Mobile
courts deployment
The government decided to deploy 28 mobile courts in the capital
during Ramadan and Durga Puja to ensure law and order and check market
price.
The Rapid Action
Battalion and the Bangladesh Rifles will be on special assignment to
identify and control food adulteration, price hike of essentials, extortion,
mugging and passenger harassment.
The decision came
out at a high-level meeting on law and order and traffic congestion,
chaired by State Minister for Home Affairs Lutfozzaman Babar, at the
home ministry.
Representatives
from the police, Bangladesh Rifles, Rapid Action Ba|talion, Bangladesh
Ansars, coast guard, intelligence agencies, and the Bangladesh Road
Transport Authority attended the meeting- New Age, September 26.
Partha
admitted to hospital
Shaibal Saha Partha, one of the five persons arrested in connection
with the August 21 bomb attack on an Awami League rally, was admitted
to the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University Hospital a week after
the High Court order.
Partha was earlier
brought to the hospital for admission but he was taken back to the Dhaka
Central Jail after the hospital authorities had decline to admit him
as all seven seats for male prisons in the prison ward was occupied
then.
The
hospital sources said that Partha had pains in the stomach and chest
and had difficulties having food. He also has problems in the eyes,
as he had been kept blindfolded for several days, hospital sources said.
A vacation bench of the High Cour| on September 20, when Partha was
in remand, directed the government to provide Partha with treatment
immediately after the expiry of his remand.- New Age, September
28.
2500
girls abused in six months
Around 20,696 girl children were violated physically and mentally from
2001 to June 2004, newsmen were told in Dhaka on Tuesday.
Around 2,480 girl
children were victims of murder, rape, physical torture, sexual abuse,
trafficking, dowry and acid victim between January and June alone.
Speakers at a news
briefing of the Girl Advocacy Forum at the Dhaka Reporters Unity said
a girl child faces discrimination even before her birth and has to bear
this discrimination throughout her life.
The forum has undertaken various programmes to make people aware and
change their attitude towards girl children to mark the Girl Child Day
this year. The Women and Children Affairs Ministry declared September
30 as the Girl Child Day in 2000. -New Age, September 29.
Rip-off
at Ctg Port
Chittagong Port and customs officials extract about Tk 783 crore from
importers and exporters in bribes and tips a year, Transparency International
Bangladesh (TIB) said in a stunning study released on September 28.
The watchdog study
was based on the outcome of a yearlong investigation from July 2003
to June 2004 that says customs officials get Tk 451 crore and the port
staff Tk 332 crore at Chittagong Port that handles over 75 percent of
Bangladesh sea cargo. TIB identified such clandestine practices as adding
to the cost of business in Bangladesh.
For
unbridled corruption, irregularities and frequent strikes, the International
Maritime Bureau identified Bangladesh as ha~ing the world's second most
risky port next to Indonesia. -Daily Star, September 29.
Jail
killing case: Order to arrest witness
A Dhaka court ordered arrest of an octogenarian witness in the historic
jail killing case whose inability to give a statement before courts
is delaying verdict on the high profile political case.
Court sources said
84 year old Saifuddin Ahmed could not appear before Metropolitan Sessions
Judge's Court, Dhaka on the day because of poor health in a replay of
similar things before.
Metropolitan
Sessions Judge issued the arrest orders and asked the prosecution, counsel
of accused-on-bail Taheruddin Thakur and officer-in-charge of Sutrapur
police station to submit a report on Saifuddin's health by October 9.
The court also fixed October 9 for delivering its next order on receiving
the report. -Daily Star, September 30.
Injunction
over mass arrest
The High Court on September 29 issued an injunction against the ongoing
blanket arrests of opposition adherents and apolitical people alike
under section 86 of Dhaka Metropolitan Police Ordinance (DMP) until
October 3.
A HC Division bench
comprising Justice Awlad Ali and Justice AFM A Rahman delivered the
order on a petition filed by a number of rights groups protesting the
indiscriminate arrest under the {ection. The bench will hear the case
in full on October 3.
The government has
again initiatmd a mass arrest programme, though it is yet to reply to
the High Court's rule issued on April 27, 2004, asking it to submit
a report within three weeks detailing the names and particulars of persons
arrested since April 18 without any warrant.
The
court also issued a rule nisi on the government to show cause within
three weeks why Section 86 of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police Ordinance
would not be declared to be without lawful authority and of no legal
effect, being ultra vires of the constitution. -Daily Star, September
30.
