Law
week
Trial in people's court
It was a quick trial in people's court and the verdict was simple and clear with a message attached to it. It said it is the masses that hold the ultimate power in a republic. The result of the ninth parliamentary election is a reflection of people's resentment and anger for what the 4-party alliance did during its 5-year tenure from 2001 to 2006. They have not forgotten the brutal repression of the cadres, and of a very partisan police force loyal to the rulers, on common people and activists of other political parties. They have not forgotten the baton charges on and mass arrests of people returning home from work. They have not forgotten the premeditated murder of Shah A.M.S. Kibria, Ahsanullah Master, a number of university teachers and journalists and especially the monstrous grenade attack on an Awami League meeting on 21 August in 2004 that killed 23 people. They have not forgotten also that the government had shown all signs of reluctance to try the known culprits in a court of justice. -The Daily Star, December 31, 2008.
Five sent to jail
Two separate metropolitan magistrate courts in Dhaka framed charges indicting five people who were arrested on charges of violating code of electoral conduct during the polling in Dhaka on December 29.
The magistrates sent the accused to jail and fixed January 5, 2009 for deposition with rejecting the bail prayers in the cases. The accused are Eklas, Md Kamrul Hasan, Harunur Rashid, Shahabuddin and Abdur Rahim. Metropolitan magistrate Abdur Rahim arrested Eklas, Md Kamrul Hasan, Harunur Rashid and Shahabuddin from the polling centre of Kaliganj Government Primary School at Keraniganj on charges of campaigning for four-party alliance candidate being fake polling agents on the election day. -The Daily Star, December 31, 2008.
Nizami's ex-PS caught red-handed
At least eight workers of Jamaat-e-Islami including a former personal secretary of its Ameer Motiur Rahman Nizami were arrested in Pabna while 15 workers of BNP and Jatiya Party were held in three other districts for distributing money among voters.
Our correspondent in Pabna reports that locals caught Nizami's former personal secretary Shafiqul Islam Ratan and other party men red-handed distributing money among voters in Haria village of Santhia upazila. The other arrested Jamaat men were identified as Ratan's brothers Mahfuzur Rahman, Mizanur Rahman and Anwar Hossain, and Sakhawat Hossain, Hannan Sardar, Mahafuzur Rahman and Mehedi Hasan. -The Daily Star, December 30, 2008.
100 illegal Bangladeshi migrants rescued
Donning a humanitarian role, the Indian Navy and Coast Guard have rescued about 100 Bangladeshis, who were illegally taken to Thailand for fishing, and were drifting in the Indian Ocean for 12 days, an official in New Delhi said.
The Bangladeshis, rescued off the Andaman and Nicobar islands, were being interrogated at the Little Andaman Island. “These boys, 412 in number, from Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh were hired by a local person for fishing in Thai waters. However, as soon as they arrived, they were caught by the Thai police,” a defence official of the Integrated Defence Command in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands told IANS by telephone. -The Daily Star, December 30, 2008.
Campaign goes haywire
The worst of election scandals could not be averted after all this year either, as Chittagong police recovered a large sum of money allegedly to be used for buying votes, while quite a few people were arrested almost all over the rest of the country too on charges of attempting to buy votes and other violations of the electoral code of conduct.
Our Chittagong correspondent reported that the port city police spotted and confiscated Tk 41.5 lakh hidden in cartons of soybean oil cans, as it was being transported by a car. The discovery was made when the driver of the car stopped at a police check post at Andorkilla intersection. According to law enforcers, the vehicle belongs to a man named Javed, son-in-law of Shamsul Alam, a four-party nominee in Chittagong-8 constituency also a leader of BNP. -The Daily Star, December 29, 2008.
Over 300 migrants feared drowned near Andaman
Around 300 people are feared drowned after jumping from a boat and trying to swim ashore in the Bay of Bengal.
The Indian coast guard said 88 people, mostly Bangladeshi illegal migrants, had been rescued from a small boat near Little Andaman island which lies around 90km (55 miles) south of Port Blair - about 1,200km (750 miles) off India's east coast. Another 11 men were found on nearby Sandy Point island. One survivor, identified as Mohammad Ismail Arafat, said he and others had paid a Bangladeshi agent for promised jobs. -The Daily Star, December 29, 2008.
Judicial magistrates won't be in field
The Election Commission (EC) has finally decided that judicial magistrates assigned to try electoral offences concerning the parliamentary polls would do the job in their offices.
Even on the polling day, they will not move around in the constituencies where they are deployed to take into cognizance electoral offences for trial. “There is no plan for mobile courts comprised of judicial magistrates,” the EC Secretariat said in a circular sent to chief judicial magistrates. Earlier, the establishment ministry had appointed 319 government officials as executive magistrates and vested them with the authority of running mobile courts for trial of polls offences. -The Daily Star, December 28, 2008.
Indian ships leave Bangladesh waters
Tension over India's trespassing into Bangladeshi maritime boundary diffused as the three Indian oil and gas survey ships withdrew from Bangladeshi waters. Meanwhile, the Indian high commissioner to Dhaka was summoned to the foreign ministry and handed Dhaka's protest note.
Navy sources said immediately after the survey ships left, an Indian coastguard vessel went to the spot and asked the Bangladeshi offshore patrol vessels there to leave the spot claiming it to be Indian waters. -The Daily Star, December 28, 2008.
Corresponding with the Law Desk
Please send your mails, queries, and opinions to: Law Desk, The Daily Star 19 Karwan Bazar, Dhaka-1215; telephone 8124944,8124955,fax 8125155; email: [email protected],[email protected]
