Air passengers stuck in Andamans

For Three days due to rain
Port Blair, 29 September : About 430 air passengers and tourists have been stuck at the Andaman airport for the past three days as all the flights from Kolkata have been cancelled because of heavy rains in Port Blair.
Airport authorities here said, "The rain required us to divert or cancel all incoming flights from Kolkata to the Veer Savarkar airport, which has been flooded." Passengers were stranded since 25 September and some of them were accommodated on flights in the next two days.

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Bangabandhu Mujib University sacks 11 professors

Dhaka, 29 September : The authorities of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University sacked 10 professors and one associate professor on Monday in an apparent purge of political appointees during the BNP-Jamaat coalition government.
University registrar Abdul Gafur told reporters that the 11 had been "relieved" of their jobs because their appointments "flouted rules and were unlawful. They had already retired from their regular government service and joined the university. The problem was they were re-appointed on terms applicable for regular appointments. They could only be appointed on contract," Gafur explained.
A decision to cancel these appointments was taken at a meeting of the policymaking Syndicate just before the Eid holidays, Gafur said.

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Special trains for stranded Air passengers by Rlys

Kolkata, 29 September : With strike by Air India executive pilots leading to cancellation of several flights, the Railways are arranging special trains for stranded passengers.
Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee today said special trains would be arranged from tomorrow to carry stranded air passengers from Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi and Bangalore to their destinations. "I have ordered opening of special railway counters at these places. The special train service will be for one or two days," she said, adding it could be extended depending on the situation. She said an additional coach could be attached to each superfast train to carry the passengers.
Banerjee said she has asked Union Minister of State for Shipping Mukul Roy to arrange a special service of the Shipping Corporation of India tomorrow to bring back stranded air passengers at Port Blair.

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B'desh court to question officials in '04 arms seizure

Dhaka, 29 September : Bangladesh investigators are preparing to question a former home secretary and four others who formed a team to probe the seizure in 2004 of 10 truckloads of firearms and explosives meant for militants in India’s northeast.
Offloaded at Chittagong port, ten truck loads of military material were shifted to the warehouse of a state sector fertiliser company for transporting them to Assam in India, media reports quoting the investigators have said. Retired home secretary Omar Faruk is the latest in the line of officials who served the then government of prime minister Khaleda Zia (2001-06), being arraigned before a court in the Chittagong port town, the Daily Star newspaper said Tuesday.
The authorities have already questioned and detained three top intelligence officials, who headed the National Security Intelligence (NSI) and are accused of playing key roles in receiving the shipment of arms, ammunition and explosives from China. န File Photo : STAR

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Tribals block roads in Lalgarh area
PTI, Midnapore, 29 September : Tribals protesting the detaining of 25 youths by security forces today blocked roads leading to Lalgarh from the district headquarters town of West Midnapore.
Felled trees were used to block the Bhadutala-Pirakata road to block vehicles from the Kadasole camp of securitymen, the police said. More than a thousand tribal women gheraoed the Kadasole camp to protest against the detaining of the youths from Mahultala, Ratanpur and Shalka villages near Lalgarh, they said. The youths, who were detained for suspected Maoist links, were later released and the roads were being cleared, sources said.
Meanwhile, the police seized three objects which were believed to be landmines, but turned out to be empty cans.

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Media protests West Bengal police misrepresentation
The incident has diminished the role and profession of journalists : Nihal Singh
PTI, New Delhi, 29 September : The arrest of Chhatradhar Mahato by policemen posing as journalists may have been the stuff of spy thrillers but the adventure has come in for criticism from representatives of the media, among them former editors and the globally networked International Federation of Journalists (IFJ).
The elusive convener of the Maoist-backed Police Santrash Birodhi Janasadharaner Committee (People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities) was dramatically picked up on Saturday from a village near Lalgarh in West Medinipur district. Though officially in hiding, Mahato had been in regular contact with local journalists which fact was used by the police to trap him.
As reported by Bengal Newz on Sunday, policemen, pretending to be journalists from a foreign news agency, approached two local reporters, who, unaware that they were part of an undercover police mission, led them to Mahato’s hideout. The decoy reporters conducted a mock interview after which one of them whipped out his revolver and secured Mahato’s arrest. န File Bengal Newz Photos

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Punjab to get 100 mw power from West Bengal !!

PTI, New Delhi, 29 September : Punjab State Electricity Board (PSEB) has tied up with the West Bengal government for procuring 100 mw of power on the basis of banking arrangement, a step which could ease the problem of power shortage to some extent in the state.
In addition to it, the board would also get further 100 mw of energy after getting a corridor from West Bengal. Disclosing this here today, a spokesman said that with these arrangements, PSEB would relax the duration of power cuts from 8-9 hours to 4 hours in the domestic sector in the state. He further informed that all the thermal stations of PSEB were generating power to its capacity and the repair of Lehra Mohabat Plant had also been completed.
However, PSEB has received 225 mw and 75 mw lesser power from the Bhakhra Dem and Dehar Hydral Project respectively, due to the scanty rainfall, he said.

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Jama'atul Mujahideen finds chars, hills for training

Dhaka, 29 September : Not only in hill areas, Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh has training facilities in far-flung chars as well to stay beyond the reach of the law enforcers. The banned outfit shifted their camps to distant places after Rapid Action Battalion had busted militant dens in the capital in recent months.

Lt Col Ziaul Ahsan, director of Rab's intelligence wing, told The Daily Star, “We are working to dismantle the JMB camps in chars (land mass on river) and deep forest areas. "We have already broken their backbone. No matter how hard they try to regroup, it all flashes on our radar screen." Rab busted a JMB training camp at remote Matiranga hill forest in Khagrachhari on Friday following up intelligence from the field. The following day, the crime busters captured four other JMB operatives.
RAB sources said they first learned about JMB moving its training camps following the arrest of a militant leader in Comilla around eight months back. The outfit is no stranger to relocation, they added. It used char areas in Tangail, Sirajganj, Jamalpur, Gaibandha, Pabna and other northern districts for training in the past too.

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Ten Air India flights from Kolkata's Airport cancelled

Air India apologises to IC-287 Port Blair passengers

Kolkata, 29 September : Air India today cancelled ten flights operating from NSC Bose international airport here due to the strike by executive pilots.
Of these, seven were flights to Delhi, Agartala, Guwahati, Port Blair, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Kathmandu and the remaining were in-bound flights from Hyderabad, Mumbai and Delhi. Meanwhile, another flight to Port Blair was cancelled because of bad weather there, airport sources said. Times Now reported, Hours after news was reported of 30 passengers to Port Blair being left stranded in Kolkata Airport for the second consecutive day today. Air India authorities have reportedly issued an apology to the passengers and admitted that the reason for leaving them behind was that there were not enough pilots available to fly the rescheduled flights due to the ongoing pilots' strike.
The cancellations led to a large crowd of stranded passengers at the airport as private airlines could not accommodate them. န Photo : Reuters

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1 killed, 12 injured as Puja revellers clash in Dhaka

Dhaka, 29 September : Clashes between two rival groups of Puja revellers at Sutrapur in old Dhaka Monday night left one killed and at least 12 persons injured, police said.
The dead, Goutam Sarkar (24), was the president of Swechchhasevak League of ward 79. The wounded were treated at local hospitals. Sutrapur police chief Tofazzal Hossain told that there had been prior rivalries over influence and authority between the organizers of two local Puja pavalions. At one stage, the two sides engaged in hitting each other which took a serious turn as the two camps used bombs and guns. Police had to fire blank shots to stop the fighting.

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