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     Volume 7 Issue 2 | January 11, 2008 |


  Letters
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  Photo Feature
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  Dhaka Diary
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Dhaka Diary



T
he incident took place recently at the Dhaka Zoo. It was afternoon and we had already seen most of the exotic zoo animals. We were enjoying the stroll amidst the green trees when our eyes caught sight of an exclusive placard. The placard displayed a cartoon and we could not resist the temptation of moving closer to check it out. As we took a closer look, we were surprised to see that the cartoon was about some people inside a cage and some animals were outside encircling it freely as if they were the spectators and the men in the cage were their amusement. A tiger was throwing stones at the captives while an elephant was poking them with a stick. There were other animals too, dancing around in a festive manner. The prisoners did not seem to like at all what was being done to them.

Beneath the hilarious cartoon, a message was written in colourful ink, “Do not harm the animals in the cage, how would you feel if you were in their shoes?”

I was amused to see such a creative cartoon because it gave the visitors a wonderful message about being a responsible citizen to preserve wild life and be compassionate to the animals in the zoo. We should not overlook our duties especially when we are in public places.

Naome Syed,
Mohammadpur

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I was going to my hall from Shaymoli one day on the bus, when at one of the stops, some young girls got on. Since there were no seats available, the girls had to stand along with the others. At one point there was a lot of pushing amongst the standing passengers. The girls screamed out and even called out one of the men standing beside them. I was right there and saw that the man in question had nothing to do with the pushing. In fact, he was being pushed from behind. I realise that men take advantage of women passengers on the bus, but women should not generalise the whole situation and get angry with just anyone standing in front of them. However they should of course voice out in case of certain incidents and the male passengers should also be careful and be conscious about the women passengers around.

Ashutosh Dash
University of Dhaka
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Last week, I boarded a bus to get to home. As there no seats I had to stand with a few other passengers. When the bus stopped at one of the bus stands, a man got up and asked me to take his seat as he was leaving. Just then another man who was standing close by almost pushed me and grabbed the seat like his life depended on it. He did not look the tiniest bit embarrassed. Both I and the fellow who offered me the seat were disgusted by that mans strange behaviour which showed neither respect for a woman nor any sort of guilt. These behaviours only show that there are still people around who lack the basic know-how to get by in a society.

Saadmi Bhuiyan
Diluroad Moghbazar

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