Graft white paper on 4-party & Khaleda family : PM
Dhaka, 11 February : Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina today said the government would publish a 'white paper' on corruption of former prime minister Khaleda Zia, family members and the four-party alliance government.
"We all know how the then prime minister, her sons and finance minister gained black money. They whitened black money by taking opportunities of the NBR", Hasina told the parliament in the question-answer session. Without mentioning their name, Hasina directly blamed the BNP Chairperson and her sons for extensive corruption.
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Convicts in Tapasi Mallik murder case get bail
Kolkata, 11 February : CPI(M) leader Suhrid Dutta and party activist Debu Malik undergoing life term for the murder of a woman during anti-farm land acquisition agitation in Singur were granted bail by the Kolkata High Court on Wednesday.
A division bench comprising Justice Pranab Chattopadhyay and Justice Asim Roy granted the bail to the two convicts.
Tapasi Mallik, who was an active participant in the movement against land acquisition for the Tata Motors small car project at Singur, was raped and murdered before her body was set on fire in the fenced land for the plant on 12 December, 2006.
Suhrid and Debu Malik, a relative of Tapasi, were accused of conspiring and executing the murder along with four unknown persons who were also accused of raping her before killing her.
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Dhaka Stock Exchange stocks go into a skid
Dhaka, 11 February : Stocks sank to this year's lowest on Wednesday as investors found themselves in a panic sell-offs. The DSI and DGEN indices of Dhaka Stock Exchange fell by 70.92 and 86.55 points or 3.40 and 3.46 percent respectively.
The fall was not because of any weakness in the real economy, but because of panic that dominated the "psyche of the general investors", according to the Equity Partners Limited (EPL), an investment bank. According to the analysis, the real economy of Bangladesh was performing admirably during the global downturn. "Remittances are up significantly, exports are very strong, and the grow rates are commendable."
The Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) yesterday unveiled a plan for the stock market to increase liquidity in the market. The plan emerged from a meeting the SEC had with the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) at the SEC amid the recent bearish trend of the stock markets. The meeting identified that a liquidity crunch caused the recent bearish trend.
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Jamaat leader-Imam held for sexually harass girl
Gaibandha, 11 February : A local Jamaat leader was arrested yesterday for his alleged bid to sexually harass a nine-year-old girl at village Raghunathpur under Gaibandha Sadar upazila.
Police said Ruhul Amin, chief of Jamaat-e-Islami Ballamjhar Union unit and also imam of Raghunathpur mosque, has been conducting a mosque based education programme at the village. The victim, is one of the participants of that programme. At around 3:00pm yesterday, Ruhul Amin took her to a classroom and tried to harass her.
As the girl cried for help, locals rushed to the spot and beat up Ruhul Amin. They later handed him over to the police. A case was filed with Gaibandha Sadar Police station.
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Investigation officer in Rizwanur case found dead
"Arindam was one of the prime witnesses in the Rizwanur trial to begin soon. The death seems intriguing." - Human Rights activist Sujato Bhadra
Kolkata, 11 February : In what came as a major blow to the Rizwanur Rahman case, Arindam Manna, a Government Railway Police officer that started the probe on the mysterious death, was found dead on Wednesday beside the railway tracks near Mankundu Station in Hooghly, a considerable distance away from his work place at Dum Dum.
Officer in-charge of Sheoraphuli GRP S Bhattacharya said that it was prima facie a case of suicide by Arindam Manna.
Manna's relatives, however, suspect foul play in the incident. Arindam Manna (31), a GRP officer of Dum Dum, was a resident of Howrah. "Arindam left for his work place in Dum Dum from his house at Howrah's Dasnagar. Yesterday, late in the night, he called his mother to say that his life was in danger. They will not allow me to live. I am leaving this world," says Arindam's relative in the police complaint.
The police said that the head was severed from the body. The postmortem of the body was done at the Walsh hospital, Serampore. An FIR filed with the police said that the body bore marks of injuries in the right leg, left eye and throat.
He was the first investigating officer in the case of the mysterious death of Rizwanur Rehman in 2007.
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WB Govt seeks report into inter-state kidney racket
Kolkata, 10 February : The WB state health department has asked the detective department to submit a report on the inter-state kidney selling racket busted recently in the city. Though six people have been arrested in connection with the racket so far, the kingpin is still at large.
"I have asked police to submit a report on the case. There is an ethical committee that decides on kidney transplants. In this case, there was no transplant. I will go through the police report before deciding on what needs to be done," state health minister Surjya Kanta Mishra told Bengal News today.
"We are also trying to find out cases where patients succumbed during or immediately after a transplant," said a senior health officer. What is worrying police is the rising trend of victims joining the racket. "Being very poor, these people could not resist the opportunity to make easy money even by being victims themselves," said an official.
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Medha Patkar meets tribal leaders in West Bengal
Siliguri, 10 February : Social activist Medha Patkar Tuesday met tribal leaders in Jalpaiguri district of West Bengal to discuss the problems they were facing over the Gorkha Janamukti Morcha's (GJM) demand for a separate Gorkhaland state.
'We had a meeting with Medha Patkar today. We told her about the problems we are facing over the Gorkhaland demand by the GJM activists,' said Rajesh Lakra, leader of the Akhil Bharatiya Adivasi Bikash Parishad (ABABP), a tribal opposing GJM's demand to include the Dooars region in the Gorkhaland territory.
The meeting between Patkar and ABABP leaders was held at Banarhaat in the afternoon.
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Gorkha Janmukti Morcha plans to make Karate Squad
Darjeeling, 10 February : The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha has decided to raise a force of 2,000 youths trained in martial arts and archery.
Morcha youth wing chief Alok Kant Mani Thulung said the unit would “be a committed force that can do anything for the cause of Gorkhaland”. “We are looking for educa-ted, unmarried youths. Recruitment will start next week.” The hill outfit already has an army of volunteers called Gorkhaland Personnel.
The Morcha started to enforce an indefinite shutdown of government offices from yeterday and said it would not even spare courts, as promised earlier. A leader said: “We have decided to shut the courts down till we finish our own probes.”