News
Notes
Another
Threatening Missive
Bomb blasts
and threatening emails and letters seem to characterise Bangladesh's
socio-political scene. The latest chiller of letters was to
World Bank Country Director Christine I Wallich, prompting
her to leave town in a hurry. The letter was sent to her Gulshan
residence and stated that she would be the next target of
bomb attacks. Funnily enough, while the World Bank officials
say that they had informed the government about the threat,
the PM's political secretary, Harris Chowdhury, says that
they (the government) had no idea that Wallich had received
such a threat. He even said that the threat could be "for
fun or real". Not much insight required to come up with
that profound conclusion. Harris stated the much reiterated
phrase regarding the nature of such threats: a vested quarter's
effort to destabilise the country. The question is, who is
this vested quarter?
Morshed
Blasts India
Indo-Bangla
relationship hit an all-time low when the foreign minister
M Morshed Khan blasted India for restricting imports of Bangladeshi
goods into India. Speaking as the chief guest at the inaugural
session of an "India-Bangladesh Dialogue of Young Journalist",
Khan said, "Bangladesh is India locked, Delhi also has
to remember that the seven north-eastern Indian states are
also Bangladesh locked." The meeting was organised by
Bangladesh Enterprise Institute.
Indian
High Commissioner to Bangladesh Veena Sikri and eminent Indian
columnist Kuldip Nair were also present when Morshed said,
"if Dhaka wanted to establish a win-win situation, we
could end India's $3 billion trade in Bangladesh by issuing
an SRO (Statutory Regulatory Order) on all Indian goods entering
here."
Morshed
also blamed Bangladesh's larger neighbour for turning a blind
eye at what he said were anti-Bangladesh activities on the
Indian soil. On Indian allegation about 195 insurgent camps
in Bangladesh, the foreign minister said, "The list of
insurgent camps from their side increases at every meeting
between us. But they have not been able to provide us a single
phone number or address of these camps." But, Khan alleged,
India has done nothing to curb anti-Bangladesh insurgent groups
like Bongobhumi Andolon, who are in India, and criminals,
who are hosted by some groups there. "We have given phone
numbers, fax numbers and office addresses of these outfits,"
he said.
On security
issues he said, "The blame game will not help any country,
be it big or small; if the blame game is not stopped, no further
discussion will take place." Alluding to India's reaction
to the August 21 grenade attack on the meeting of Awami League
in Dhaka, an angry Morshed said, "Most countries said
it was an attack on Bangladesh's democracy and phoned both
the prime minister and the leader of the opposition. But some
people thought it otherwise.
Delhi,
meanwhile, summoned Hemayetuddin, Bangladesh's High Commissioner
to India, and asked him to convey India's surprise and dismay
over Morshed's comment. "India has always looked upon
Bangladesh as a close friend and valued partner. At recent
high-level interactions conducted in a friendly atmosphere,
the two sides reiterated their desire to take the bilateral
relationship further," a statement issued by the Indian
external affairs ministry said.
Bangladesh
and India fought a bloody two-day war over the tiny Bangladeshi
hamlet of Roumari in 2001, in which four Bangladeshi and around
34 Indian soldiers died.
Two
Indians Held While Smuggling TNT
Paramilitary Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) arrested two Indians
along with a Bangladeshi accomplice from the Naokat village
in Companyganj. The BDR recovered four packets of Indian-made
plastic explosives and five fuses from them.The packets of
plastic explosives containing TNT (trinitrotoluene) bear the
name of Bharat Explosives Limited, Lalitpur, Uttar Pradesh,
India, as the manufacturer.
"The
three entered Bangladesh crossing the Ichhamoti River at Chhanbarhi
Ghat near the border pillar No. 1246. A patrol team of border
guards challenged and nabbed them at about 11:00am when they
were about to start for Chhatak upazila headquarters in a
hired boat," a BDR official said. Indian nationals are:
Chandan Hajong, 35, son of Motindra Hajong, and Suresh Hajong,
32, son of Subhash Hajong. Both of them, according to the
BDR, hail from Umflu village under Talab thana of Indian Cherapunji
district.
The smugglers
were later produced before the magistrate's court of the north-eastern
city of Sylhet. Though the police prayed for a 15-day's remand,
the court granted a 10-day one.
Meanwhile,
the two Indian smugglers' 17-year-old Bangladeshi accomplice,
Kalaganju, has confessed to smuggling contraband items into
Bangladesh across the border for a long time. The boy, a poor
day labourer, has said he was to carry the explosives to someone
named Giasuddin of Balichar area of Companyganj. "A man
named Onindara of the border area near Bholaganj stone quarry
hired me Thursday morning for Tk. 200 to take the packets
to Giasuddin. I do not know who this Giasuddin is; but I heard
him to be a rich businessman," the boy was quoted as
said by the officials. The two Indians, meanwhile, has so
far kept mum to a number of queries.
TNT, which
can be fitted to any structure, is usually used by regular
armies to destroy buildings and bridges. It is also used in
mining and in making of explosives.
RAB
does it Again
Living
up to its reputation of killing killers albeit in custody,
the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) have done it again. On September
10, members of RAB arrested notorious criminal Ahmudya Haq
Chaudhury alias Ahmudya and 10 of his accomplices as they
were coming out of the Aeochia Union Parishad office at Deodighirpar
in Satkania (Chittagong). Ahmudya was the present chairman
of the Union Parishad. After the arrest at around 11 PM, RAB
members took Ahmudya and one of his accomplices to Aeochia
to apparently recover arms. According to the official stay,
when they reached the spot other members of Ahmudya's gang
started shooting at the RAB members who shot back at them.
It was during this shoot out that Ahmudya and his accomplice
Minhaz were gunned down. Fire LG and a large number of arms
were recovered. According to the police, Ahmudya a former
Jamaat-e-Islami cadre, has been absolved of 13 cases since
the coalition came to power. He was also reportedly evading
a 17-year rigorous imprisonment (RI) sentence in an arms case
before he joined the ruling BNP this July. So far 18 people
have died in RAB's custody. Ahmudya's death is therefore another
case of deja-vu.
Copyright
(R) thedailystar.net 2004
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