Members of Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) arrested eight people from Maghbazar and Mowchak areas in Dhaka city last night allegedly for spreading rumour on social media over tomorrow’s national election.
A team of Rab-2 conducted drives in the areas and arrested them, said Rab sources.
The Rab members recovered video making equipment, laptop and mobile phone sets from their possession.
BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia yesterday said she would not say anything about Sunday's national election.
She said this when reporters asked her about the election after a hearing of the Niko graft case at a makeshift court inside the Old Dhaka Central Jail.
As she was being taken back to her cell in a wheelchair, she said, “My legs ache too much.”
During the hearing, she told the court, “I won't come to the court if it sits at a place like this. The court can't run here. Our people can't come here. Give me sentence if you want….I won't come to this court.”
Judge Sheikh Hafizur Rahman of the Special Judge Court-9 of Dhaka said, “Start the charge hearing afresh as I am new in this case. I will hear everyone's speech.”
After that, Public Prosecutor of the Anti-Corruption Commission Mosharraf Hossain Kajol read out the charges against Khaleda and 10 others.
BNP standing committee member Barrister Moudud Ahmed, an accused in the case, told the court, “We are yet to get the documents stating the allegations against us although we have applied for them before. We need to read those documents to be able to fight the legal battle.”
He also said the setting of the court was not appropriate for holding a trial as there was no proper seating arrangement for lawyer and others.
Prosecutor Mosharraf Hossain Kajol argued that the defense was trying to delay the charge framing by saying those things.
The court fixed January 13 for the next hearing.
The judge also kept a petition in the case file submitted by Attorney General Mahbubey Alam on November 22 last year seeking permission to produce an FBI agent and two Canadian police as witnesses before the court to testify.
On December 9, 2007, the ACC filed the case with Tejgaon Police Station accusing Khaleda and 10 others of abusing power to award a gas exploration and extraction deal to Canadian company Niko.
Dhaka South City Corporation mayor Sayeed Khokon today said all the temporary election camps set up during the 11th national polls will be removed within the quickest possible time.
The Mayor said this while inaugurating removal work of makeshift election camps at Segunbagicha in the city on Saturday.
Sayeed Khokon said that earlier instruction was given to remove all election-related posters, banners, and other campaign materials within next 48 hours. Most of them were removed by this time while some are still visible in differed areas of the city, he said.
"If you see any poster, banner or festoon on flyover or in any other place then you will inform us to keep the city clean," Khokon said.
"We want to remove all the temporary election camps so that people can walk freely on pavements and we can keep our city clean," he added.
The government has appointed personal secretaries to new ministers, state ministers and deputy ministers.
The Public Administration Ministry issued a gazette in this regard on Tuesday.
According to the gazette, the personal secretaries will hold their positions as long as the cabinet members hold their posts and they want them to continue.
Take a look at the list below to know the names of the new personal secretaries:
We are alarmed by the news of the death of a 65-year-old man during a raid by the Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) in a Narayanganj village recently. Reportedly, at midnight on March 17, a team of Rab-11 went to the Borgaon village in plainclothes to arrest a man who, Rab officials claimed, was a suspect in a murder case. As they picked him up from his house, his family members protested, urging them to reveal their identity. But Rab members reportedly didn't do so, instead threatening them for asking questions. Seeing plainclothes men take away one of their neighbours, villagers soon came out of their houses and engaged in altercations with the Rab members, thinking they were robbers.
At one point, Rab shot the victim, Abul Kashem, in the stomach from close range, while also shooting another in both legs. According to Ain o Salish Kendra, this is the fifth killing in "gunfights" involving Rab since the US sanctions imposed on it on December 10, 2021.
The incident raises serious questions about Rab's way of conducting operations in which public rights seem to be not inalienable. Such actions also make them lose their credibility as an elite force. In this particular incident, it is clear from the villagers' account that they didn't know that the men raiding the so-called suspect's house were actually Rab members, who only disclosed their identity after villagers clashed with them. However, as in most such cases, Rab members gave a completely different account of the incident. According to them, some armed miscreants attacked them during their operation despite knowing their identity, and they fired gunshots in self-defense. Sadly, this is not the first time that we have heard such claims from Rab. This has, in fact, become the default narrative of Rab whenever a civilian is killed or harmed extrajudicially.
Rab must answer some questions relating to Friday's incident. First of all, why did they go to arrest a man from his house in plainclothes? When the villagers asked them to reveal their identity, why didn't they do it? Also, can they pick up a man – whether a murder suspect or any other criminal – in the middle of the night without any arrest warrant? Why would an innocent man have to lose his life for defending the right of a fellow villager?
We must recognise Rab's achievements in neutralising terrorist elements in the country, but the way they sometimes deny citizen's rights while conducting their operations is not acceptable at all. While deaths and injuries at the hands of Rab members keep happening, we have hardly seen any proper action to hold to account those responsible for them. We demand an independent investigation into the latest incident, and hope that those involved will be brought under the law. Such incidents must never happen again.
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