elusive. l

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Asian oil refiners cut output to fight oversupply, low margins n Reuters, Singapore Oil refiners in Asia are processing less crude as they grapple with margins that plunged to five-year lows after the region was flooded with supply of refined products and as slowing economic growth hits demand for fuels.

Asian refiners typically increase utilisation rates from July after carrying out regular maintenance in the second quarter, building stocks of fuels such as diesel and gasoline to meet demand that peaks in summer.

But this year, several Asian refiners are maintaining or reducing crude throughput in July and Au-

UK’s tax cut goal: Calm business, scare Brussels n George Hay Could Britain’s future outside the European Union be as a tax haven? Chancellor George Osborne on July 3 said he wanted to cut the UK’s corporation tax rate to 15%. That raises fears the UK could effectively turn into a refuge for big corporations and impoverish countries who compete with it. Instead, it’s best to see the prospect of tax cuts as a continuation of politics by other means.

Reducing the rate of tax companies pay on their profit from its current 20% should tell any UK-domiciled business considering its future to think twice about leaving. That is important because the UK faces years of uncertainty as it negotiates its leaving package. The message is effectively this: up sticks now, and risk missing out on a UK tax rate almost 10 percentage points below what KPMG calculates as the 25% average for OECD states.

The other signal is to the 27 remaining states in the European Union. EU rules let countries set whatever tax rates they want, so long as they are applied without favour. Britain’s rate has been steadily reduced from 28% in 2010. But pledging to reduce it below 15% – in touching distance of Ireland’s 12.5% – opens the

door to other, more aggressive policies. Freed from the EU rules, the UK could employ beggar-thy-neighbour tax policies via preferential regimes for certain sectors.

Osborne’s flexibility to go tax haven-tastic can be overstated. Corporation tax raised 43bn pounds in the year to April 2015, 6.5% of total tax receipts, and each percentage point cut lops 2bn pounds off the total, according to HM Treasury analysis. If lower rates don’t entice more companies to flood to the UK, lower business rates could hit poorer people at a politically sensitive time – either via higher taxes elsewhere, or because companies might not pass on their higher profits in the form of higher wages.

While Britain is a taxrate outlier, restrictive rules on capital allowances that inflate corporate tax bases mean it is less so in terms of the tax rates that companies pay in practice, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. That gives Osborne some wiggle room to claim he hasn’t turned Britain into the Cayman Islands – while artfully suggesting to Brussels that he might.

George Hay coordinates European financial coverage and writes about macroeconomics, the euro zone and UK/European financial policy.

CORPORATE NEWS

Mohammed Mahtabur Rahman has recently been elected as chairperson of NRB Bank Limited, said a press release

gust after refineries around the region in the first quarter binged on the cheapest crude in over a decade, swamping Asia with excess fuel, industry sources and analysts said.

“Falling refining margins are prompting refiners to consider economical run cuts,” said Sri Paravaikkarasu, a senior consultant at

energy analysts FGE. “This will help to clear some surplus in the second half of 2016.”

A near doubling in oil prices from January has also pressured margins, or the amount of profit a refinery makes on processing crude.

Less demand for crude from

Asian refineries in combination with factors such as a gradual recovery in US shale production could drag on any continued recovery in benchmark oil prices.

“The ... ripple effect into crude demand is not helpful for oil balances and prices,” Morgan Stanley analysts said in a note yesterday. l

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Gotta catch ‘em all Pokémon Go’s success has boosted Nintendo’s stocks to $7.5bn moment of its release. That, of course, didn’t stop people from downloading and heading off to unchartered territories to find random Pokémon.

Fans of this franchise will tell you how they’ve been waiting for this kind of game or app since the introduction of the show back in 1995. Unfortunately for us here in Bangladesh, the app is available for download but won’t be fully functional. It’s like when Google decides to roll out their new updates for Android, you’ll have to

Pokémon professor introduces you to three Pokémon that you’ll be able to start the journey with.

Don’t get too excited. You’re only allowed to choose one for the moment. Once you’ve chucked your Poké ball to catch your first pokemon, you’re then able to view your position in the city you live in.

You read that correctly. You’ll see your avatar, through your phone’s GPS, on a Google Map-like layout. Each step you take, your avatar follows. That’s right folks,

What this game/app is aiming to do is let the users experience a real life Pokémon adventure

be a bit patient with this popular new gaming app. What we mean by that is, you won’t be able to catch too many Pokémon in the initial stages. Whether you have an Android or an iPhone, one thing is for sure: your battery is going to take a huge hit.

A whole lot of Poké balls

n Mahmood Hossain The animated series Pokémon has been around for a little over two decades. The series itself garnered an entire generation through television, eventually giving birth to the card game and videogame series for Nintendo’s Game Boy. And to no surprise, when the developers made Pokémon Go for the iOS and Android smartphones, people all over the world went bananas. The app has become so popular that the server had crashed a few times from the

The app is very similar to that of the Game Boy games of the past.

However, when you had control of the lead character Ash in the videogame, this app makes it all about you. Well, kind of. Even though you are in control of your own adventure, the customisation is very limited for the time being.

This, until the updates start rolling in, is what every user around the world is facing. Although the rest of the world has the advantage of playing and catching Pokémon right away, it shouldn’t stop you from beginning the app and setting things to your liking. Go ahead and get familiar with it.

What this game/app is aiming to do is let the users experience a real life Pokémon adventure. The start of the app, again, is quite similar to that of Ash’s adventures from the beginning of the franchise.

You are able to first choose your avatar with some pre-set colours or themes. Soon after the game’s

you’ll need to perform in real life, rather than planting your butt on the couch. Here’s the cool part.

Once you’ve set out looking for new Pokémon on your map, you’ll tend to find certain Pokémon in their own habitat. For example, a water-based Pokémon will be found around a body of water or Pokémon like Meowth can be

found within the hustle and bustle of the city.

The end game

The entire goal of the game is to get people to actually move around the city, be active and explore. Then again, sometimes some places are better left unvisited. Recently, one player ran into a dead body while searching for a particular Pokémon. How creepy is that? True story. Apart from running into unfavourable places, and we urge you all to play this app very carefully, the app isn’t completely usable for us here in Dhaka. As mentioned before, once the developers continue to add more features (like Google Map), they’ll be able to deliver the service in the app that everyone around the world is able to use right now.

You can explore, catch Pokémon, find Pokémon gyms, find other trainers to team up, battle others, trade with others and watch your progress grow.

While it’s great to see your phone’s camera turn on when you’re about to catch a cute little creature, it’s good to keep in mind this isn’t the same gaming experience as you could find in a Game Boy cartridge.

In any case, it’s got all of the major elements in the Pokémon world, which makes it the perfect casual gaming app for your smartphone.

And let’s not forget, it’ll take plenty of your phone’s data and battery. Not to mention, do not Pokémon Go and drive. That’s a no-no, so stay safe.l

17

DT

Tech

TUESDAY, JULY 12, 2016

Mobile Internet Taxation:

The Bangladesh Paradox n Syed Ibrahim Saajid Let’s start with a trivia: what is the highest taxed, nonluxury product in Bangladesh? Yes, you probably got it right, mobile telecom services is hands down the winner.

Currently, the net taxation on any type of mobile telecom services (defined as services provided through SIM/RIM) is currently 21.75%. This basically means that, in order to consume Tk100 worth of telecom services, you have to pay approximately Tk22 to the government treasury.

Mobile telecom service basically means talking over cellular phones, sending text messages, browsing the internet and so on. This industry has had massive progressive impact on the socio-economic scenario of Bangladesh in the last two decades. The biggest revolution of this industry came in September 2013 when 3G services were finally launched in Bangladesh. In roughly three years since the launch, the telecom subscribers base has grown rapidly by 21% and with it, the internet subscribers base has grown by 72%, a whooping leap from 35million to 60million.

These new 25million internet users have been able to jump on the global online bandwagon only because of the availability and convenience offered by mobile phones. Now questions may arise, how did previous internet pricing have rendered this growth thus far and how the new taxation policies is likely to have implications in the future.

350 300 250 Photos: Bigstock

200 150 350 100 300 50 250 0 200 150

1GB internet price (w/o Tax) 2013 2016

When the 3G services were launched, an average price of 100 a 1GB internet package was approximately Tk300 without 50The final price would come up to Tk345 when a 15% tax.

VAT0 is added. Now, the average price of a 1GB package is 1GB internet price (w/o Tax) is 243.5tk around Tk200 without 2013 tax while the final price 2016 0.25 21.75% of tax. It is interesting to see how telecom with operators reducing the price of internet by roughly 33%, the 0.2 government’s share from the same service has increased by 0.15 in the last three years. The graph below will provide a 45% better idea of the scenario:

0.1

0.05 0.25 0 0.2 0.15

2013

Tax Rate

2016

are coming up with innovative ideas with ICT as the basic platform. However, in order for these businesses to become a significant, mainstream industry, it is crucial that they attract customers for all geographies and socio-economic classes of the country. So it is imperative to ensure internet availability at a low cost in every corner of the country to facilitate this new sector. More importantly, the majority of new internet subscribers are now coming from the rural areas as the telecom operators are gradually establishing 3G network in the deep pockets of the country. So the burden of this incremental tax is falling mainly on the rural people for whom internet services is not simply a luxury, but rather it holds the potential to change their lives for the better.

The telecom sector is an important contributor to the government’s earnings. However, it is important to understand the need for the prioritisation of tax burden based on strategic planning. So, the government can think of reducing the overall 21.75% taxation (comprising of VAT, supplementary duty and surcharges) at least on the internet packages, so that the internet revolution in Bangladesh continues to gain momentum and the marginal population can also reap the benefits.l

0.1 0.05 0 2013

Tax Rate

2016

Just like the mobile voice service has positively impacted Bangladesh in the early 2000s, the widespread availability of high speed 3G internet has the potential of transforming the economy to the next level. We are already experiencing the boom of e-commerce in Bangladesh. A lot of new start-ups

The author is currently working as a pricing specialist in Grameenphone Limited. The opinions expressed above are solely based on the author’s personal views and do not represent that of his employer.

In order to consume Tk100 worth of telecom services, you have to pay approximately Tk22 to the government treasury

DT

18

5

Feature

TUESDAY, JULY 12, 2016

kinds of people to avoid on Facebook during an emergency

The Internuts are taking over n Sabrina Fatma Ahmad As much as old-timers like to reminisce over the “good old days”, we’ve never not had trouble brewing somewhere in the horizon. From the intense, bloody birth of the nation to present day, it’s been a rocky road politically and otherwise, and if recent events are any indication, we have a long way to go in search of that elusive holy grail called “peace”.

We can only imagine what the wartime situation was like for the previous generation, before the introduction of cell phones and the Internet into daily life. The advent of social media means everyone now has front-row access to unfolding events during a crisis situation. While that means it’s easier to do great good, like crowd-sourcing volunteers and relief funding during the Rana Plaza event, it also means that a moment of panic can quickly go out of control, particularly when you’re faced with these five types of people on social media.

by erdose eld dominated Hashtag ovte ualiser in a fi st nded as an eq get lost amid

in n’t Hashtags are message does nd ing sure your ak ion wave arou M at . da rm fo an propag t when s riding the in Bu ge s. sa es es en m ar ia ising aw the sea of med ul tool for ra e same words they’re a usef ch are just th hi w of e the Internet, m so , erboard. us is hashtags u’ve gone ov half your stat , you know yo tly en er ff di capitalised

The blame g

am

e Something w e probably learned from our glorious leaders, ever ything is alw ays someone else ’s fault. The players of th e blame gam e aren’t just sa tisfied with th e usual suspec ts of authority figures, no. Th ey’ll go for po p culture, hist orical figures, and having ex hausted thei r stores of stra w men to atta ck, even attack ot her people on Facebook for doing the ex act same thing th ey’re doing.

The Backsea tD

river Eat your hear t out, Goethe.

Whether it’s hartal viol ence or a host age situation, th is person has “expert” advice for th e people on th e ground.

From comm entary on po lice tactics, to economic an alysis, the Ba ckseat Driver seems to have proficiency ov er a diverse portfolio of to pics. Not that the police or the media or the policy makers are above reproa ch, but durin g a developing crisis, can yo u picture said police or media pausin g to check th eir newsfeeds to take advice before procee ding? We thought not. ro Too soon, bst er tends

acy theorist ! I bet The conspirun ck d? Bomb atta

so s “What’s that d it..it’s alway inese who di Ch e th as . it w em th t us tr ..you can’t the Chinese. hasn’t even es!” The dust liv s vi Also, El u’ll find the event, and yo settled on an ho jump at w le op with pe web crawling en motives imagine hidd shadows and hing. behind everyt er how , nothing is ev ly ed itt Adm si y tuation an emergenc it seems, but , not go lm ca e to keep is just the tim ills. chasing windm

sa Impending di s sort of gallow a e uc od pr to . le op me pe humour for so , humour can ly er op pr d Use alleviating be effective at metimes even stress, and so changes. But lead to social ok. re on Facebo ra ty that’s pret to is is cr a e ing lik There’s noth to in s re gu fi l ol send these tr they salivate overdrives as they nsitive jokes over the inse a tr ex l for a few can make, al es. likes and shar

Times are dark enough without social media making it darker. It wouldn’t hurt to be a little considerate and positive. l

19

DT

Auto Connect

TUESDAY, JULY 12, 2016

The groovy commuter Pure practicality has long been the strength of the Honda Jazz, and the new one takes it to the next level

n Tahsin Momin Hyped as the biggest product comeback of 2015, the new third generation Honda Jazz hopes to erase all memories of its predecessor and create new ones of its own. Well, that might not be completely true since the last car was responsible for setting a benchmark standard for a premium hatch. It was spacious, practical and efficient. However, there was a problem, it was overpriced and it failed to fit in the Honda lineup. But a lot has changed since then; Honda now has a better understanding of the market and has had the experience of playing hardball in the mass segments. And the fact that the car is a runaway hit, now gives Honda plenty of room to play with.

Exterior

Honda’s “crossfade mono form exterior” for the Jazz bares new sporty elements that makes the car look a bit more appealing than its predecessor. However, the design cues are not completely authentic since some of them have been borrowed from the City; like the narrow headlights and the front grille blending into each other as one. We thought that the mesh on the lower bumper did look a tad-bit incomplete and a clear view of the radiator through that could have been easily hidden.

Although, we particularly adored the extended belt line, across the side and all the way till the tail-

lights. The side profile does give it a sporty, low stance look on its 15 inch alloys. At the back, the roof spoiler is quite prominent and the car has LED tail and stop lamps along with a chrome strip that makes the rear styling pop out.

Interior

On the inside, the Jazz has improved quite substantially, with more rear legroom and spacing between the front passengers. The touch and feel is also a generation ahead, with a 7-inch screen wrapped in the piano black centre console. It also allows the driver to take care of the audio and vehicle settings. However the mid and high spec models get an electrostatic-operated climate control system.

Higher-spec versions feel reasonably plush compared to the basic model, thanks to a soft-touch dashboard covering, but elsewhere though, the hard scratchy plastics aren’t nearly so appealing. The dashboard on the basic models are made from the cheap plastic, making the cabin feel pretty dreary. The touchscreen infotainment system, isn’t ideal either, it’s a little cluttered and

complicated to use. But once you get used to how it works, though, you’ll enjoy your access to the internet and a whole bunch of online apps. What pleased us the most is that, all the versions have the high seating position and clear visibility.

Performance

Powering the Jazz, is the same old

1.5-litre fourcylinder, but Honda has replaced the five-speed automatic with a continuously variable transmission (CVT). Even though they have used the old DOHC i-VTEC engine, it has been tuned up to produce 130HP, 10 more than what the old model produced.

Which means zipping around the busy streets of Dhaka and merging into traffic will not be a problem.

In fact, it will never make you feel the need for more power, courtesy of the nicely sorted CVT.

Safety

Like all of the Honda’s these days, the Jazz is designed for optimal safety in the most rigorous of new crash tests, and pedestrian protection in the event of a collision. It has all the usual safety refinements as standard and the active safety features includes the city-brake forward collision

warning and mitigation system, which employs autonomous braking when a collision is eminent.

Verdict

Like the previous generation of the Jazz, this new version truly excels on versatility and practicality. It’s also competitively well equipped. Furthermore, from the past generation we have learned that it is in fact one of the most reliable cars to own. Even though it is not the last word in quality or ergonomics, but if those aren’t your priorities, the Jazz does deserve some serious consideration. l Available at: DHS Motors Ltd 11, Mohakhali C/A, Dhaka-1212 09678000333 Price: Call for pricing

DT

20 Editorial

TUESDAY, JULY 12, 2016

TODAY

With friends like these Living in the grey area is hard work.

That’s why, when someone like Zakir Naik comes along, like many other such televangelical spokesmen for the official word of God, and tells us, asks us ‘every Muslim should be a terrorist,’ people respond

PAGE 21

Just another Eid adda

BIGSTOCK

Are we looking at a future where Bangladesh society will be off-limits to all visitors? A grim disconnect is in the making PAGE 22

T

We owe you an apology We declared a generation gap between you and us, and decided you were an afterthought, mostly to criticise. We had no time to understand your definition of cool or sad, or what have you.

Perhaps validating your vibrant youth would have made us lose a little of our diminishing one PAGE 23

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

The views expressed in Opinion articles are those of the authors alone. They do not purport to be the official view of Dhaka Tribune or its publisher.

Where are Hasnat and Tahmid?

he story just doesn’t add up.

Gulshan attack survivors Hasnat Karim and Tahmid Hasib Khan never returned home after the horrific events of July 1.

Their respective families claim to have no clue as to their whereabouts, but now, the authorities are claiming that Hasnat and Tahmid are not in custody, and that the two men were let go after their debriefing.

We need to know the facts. The police claim they are not currently detaining Hasnat and Tahmid, but if that is the case, then where are they? Reports indicate that the two were in custody earlier. Either those earlier reports were false, or it seems like the authorities are now changing their story.

We understand that this is an extraordinarily sensitive investigation, and if the police were to wish to continue to hold the two, we would not try to second guess them. If the police need to keep people in custody, that is their call. But all legalities must be maintained, all the more in a case like this.

It is important that the civil rights of the two are respected, that their families at least be informed of their whereabouts, and that it be demonstrated that nothing untoward has happened or is happening to them.

The opacity surrounding the disappearance of the two is alarming, and can only serve to lessen the public’s trust in the ongoing investigation, which is the last thing anyone wants right now.

Serious questions about custodial treatment have been raised by the death of Zakir Hossain Shaon, a Holey Artisan Bakery staff member who was detained by the police as a terror suspect, but died in custody on Friday amidst extremely troubling allegations from his family.

This is not to jump to any conclusions about Hasnat and Tahmid, but the simple way to refute such fears is to be open and fully transparent.

In the end, it is in the interests of the police to be seen to be operating in a fully transparent manner. Nothing would serve their credibility and the credibility of the ongoing investigation more. And at a time like this, public trust is crucial. It is absolutely imperative, for the cohesion of the entire nation, that the public retain full confidence in the law enforcement authorities.

Two people can’t just disappear. The truth needs to come out. The authorities need to be able to credibly account for the people they have taken in.

This is a time of crisis, and public trust in our law enforcement is at stake.

Two people can’t just disappear. The truth needs to come out

DT

21

Opinion

TUESDAY, JULY 12, 2016

With friends like these Black and white ideals would be nice, but the world is much more complicated

n SN Rasul

T

he so-called elite, middle-upper-middle class of Dhaka, of which I am very much a part of, have cared-but-not-really little about the increasing number of religiously motivated attacks that have plagued the city. Not until Xulhaz Mannan and Mahbub Rabbi Tonoy were killed, at least.

This was so because people like me, people I knew, had known them personally, had directly been in contact with them, had been to their homes, had been their friends, had worked with them. But even then, those who attacked, and those who were attacked, still somehow remained on the fringes of the bubble we currently find ourselves in.

But the Gulshan attack established that violence was not in the fringes of this bubble anymore; it never was. It had been brewing inside our homes, amongst our friends, under the auspices of our parents’ watchful and caring eyes.

As Dhaka quieted down under the boom of a thousand bullets, and then slowly realised that, not only were the victims those we knew, but also the ones wielding the guns and the sword, the bubble, suddenly, burst.

How does one react to one’s peers and friends, one’s circle, out of nowhere coming under a microscope? How does one react to the knowledge that a supposedly English medium education does little in the way of establishing the fact that privilege and money and wealth and power have little in the way of protection from vengeful and deadly ideas that incite hatred, that wish to wage war?

I have seen the indifference brewing since I was a teenager.

Since 9/11, when the conspiracy theorists came out of the woodwork to blame it on all George W Bush and America and oil. When my cousin suddenly decides to screenshot what surah to recite at what time instead of the picture of a cute boy in her class. When my friend decides to hold her wedding where the men and women sit separately, and she, herself, remains clad in a face-masking, body-unrevealing burkha.

When my brother tells me Charlie Hebdo or Salman Rushdie and (and closer still) Avijit Roy and Niladri Chatterjee had it

coming. When my khala tells me pray, child, otherwise, your mom will suffer, for she will be asked why she failed to raise her son up properly, in the ways of God. Is that what I am, a bad child?

A perfect example of child-rearing gone wrong? A poor excuse of a human being?

Living in the grey area is hard work.

That’s why, when someone like Zakir Naik comes along, like many other such televangelical spokesmen for the official word of God, and tells us, asks us ‘every Muslim should be a terrorist,’ people respond

Zakir Naik’s brand of preaching has tremendous appeal for a lot of Bangladeshis You say enough, you start to believe goodness and kindness lie in a specific religion alone.

As if one narrative of truth runs above all else, as if your personal morality counts for little when pitched against the black-andwhite code that some of these false priests choose to repeatedly pitch diatribes for.

Black and white would be nice. Black and white would tell us this is right, that is wrong. It’s difficult to live in grey, with the confusion, the choices, the moral impasse, and the inability to make decisions.

Should I, as the Western world rages against my people, my religion, remain silent while they wreak havoc on our good name, refuse to acknowledge our importance in the global scale of things?

Should I watch, dumbfounded and hurt, as I am fed the narrative that people like us are being

carpet-bombed and civilians are being killed, my Muslim brothers are slaughtered in the hundreds and thousands in a name-shaming, false so-called war on so-called terror?

Is that what we all are, terrorists?

No. That cannot be. Or should I wreak havoc on the powerful and teach them that we, too, matter?

Killing is wrong, so says the Qur’an. To each their own religion, so says the Qur’an. But when they do not pay us the respect we so vehemently deserve, why wouldn’t we take up the sword and slaughter them till we, too, start to matter?

Living in the grey area is hard work. That’s why, when someone like Zakir Naik comes along, like many other such televangelical spokesmen for the official word of God, and tells us, asks us “every Muslim should be a terrorist,” people respond. They terrorised

us far before, for much longer, for far too long, in fact, to deserve any sort of sympathy or empathy, any sort of kindness that they once might’ve deserved.

One doesn’t need to be poor to feel rage; one doesn’t need to want for something to want something more. Indoctrination, with such subtlety, requires no class boundaries to topple. It’s already there, ready to be fed on.

That’s why the youthful minds of our peers suddenly find themselves gorging on the violent narratives of a select few, supposedly deluded into thinking that we either die fighting, in which case we are martyrs, or we kill those who dared to belittle the word of us, which is, in essence, the word of God. It should come as no surprise where Nibras or Rohan or whichever terrorist came from.

It should come as no surprise that this is now, finally, catching

up to us, this ambiguous silence against unambiguous crimes. It is, in fact, to be expected, and expected to be repeated, with the persistent equating of the concepts of “good” with our own personal religion. Blaming NSU as an institution won’t do anything; they’re everywhere within us, amongst us, waiting to be tapped into.

How can anyone be surprised when the hand of the government continues to squeeze us to stay in power, thereby rendering us powerless? How can anyone get the courage to ask questions when asking a question without an answer is the scariest thing one can do nowadays? How can you, sitting idly, sitting still, holding your breath, even dare to hope that this is just a nightmare that will pass away? l SN Rasul is a Sub-Editor at the Dhaka Tribune. Follow him @snrasul.

DT

22

Opinion

TUESDAY, JULY 12, 2016

Just another Eid adda Will the country be able to recover from this blow?

Adda will never be the same again

BIGSTOCK

Are we looking at a future where Bangladesh society will be off-limits to all visitors? A grim disconnect is in the making

n Towheed Feroze

G

etting together during the Eid holidays is a common event, almost everywhere. The main objective is to spend hours talking or, to use the Bengali term, indulge in adda for hours.

The topics vary: Politics is always there, lack of civic sense, insidious influence of decadence, the inexorable rise of a philistine nouveau riche class ... the list goes on.

The day after Eid, a few friends, my brother, and I got together for a leisurely evening of chatting, and the group comprised of a noted photographer, a government civil servant, two musicians, a restaurateur, a textile factory owner, and a regular editorial writer for a leading newspaper.

For good reason, the first issue was security at eateries.

The common question was: Who would feel safe going into an upmarket place to eat?

I suddenly recalled a colleague from work, a self-proclaimed gourmet, who said that after the Gulshan terror attack, he would rather stop going to any restaurant in the affluent part and come over to Old Dhaka instead.

That observation was made in levity but carried the current social tension.

The restaurateur, who also supplies fresh vegetables to several eateries in Gulshan, said: “Holey used to be one of the places which bought fresh produce from me, and when I went to other restaurants before Eid to talk about future supplies, I noticed a sense of suppressed fear in the dining halls.”

The photographer, a pizza lover, added, using the word atonko (profound apprehension) when describing the state of patrons at certain places where he had gone recently. “There was a sense of palpable agitation in their behaviour; a loud sound from the kitchen had everyone almost running out.”

The radio jockey plus musician, who runs an immensely popular music program, expressed his dilemma emanating from his wife, a US citizen, refusing to stay in Bangladesh any longer.

Well, is the US any safer? Maybe if one goes into the lesser known states like Idaho, Wyoming, Nebraska, or Wisconsin, was the civil servant’s interjection.

The other musician observed almost rhetorically: “Where is the country heading? It seems we are being pulled into a vortex of decadence and lawlessness.”

The journalist raised the matter of transvestites and floating-boat people using the snake tactic to extort money from common pedestrians.

“Well, they won’t try that trick with me anymore,” stated the musician who, long time ago, as a teenager, used to have a snake in a jar as a pet.

Later, he went around in public with the serpent coiled around his wrist.

“When a woman came and showed a snake to me, demanding money, I took the reptile and pretended to bite its head off, which scared the living daylights out of the so-called extortionist,” observed the rebellious musician.

“What if the money is demanded by a mahout on a trained elephant!”

“Well, not everyone can muster the courage,” said the photographer. “Maybe there should be a public awareness advert against such fearmongering aimed at forcing people to pay money.”

“As for adverts,” added the restaurateur, “have you seen this callous commercial where a family, in expressing gratitude to the mother for washing clothes, hands her a large packet of washing powder saying that with this detergent, cleaning would be faster?”

“Who are behind the ideas of such adverts,” questioned the civil servant, also pointing to another tasteless commercial in West Bengal where the line “The quality of women is in her hair not in her skills” is reportedly used.

The photographer lamented the lack of originality in creative sides, saying: “The problem is, we are blindly following a trend set by someone else, not trying hard enough to create new avenues of thought.”

“As a photographer, what I see among newcomers in my line is a desire to click the same old topics: Poverty, struggling life, nature.

Interestingly, there is affluence in Bangladesh which can also be used as a powerful subject.”

Opulence, and life on the other side of struggle! Not a bad idea.

Only, for some odd reason, luxury as a photographic topic can never stir up the pathos or the melancholia.

Or perhaps, they will trigger revulsion because some people are better off than others.

I liked the photographer’s idea.

His rationale seemed appealing: Why only click struggle and sorrow when these are not the only faces of society?

Anyone can sympathise with a friend’s suffering but it needs a very high nature to sympathise with a friend’s success -- Oscar Wilde did have a point.

Whatever the topic of discussion was, and no matter how discursive they got, in the end, we all came back to Dhaka and the attack on Holey Artisan.

The recurring question: Where is this heading? The textile factory owner, a late-comer to the party, was blunt in his rather dismal assessment: Leaving out all conspiracy theories leading to farreaching political consequences with possible international ramifications, the immediate impact will be on the garment sector.

Overseas buyers will be terrified to come here, possibly international textile seminars will be postponed indefinitely, resulting in several buyers moving to somewhere without any threat from radicals.

Foreigners based in the city had developed a culture over the last two decades of eating out and cycling around the city on holidays, which has stopped totally.

The Old Dhaka tour that attracted mainly diplomats stationed here will be suspended and the presence of writers, cultural activists, and poets at cafes and bookstores will come down sharply.

Are we looking at a future where Bangladesh society will be off-limits to all visitors? A grim disconnect is in the making.

Maybe next Eid, if we are all alive and well at another adda, we can think back and assess the impact. l Towheed Feroze is a journalist currently working in the development sector.

DT

23

Opinion

TUESDAY, JULY 12, 2016

We owe you an apology Bangladesh has failed its young people

The younger generation was never allowed to create its own Bangladesh

IFFAT NAWAZ

We declared a generation gap between you and us, and decided you were an afterthought, mostly to criticise. We had no time to understand your definition of cool or sad, or what have you. Perhaps validating your vibrant youth would have made us lose a little of our diminishing one

n Iffat Nawaz

D

ear Shadhin Bangla Generation C (“C,” since you were born during the third decade of Bangladesh), hello from Shadhin Bangla Generation A. As you already well know, it has been impossible to not think about the state of the world, especially in the last couple of weeks.

Some of you are taking part in these wars in the frontlines. Some of you have left Bangladesh and joined death missions.

We are all searching for you now, you are no longer another invisible person walking the streets of Dhaka.

We have finally turned our attention towards you, finally thinking about what an 18 to 20-year-old Bangladeshi mind looks like, and as I got to thinking more, I realised, we, Shadhin Bangla Generation A, owe you an apology.

You see, we did not realise that we were no longer as young, that there are younger ones who need examples from their fathers’, mothers’, brothers’, and sisters’

generations. I thought some more about who you looked up to, who did we offer to you to feel motivated by. Shakib Al Hasan?

Not possible to be him for most of us, is it?

Did we offer you a good politician from our generation? A philosopher who enriched your mind, someone who took interest in you and didn’t dismiss you because you grew up watching Hindi-dubbed Pokémon?

How about your spiritual teacher? Qur’an teaching hujur?

Oh never mind, that was already labelled uncool before your time came along.

When we were young, we were handed rows of Muktijoddhas, in books, posters, and banners, everywhere, everywhere really.

We were to look up to them. And we did.

And we devoted ourselves to whatever we thought their cause was, they freed the country and then … what? Well, we, Shadin Bangla Generation A, became the “then … what?”

As you may know, on Martyred Intellectuals Day we had lost such a severe part of the brain of our country -- that was December 14, 1971.

Out of unfiltered reaction, our parents dreamed that we would grow up to be substitutes of the lost brilliance.

Those same parents of ours, knowing hardship as they did, wanted us to grow up with the best they could offer, perfect celebrations, undying nationalism, best schools, the gift of culture, and the denial of a failing political system.

We grew up under the impression that the ultimate had been achieved, and now it was up to us to take it somewhere else.

Where though? No one ever really talked about that.

And many from our Shadhin Bangla Generation A, carrying all the weaknesses of our ego, we created things, big and small, real and mediocre. What we created were catered for our past, that was our ultimate validation, our audience, our parents, only they could decide if we were doing justice to our forefathers.

By now, we picked up our parents’ hints about becoming intellectuals, and social media also made it easier for us to put up our opinions. In no time, we all turned into couch intellectuals, without the real taste of genuine loss, we deciphered, and Googled, and posted, and read, so that we would win arguments and be somebody, so that we could get rid of the “…” and the “what?”

In the process, we forgot there were others behind us, born long after us, growing 10, 15, 18. We declared a generation gap between you and us, and decided you were an afterthought, mostly to criticise.

We had no time to understand your definition of cool or sad, or what have you. Perhaps validating your vibrant youth would have made us lose a little of our diminishing one. We had our backs turned to you, couch intellectualising the “…” of then.

So, that’s all really. I am sorry from Shadhin Bangla Generation A, for not acknowledging your presence the way we should have.

For not giving you a better Bangladesh, better role models, a deeper interest. I am sorry for our selfishness, for our self-servingness, for our judgements … I am so, so sorry. l Iffat Nawaz is a writer.

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TUESDAY, JULY 12, 2016

TOP STORIES

Deschamps can turn loss to victory When the final whistle went in Paris, the agony of France’s Euro loss to Portugal could be felt among their fans but after almost 10 years in the wilderness, coach Didier Deschamps has built a side ready to vie for the next WC. PAGE 25

Ronaldo goes from agony to ecstasy

He has won it all at club level and has three world player of the year awards but on Sunday Cristiano Ronaldo celebrated as never before with tears of joy streaming down his face after his Portugal beat France 1-0 to win the European Championship. PAGE 26

Portugal’s Eder (front right) celebrates scoring the only goal during their Euro 2016 final against France at the Stade de France on Sunday

Eder from Africa via Europe and now history n Fazley Rabbi Moon

Murray delivers again for nation Cometh the hour, cometh the man - Andy Murray proved himself the bastion of British tennis once again as he outclassed Canadian powerhouse Milos Raonic to claim a second Wimbledon title in masterful fashion on Sunday at a packed Centre Court. PAGE 27

A Euro of Ronaldo and giantkillers The European Championship ended with Portugal’s stunning victory over France in the final the last shock in a tournament of giant-killing romance, vicious and gentle fans. PAGE 28

AP

Finally one of the best footballers in recent times, Cristiano Ronaldo, has taken his legacy to a new level after Portugal beat hosts France in the Euro 2016 final in Paris to claim their first ever major title. The moment became possible after unsung hero Eder scored the goal that mattered, in the 109th minute of the game to break the heart of the home supporters.

Ronaldo, who had to leave the field in the 26th minute after accidentally clashing with Dimitri Payet, remained in action as he played a very active role from the sidelines to inspire his teammates who later turned his dream into reality. One of those inspired teammates was Eder, who was born in Guinea-Bissau in West Africa and moved to Portugal as a child, and started playing football in the Coimbra District at the age of 11. He made his senior debut with FC Oliveira do Hospital and Tourizense.

In 2012, the 6’3” striker whose actual name is Éderzito António Macedo Lopes moved to FC Braga and started scoring at will, netting 13 goals in 18 matches.

He also played an active part in the Champions League especially

against Manchester United at Old Trafford.

In 2013, the attacker tore his cruciate ligaments and missed a large chunk of the season sending his promising career into jeopardy. Braga once gave him a contract with a release clause standing at a whopping €30 million. But

the Swans, including only four starts.

Eder then joined French side Lille on loan for the remainder of the season. After helping his team finish fifth and qualify for the UEFA Europa League in the process, he signed a permanent four-year contract. That was still

‘Ronaldo told me I’d score the winner’ Cristiano Ronaldo predicted Portugal’s Euro 2016 hero Eder would score the winning goal in their 1-0 extra-time triumph over France and gave him the encouragement to settle Sunday’s final. “(Ronaldo) told me I would score the winning goal for the team,” the striker told O Jogo. “He gave me this strength, this energy and it was vital.

“It was a goal I’ve been working

they were quite happy to let the striker go for a much lower fee to Swansea, after a reasonably good 2014-15 season with 13 goals.

Eder made his Premier League debut on August 8, 2015, playing the final 11 minutes of a 2–2 draw at title-holders Chelsea in place of Bafetimbi Gomis. He failed to score in 15 competitive games for

for from the first minute of the Euros.

“For all the work we did, for all of the Portuguese, it’s fantastic,” he added. “It’s well deserved and we should all be congratulated.”

“The disappointment is immense,” his club Lille wrote on their official Twitter account, “but there is considerable pride to be able to count such an attacker in our ranks.”

not enough as far as the national team was concerned, and Portugal fans failed to be impressed with his form in Ligue 1. The Electrical Engineer Fernando Santos wasn’t convinced as well and thus gambled on a truly revolutionary tactical change. Portugal normally played in a 4-3-3 formation, but lacking a proven centre-forward,

the coach switched to 4-4-2, with wingers Ronaldo and Nani playing in the middle.

The formation can be called Portugal’s very own “Wingless Wonders” and it comes exactly 50 years after Alf Ramsey won the World Cup for England using such innovative tactics. Irregular substitute Eder had been almost inappropriate as he only came as a very late substitute against Iceland and Austria during the group stage.

And then, out of the blue, he was given the chance to shine on the most important platform when Ronaldo had to come off early and replaced Renato Sanches in the 79th minute with the match goalless and hanging finely in the balance. France did not care about the danger he posed, and Eder hit a brilliant shot in extra-time, scoring his first ever goal in a competitive international match to hand the trophy to Portugal, and their brightest star, Ronaldo.

It’s inevitable that this trophy will enhance Ronaldo’s legacy among the all-time footballing greats but how much this significant goal impacts on Eder’s roller-coaster career remains to be seen. l

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Siddikur’s direct entry at Rio confirmed n Tribune Report Siddikur Rahman recorded his name in the history books when it became official that the Bangladesh golfing icon qualified for the Olympic Games to become the country’s first sports personality to make it into the world’s biggest sporting event, courtesy direct entry.

The 31-year-old golfer, who is also the first Bangladeshi to win an Asian Tour event, was almost confirmed of qualification in the last couple of months but it was finally made official on Monday after he was placed 56th in the latest and final rankings, making himself eligible for the upcoming Olympics, scheduled to be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil from August 5-21.

“It feels really great. I think this is the biggest achievement of my life to qualify for the Olympics through direct qualification process. My family and I are very excited after hearing the news.” said

Siddikur, who is often referred to as the “Tigers Woods of Bangladesh” in the international media.

Siddikur was struggling for form at the beginning of this season but his fortunes improved in May when he finished second in the tri-sanctioned Mauritius Open, thus taking him to 54th position. Then he learned that the top 60 golfers will go to Rio. “I didn’t feel the excitement or any kind of interest even twothree months ago. I never thought I would make it to the Olympics but after the Mauritius Open, everyone came up to me and said, ‘You might go to the Olympics’. Then, I became serious and determined to make it happen,” Siddikur said to the Dhaka Tribune while having his dinner.

Meanwhile, it will be the first time that Golf will be played in the Olympics since the St Louis Games in 1904. It was later dropped from the following editions after the protest of the British players. l

EURO 2016: DT BEST XI

BALE

PAYET

BOATENG

GRIEZMANN

GUNNARSSON

RONALDO

KROOS

BONUCCI

When the final whistle went in Paris, the disappointment of France’s Euro 2016 loss to Portugal could be felt among their fans but after almost 10 years in the wilderness, coach Didier Deschamps has built a side ready to vie for the next World Cup. Having come into the tournament with few pundits expecting them to go beyond the semi-finals, let alone defeat Germany for the first time in a competitive game in 58 years, they managed to exceed expectations and lay solid foundations.

There is a youthful togetherness, hunger and swagger about this French team that with a few tweaks will make them stronger as they aim for the World Cup title in Russia in two years time.

The defeat to Portugal, while cruel in its manner, highlighted that France’s young guns still need to mature after coming up against a more savvy opponent.

Great teams are often built on such defeats.

“Our disappointment is immense and will take time to digest.

We won together, we suffered together and we lost together,” said Deschamps, emphasizing the family feel he has nurtured over the last two years.

Exciting winger Kingsley Coman, at 20 France’s youngest player, summed up the disappointment by storming off straight into the tunnel as the whistle went, but af-

ter a word from the staff was back to thank the fans.

At 25, Antoine Griezmann proved with his six goals that he is just at the start of his journey as heir to the great French number 10s of Zinedine Zidane and Michel Platini.

Perhaps the burden on his shoulders after a 70th match of the season was just too much on the day.

It was ironically France’s main

PEPE

PATRICIO

Deschamps can turn loss to victory n Reuters, Paris

RAMSEY

strength in the tournament, their attack, that let them down on the night. They lacked that cutting edge and freshness to get them over the line.

But with Karim Benzema, their best striker absent at the tournament, Lyon’s Alexandre Lacazette waiting in the wings and Anthony Martial still developing, the prospects are bright up front.

The French midfield trio of Blaise Matuidi, Paul Pogba and

Moussa Sissoko were on top for much of Sunday’s match. N’Golo Kante, who did not play in the final, has shown that he can add steel to the French midfield.

Pogba still has to show that he can become the great player he aspires to be. His flashes of brilliance were too intermittent throughout the tournament.

But at 23 he has his best years ahead of him and could be the man that drives this team forward. l

France’s coach Didier Deschamps (C) and players walk across the pitch after their defeat in the Euro 2016 final on Sunday AFP

Portugal shatter France’s dream n Reuters, Paris The smell of teargas floating in the air near the Eiffel Tower proved an ominous sign on the night when France’s dream of a perfect soccer summer turned sour.

The clashes at the Paris fan zone, where supporters trying to force their way in were pushed back by riot police, were relatively minor.

But such distractions were not part of a script which was then shredded on the pitch where Portugal gave a spirited rearguard performance to deny France their happy ending.

The French were desperate for some light relief when the tournament kicked off a month ago after strikes and violent protests against a labour law, with a state of emergency still in place after Islamist attacks that killed 130 people in the French capital in November.

France started the tournament in sluggish fashion but improved match after match, advancing to the final with a convincing 2-0 win over world champions Germany.

In the final, Portugal suffered a blow when their most dangerous player, Cristiano Ronaldo, was carried off on a stretcher during the first half.

That adversity seemed to encourage the Portuguese to battle even harder for their first major title. The hosts, who had burned up a lot of energy in their win over Germany on Thursday, ran out of steam and dropped their guard deep in extra time when substitute striker Eder fired home the only goal. l

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Sport

TUESDAY, JULY 12, 2016

Ronaldo goes from agony to ecstasy n Reuters, Paris He has won it all at club level and has three world player of the year awards but on Sunday Cristiano Ronaldo celebrated as never before - with tears of joy streaming down his face after his Portugal beat France 1-0 to win the European Championship.

Two hours earlier, there had been very different tears after he had been taken out of the game on a stretcher, just 25 minutes into the final at the Stade de France, his night over and his team left to fight on without their talisman.

A 19-year-old Ronaldo had played on the wing in that defeat and he must have wondered if he would ever get a chance to make amends. Ronaldo’s career has been a glittering combination of individual bril-

Emotional Santos praises Ronaldo’s motivational powers n Reuters, Paris Emotional Portugal coach Fernando Santos praised Cristiano Ronaldo’s motivational powers and said criticism of Pepe was unjustified after his team won the European Championship on Sunday.

Santos began his news conference by reading a speech he had delivered to the squad.

“We were as simple as doves and as wise as serpents,” he finished by saying.

Santos, appointed after Portugal had lost their opening qualifier at home to Albania, is unbeaten in 14 competitive internationals in charge.

“Our captain made a fantastic effort during this competition, he was criticised many times but he showed a fantastic team spirit,” Santos told reporters “Twice, he tried everything that was humanly possible to get back into the game but it wasn’t possible,” he added.

“His presence in the changing-room was really important thanks to the way in which he supported me and he said it was our day...he believed as much as I did that it was our day.”

“I’ve always told the players that we’ve got great talent but we need to fight more than our opponents, run more than them and concentrate more than them. We have an amazing group,” he said. l

liance, multiple success at club level and constant comparisons with the other great player of his generation, Barcelona’s Argentine forward Lionel Messi. Messi has famously never won a major trophy with his country and just a few weeks ago announced he was quitting his national team after their Copa America defeat on penalties to Chile.

Now to add to three EPL titles and a UCL win from his time with Manchester United, a Spanish league crown and two UCL triumphs with Real, Ronaldo has a major trophy with Portugal.

He was right to credit his team mates and coach Fernando Santos’s because while he may have been the man who got them to the final with his goal and assist in the last-four win over Wales, it was the squad who delivered his medal. l

Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo celebrates after winning the Euro 2016 final against France on Sunday REUTERS

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TUESDAY, JULY 12, 2016

QUICK BYTES

Recent Wimbledon champions:

Unbeaten Enamul clinches Rating Chess Grandmaster Enamul Hossain Razib emerged as the unbeaten champion of the Saif Powertec International Rating Chess Tournament which concluded at the Bangladesh Chess Federation hall-room and the National Sports Council auditorium yesterday. Razib beat Saiful Islam Chowdhury in the ninth and final round to secure the title having earned a total of 8.5 points. GM Mollah Abdullah al Rakib finished second with eight points while GM Ziaur Rahman and Golam Mostafa Bhuiyan earned 7.5 points each but following the tie-breaking system, Zia became third and Mostafa ended fourth. Rakib and Zia played out a draw yesterday.

Nine players earned seven points each.

Their positions are – fifth - IM Abu Sufian Shakil, sixth - Shafiq Ahmed, seventh - Sohel Chowdhury, eighth Ikramul Haq Siam, ninth - Rezaul Babu, 10th-Mahtabuddin Ahmed, 11th - FM Mohammad Javed, 12th - FM Saif Uddin and 13th - FM Fahad Rahman.

A record total of 214 players including three GMs, two International Masters and two rated players from India took part in the event.

TRIBUNE REPORT

Sharapova to miss Olympics Maria Sharapova will miss next month’s Rio Olympics after the Court of Arbitration for Sport yesterday decided to defer its decision on the Russian multiple grand slam champion’s appeal against a twoyear doping ban until September.

Sharapova was seeking to have her ban, which was imposed on her by the International Tennis Federation in June, wiped out or reduced and a decision was initially expected to be announced by July 18.

REUTERS

Pelle leaves for China Italy striker Graziano Pelle has joined Chinese side Shandong Luneng from Southampton for an undisclosed fee, the Premier League club announced yesterday. Pelle, 30, was part of the Italy team that reached the Euro 2016 quarter-finals and scored 30 goals in 81 appearances for Southampton following his arrival from Feyenoord in 2014.

AFP

DAY’S WATCH CRICKET SONY SIX 4:30AM Caribbean Premier League T20 Guyana v St Lucia

STAR SPORTS 1 11:30PM Natwest T20 Blast 2016 Leicester v Nottinghamshire

2016: Andy Murray (GBR) 2015: Novak Djokovic (SRB) 2014: Novak Djokovic (SRB) 2013: Andy Murray (GBR) 2012: Roger Federer (SUI) 2011: Novak Djokovic (SRB) 2010: Rafael Nadal (ESP) 2009: Roger Federer (SUI) 2008: Rafael Nadal (ESP) 2007: Roger Federer (SUI) Britain’s Andy Murray poses with the winner’s trophy after his men’s singles final victory at the 2016 Wimbledon Championships at The All England Lawn Tennis Club on Sunday AFP

Murray delivers again for grateful nation n Reuters, London Cometh the hour, cometh the man - Andy Murray proved himself the bastion of British tennis once again as he outclassed Canadian powerhouse Milos Raonic to claim a second Wimbledon title in masterful fashion on Sunday.

Three years after a nation held its breath, more in hope than expectation, as Murray took on and defeated ironman Novak Djokovic to end 77 years of pain, the 29-year-old delivered another command performance, winning 6-4 7-6(3) 7-6(2).

It was more comfortable than the scoreline suggested as a razor-sharp Murray dictated play

from start to finish.

He committed a miserly 12 unforced errors, blunted the 140mph first serves whizzing his way and even reduced the normally Zen-like Raonic to venting his frustration.

The near hysteria of 2013 turned to expectation this time as defending champion Djokovic, Murray’s bogeyman who beat him in this year’s Australian and French Open finals, lost early.

It left the door open for Murray and when sixth seed Raonic knocked out seven-times champion Roger Federer to scupper hopes of a dream finale, many appeared to take for granted that the Scot would be hugging the Challenge

Cup again before he walked on Centre Court to contest his 11th grand slam final. Understandably so, seeing as he had started the previous 10, all against Djokovic and Federer, as underdog.

That created its own pressure but Murray hid it well in a near-faultless two hours 48 minutes in the Centre Court sunshine as he added a second Wimbledon crown to his 2012 U.S. Open title and gold medal from the London Olympics.

He is expected to head to Serbia next week for a Davis Cup quarter-final, having almost single-handedly won the trophy for Britain last year. Then it’s on to Rio to defend his Olympic crown.

Raonic: I will leave no stone unturned to win a slam n Reuters, London Canadian Milos Raonic declared that he would stop at nothing to win a major title after admitting his straight sets loss to Andy Murray in Sunday’s Wimbledon final would sting.

The 25-year-old had hoped to become his country’s first grand slam singles champion but despite a battling display in the biggest match of his career so far, he made little impression on sublime Murray losing 6-4 7-6(3) 7-6(2).

Having previously reached the semi-finals at Wimbledon in 2014 and again at this year’s Australian Open, where he pushed Murray to five sets, a first major final appearance represents a significant step for the 6ft 5ins powerhouse.

His semi-final win over seven-times Wimbledon champion Roger Federer, from two sets to one down, was a milestone success, while in the last 16 he had battled back from two sets down for the first time in his career to beat Belgian David Goffin.

“This one will sting a bit,” he said before facing the world’s media shortly after walking off court.

“I’m going to work on everything. I’m not going to leave any stone unturned. I’m going to try to get myself back in this position, try to be better in this position,” he told reporters.

“I’m going to try to get fitter, stronger. I’m going to try to improve my return game, improve my serve. I can improve there. Improve my efficiency coming forward.

“There’s not one thing I’m not going to try to improve.”

The methodical Raonic described his fortnight as phenomenal, but was still critical of his inability to compete in the second set tiebreak having doggedly kept himself in the match.

“The first tiebreak, obviously I missed that ball, the short ball, on the first one. Wasn’t even close,” he said.

“Then I had an overhead that I didn’t make the most of on my serve. I’ll sort of look back at that with not too much joy.”

Raonic’s next target will be the Rogers Cup back home in Canada, but he would not say if John McEnroe, who he hired for the grasscourt season, would still be part of his entourage. l

No wonder the player once regarded as a surly teenager with bad hair is now a British sporting icon.

When Raonic shoved a backhand into the net to end the contest, a delirious Murray roared to the sky before bursting into tears as his latest achievement sunk in.

“I feel happier this time. I feel like this was sort of more for myself,” Murray, who became a father in February with wife Kim, who watched from the front row of his box, told reporters.

“The last time it was just pure relief and I didn’t really enjoy the moment as much.

“I’m going to make sure I enjoy this one more.”l

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TUESDAY, JULY 12, 2016

A Euro of giantkillers, Ronaldo and hooligans n AFP, Paris The European Championship ended Sunday with Portugal’s stunning victory over France in the final - the last shock in a tournament of giant-killing romance, vicious and gentle fans, the rise of Antoine Griezmann as an international star and Cristiano Ronaldo stretchered

Portugal team pose with the trophy as they celebrate after beating France in the Euro 2016 final at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, north of Paris on Sunday AFP

off in tears and still winning.

Euro 2016 was not a classic for football purists but pure joy for anyone who revels in sporting upsets.

For France, Euro 2016 was an antidote to terror attacks and weeks of social unrest until the final. Russian hooligans tested the hosts’ security forces but Irish Republic fans sang their way into the hearts

of French police.

Expanded to 24 teams for the first time, some had expressed fears that the little nations would not be up to it. But Iceland, Wales and Portugal answered UEFA’s prayers.

Iceland beat England 2-1 in the last 16 in one of the biggest shocks in football history. Iceland scorer

Ragnar Sigurdsson said England “panicked”. English Football Association chief Martin Glenn could not understand why England are so “brittle” on the international stage.

Wales, built around powerful Real Madrid forward Gareth Bale, lost to England but still reached the semi-finals with determined, entertaining football that swept aside

Russia and Belgium with domineering 3-1 wins.

It took the class of Cristiano Ronaldo to outgun his Real teammate in the last four.

Northern Ireland also put on a gutsy show to reach a quarter-final against Wales.

Portugal started as 25-1 outsiders to win the tournament but pulled off the final glorious upset. They lost Ronaldo, who was stretchered off after 25 minutes, and soaked up France’s pressure for 109 minutes before Eder powered a shot past France’s captain and goalkeeper Hugo Lloris.

Ronaldo produced one of the goals of the tournament with a sublime backheel against Hungary. France’s Dimitri Payet also produced a spectacular shot in the opening game against Romania.

Xherdan Shaqiri’s scissors-kick goal for Switzerland against Poland could also be a candidate for goal of the tournament.

The 108 goals in 51 matches gave an average of 2.11 goals a game, below the 2.45 of Euro 2012 and the 2.7 at the 2014 World Cup. But there were records. Ronaldo equalled French legend Michel Platini’s nine goals in Euro tournaments.l

CROSSWORD ACROSS 1 Festive jollity (5) 6 Anger (3) 7 Discharge in disgrace (5) 10 Kind of ray (5) 12 Way out (4) 13 Country (5) 15 Date of death (4) 16 Mineral spring (3) 18 Loud noise (3) 20 Salamander (4) 22 Snow hut (5) 23 Token (4) 25 Silly (5) 27 Sanity (5) 28 Make lace (3) 29 Utters gratingly (5)

DOWN 1 Drawn into error (6) 2 Annoy (3) 3 Sanity (6) 4 Paying attention (7) 5 Irritate (3) 8 Female swan (3) 9 Flaccid (4) 11 Bath (3) 14 Studio (7) 16 Ermine in summer coat (6) 17 Useful things (6) 19 Wading bird (4) 21 Was victorious (3) 22 Tavern (3) 24 Precious stone (3) 26 40 winks (3)

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29

Downtime

TUESDAY, JULY 12, 2016

CODE-CRACKER How to solve: Each number in our CODECRACKER grid represents a different letter of the alphabet. For example, today 11 represents M so fill M every time the figure 11 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.

A B C DE FG H I J K L MN O P Q RST UVWXYZ

CALVIN AND HOBBES

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.

PEANUTS

YESTERDAY’S SOLUTIONS CODE-CRACKER

CROSSWORD

DILBERT

SUDOKU

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Showtime

TUESDAY, JULY 12, 2016

Child artist to bold actress

n Showtime Desk Once upon a time Scarlett Johansson was a mere child actor, but today she is known as Black Widow. Recently she mentioned that she is happier playing the role of Natasha, than anything else.

In a recent interview with Michigan Avenue, Johansson was asked which of her many film roles was her favorite to date. Given the breadth of work she’s done in her career, none of us would have batted an eye if she had chosen one of her highly regarded independent films such as Lost in Translation, Ghost World or Under the Skin. Instead, she went right to the superhero. Scarlett says, “I really like playing Natasha,

playing the Black Widow. It’s been an interesting journey, to take a character and grow it over these years, and peel the layers back and be able to, as you do in life, grow with this person. It’s a character that’s really enigmatic and has an amazing origins story, so there’s a lot for me to play off of.”

Scarlett Johansson was born in New York City. Her mother, Melanie Sloan, is from an Ashkenazi and her father, Karsten Johansson, is Danish. She has a sister, Vanessa Johansson, who is also an actress; a brother, Adrian; a twin brother, Hunter Johansson; born three minutes after her.

She made her film debut at the age of nine, as John Ritter’s character’s daughter in the 1994 fantasy comedy, North (1994).

Following minor roles in the 1995 film, Just Cause (1995), as the daughter of Sean Connery and Kate Capshaw’s character; and If Lucy Fell (1996), she played the role of Amanda in Manny & Lo (1996). Her performance in Manny & Lo, garnered a nomination for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Lead Female.

She dropped out of Mission: Impossible III (2006) due to

Matt Damon ‘totally fine’ with other younger Jason Bourne

n Showtime Desk Matt Damon says he’s “totally fine” with a younger actor taking over the role of Jason Bourne after he’s done with the action franchise.

Speaking on a promotional tour in Seoul, South Korea,

Damon, who returns for the fifth installment titled Jason Bourne that’s released this summer, said he was “definitely going to be replaced some day by some new young Jason Bourne. That happens to everybody and they reboot these things, and that’s totally fine.”

“The only control I can exercise is over the ones that I’m part of. I’m the curator of them as long as I’m involved and that’s why I battled so hard to make sure that we got the same creative people [including director Paul Greengrass] to get involved in this one,” he added.

Fourteen years since the first film in the franchise, Damon said he was “very excited” to be playing Bourne again, a character that “had a huge impact on my life and career.” l

scheduling conflicts. After a weaker appearance she got a chance to perform in Woody Allen’s Match Point (2005), and was nominated again for a Golden Globe Award. In May 2008, she released her album Anywhere I Lay My Head, a collection of Tom Waits covers featuring one original song.

Including many movies, she played her Iron Man 2 character, Black Widow, in the blockbuster action films The Avengers (2012), Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), and Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), and also headlined the science-fiction thriller, Lucy (2014), a box office success. With more than a decade of work already under her belt, Scarlett has proven to be one of Hollywood’s most talented young actresses. In personal life, she is married to a French journalist, Romain Dauriac; and the couple have a daughter together.l

Chetan strikes again n Showtime desk

There are very few writers in Bollywood that have stood out individually. Selim khan and Javed Akhter are two such writers that have made their name in Bollywood. Chetan Bhagat, too, has followed suit. Kai po che and 3 Idiots made him a popular writer in the film industry. He has not only depicted pictures of life in a real sense, but also

showed a clear picture of society as it is today. After the success of 2 States, another movie based on another Chetan Bhagat book, Half Girlfriend, his other book will also be turned into a movie.

Shooting for the film has begun in full swing.

A still from the shooting of Half Girlfriend was tweeted by Chetan Bhagat, with Shraddha Kapoor donning a basketball jersey, holding a basketball. The jersey

reads “Somani” which is the surname of the character played

by Shraddha Kapoor. Shraddha is named Riya Somani and is starring opposite Arjun Kapoor, whose character is named Madhav Jha. Chetan Bhagat is excited with his new venture. Sources are saying, audience might find another Kuch Kuch Hota Hain’s Kajal in Shraddha Kapoor through this movie. l

Gahor Badsha O Banesa Pori to stage today

n Mosharraf Kabir Gahor Badsha O Banesa Pori, the 20th stage production of theatre troupe Nagorik Nattayangan and a directorial venture of actor Hridi Haq, will be staged today at the National Theatre Hall of Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy at 6:30pm.

Hridi Haq who adapted the play for stage stated that it is based on a Southern folktale with the inclusion of Banesa Pori’s titular role. The play focuses on the exile and survival

of Gahor Badsha’s along with the eventual love affair with Banesa Pori. The play marks Haq’s first directorial venture for stage.

A group comprising around 50 theatre activists have participated in the play in various parts from acting to stage design to costume. Warda Rihab designed choreography for the play while Kamruzzaman Roni scored the background music.

Actor Saju Khadem designed the sets.

The play premiered in November last year. l

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TUESDAY, JULY 12, 2016

Lady Gaga’s new tracks in the pipeline n Showtime Desk Pop star Lady Gaga is reportedly working on some new tracks, the hint comes from her long-time producer RedOne. Looks like the 30-year-old pop star, who hasn’t released a solo album in nearly three years, may arrive on the horizon again.

RedOne, with whom Gaga collaborated on hits like “Just Dance,” “Poker Face” and “LoveGame,” said: “All I know is that we did eight great songs so far, and I think we have incredible songs,” reports People.

The new tracks are a “mixture of classic music and futuristic,” RedOne added.

“We kept it [similar to] what Gaga is, what she’s done all these years. It’s special,” he told People.

RedOne, whose real name is Nadir Khayat, went on to talk about Gaga’s star power, noting that he always knew she was going to be huge.

“I remember when I met her first. I told my wife, ‘This girl is gonna be the next Madonna.’ That’s what I felt,” he said. “And when we did ‘Just Dance’ and all the music we were doing, it was different; it was special. I wanted to break a new sound.

I didn’t want to follow every producer that was doing the

same thing. And I did that sound, and it worked, and it changed music in the world: Dance music broke after that.”

The producer has worked with Gaga on all of her albums since The Fame, her debut. He left his mark on songs like “Bad Romance” and “Alejandro” from “The Fame Monster,” on “Judas” and “Hair” from “Born This Way,” and on “Gypsy” from ARTPOP. The producer told People that he was excited about the new music he has been working on with Gaga, but was not able to

confirm whether or not any of it would appear on her next album.

“It’s up to her: It’s her album, it’s her creative process, it’s her world, and I’ll be happy for her whatever way she takes it,” he said. “She’s my sister. I want her to succeed, and I love her. She’s just such an amazing artist.” l Source: huffingtonpost

WHAT TO WATCH The Hills Have Eyes Star Movies, 5:30pm

Man of Steel Movies Now, 2:00pm

Forced to confront his secret extrastellar origin, Superman learns to fight for Earth when it gets invaded by members of his own race.

Cast: Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Kevin Costner, Diane Lane, Laurence Fishburne

17 Again HBO, 7:30pm

Mike is the star of his high school basketball team at 17. He is on top of the world and is all set to receive a college scholarship. Everything falls by the wayside when he finds out that his girlfriend Scarlett (Leslie Mann) is pregnant. He gives up everything and marries her. But after the wedding takes place, Mike keeps cribbing about the life that he has lost because he married her. Scarlett throws him out. Mike loses his job and goes to his high school reliving happy memories.

Cast: Zac Efron, Leslie Mann, Thomas Lennon, Sterling Knight, Hunter Parrish, Melora Hardin

Jackie Chan’s First Strike WB, 11:19pm

Inspector Chan Ka Kui is out to catch an international spy ring.

He takes part in a sting operation that rounds up most of them. But Jackson Tsui gets away. Chan gets his orders to catch the spy and he starts in Australia where Tsui’s sister Annie lives.

Cast: Jackie Chan, Jackson Liu, Annie Wu, Bill Tung, Yuri Petrov, Nonna Grishaeva

The Carter family led are travelling by trailer through the New Mexico Desert. They take a shortcut that goes nowhere and hit against a rock. Their vehicle is wrecked with no help nearby. That’s when a group of cannibals attacked them. These are terribly deformed mutants that are a result of the nuclear tests conducted by the US between 1945 and 1962.

Cast: Ted Levine, Kathleen Quinlan, Dan Byrd, Emilie de Ravin, Michael Bailey Smith

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End Zee Studio, 9:00am

In the final chapter of the Pirates trilogy, Will, Elizabeth and Captain Barbossa embark on a desperate quest to save Jack Sparrow (Depp) from a monstrous sea creature controlled by Davy Jones (Nighy).

To complete their mission, they must travel to Singapore to confront Chinese pirate Captain Sao Feng and sail into treacherous waters to sink the terrifying ghost ship known as the Flying Dutchman.

Cast: Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley, Chow YunFat, Geoffrey Rush

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Freedom fighter ‘beaten to death’ by railway police n Bishwajit Deb, Jamalpur A freedom fighter has died, allegedly after taking a beating from railway police at the Jamalpur Railway Station.

Eight police officers have been suspended over the incident and a probe committee has been formed.

Family said Lance Corporal (retd) Abdul Bari, a freedom fighter, was hit by a policeman in the presence of GRP Station Officer-inCharge Goura Chandra Mojumder

at the station yesterday.

His son Mazharul Islam, a Rajshahi University student, was detained at the station for not having a ticket. Abdul Bari went to the station to get his son released. An argument ensued with the policemen there, whereupon the policemen beat him in public on the platform.

Bari was admitted to Jamalpur General Hospital with injuries and transferred to Mymensingh Combined Military Hospital where he

died at 2:45pm.

OC Goura Chandra and seven other policemen were suspended over the incident, Jamalpur Deputy Commissioner Shahabuiddin Khan said. A five-member committee had also been formed to look into the incident, which will submit a report in three days, he added.

Former MP and Jamalpur district commander of the Muktijoddha Sangsad (freedom fighters council) Shafiqul Islam said Abdul Bari had been beaten up inhu-

manely in public by policemen.

He said the council would launch a campaign for the punishment of culprits after the victim’s body is returned from Mymensingh.

Earlier, OC Goura Chandra told the Dhaka Tribune the freedom fighter’s son was detained for not having a ticket and then released.

“But he was still standing at the platform and swearing at police, at which point some pushing took place and he fell to the ground and was injured,” he said. l

A Bengal Tiger is seen crossing the Shundori Canal in Sundarban’s Kotka in Bagerhat. Recently the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has declared the Bengal Tigers as an extremely endangered species. The photo was taken on July 9 SYED ZAKIR HOSSAIN

Peace TV downlink permission cancelled n Shohel Mamun The government yesterday cancelled the downlink permission for the controversial televangelist Zakir Naik’s Peace TV channel.

An order was issued by the Information Ministry after the cabinet committee on law and order decided to ban the channel on Sunday.

The order from the Information Ministry read: “The government was cancelling the downlink permission for the free-to-air channel as per the cabinet committee’s decision.”

Former president of cable operators association of Bangladesh, SM Anwar Parvez told reporters that cable operators had stopped airing Peace TV in divisional cities on Sunday after the decision made by the Cabinet committee.

We have now received the order by the Information Ministry to stop telecasting Peace TV which will be executed within the next 24 hours.

Peace TV was launched by Naik’s Islamic Research Foundation in 2006. An Urdu version was launched in 2009, followed by a Bangla version in 2011.

Naik stirred up controversy by urging Muslims to become terrorists, came under heavy scrutiny after it emerged that at least one of the terrorists in the Dhaka terror attack who killed 22 people on July 1 was inspired by Naik.

India on Saturday banned Peace TV which is not licensed in India and is uplinked from Dubai. It also warned cable operators that action will be taken for transmitting the channel. l

Zakir Naik to stay longer in UAE n Tribune Desk

While things have been stirring up badly in his home city Mumbai, Islamic televangelist Zakir Naik has prolonged his stay in the United Arab Emirates and has plans to take the tour to Africa, reports Times of India.

An aide of Naik’s yesterday told TOI that the Islamic preacher had also cancelled his conference with the media

scheduled to be held today.

Naik was yet to call on several meetings in the UAE and would not leave for Mumbai for a few more weeks, he said.

The Bharatiya Janata Party-led government in Maharashtra has ordered a probe into Naik’s teachings, speeches and literature following allegations that he was inspiring terrorism. Shiv Sena, ally to the Maharashtra government, has also demanded stringent actions

against the Islamic preacher at par with the treatment given to Hindu activists.

Naik could face actions if his speeches were found objectionable, reports TOI, adding that the Indian Union Muslim League had come out in his support.

Meanwhile, Naik went on social networking sites urging people to stand by him and help him combat the “media trial” he is being subjected to since the terror attack at Holey Artisan Bakery. l

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