Himu’s Window

Ex-BNP lawmaker and Rajshahi city mayor Mizanur Rahman Minu was sued in an extortion case with Rajpara police station yesterday. He was blamed for abetting extortionists and terrorists.

Shamsul Islam Khan of Mohisbathan areas in the city lodged the case accusing the Mayor and 10 others including district BNP vice president Nazrul Huda and former city BNP secretary Shafikul Haq Milon.

Other accused persons are – BNP adherents Sentu, Mainul, Babu, Ranju, Shamsul, Islam, Ashraf and Mamun.

Khan, a governing body member of Evergreen Model College at Baharampur alleged in his complainant that the accused persons are allied with each other and they demanded Tk 4 lakh toll on March 29.

The plaintiff alleged said, Minu called him and the college principal Abu Yusuf Selim at his office during setting up of the college in 2006.

Minu requested them to include Nazrul Huda, Milon and local BNP adherent Sentu in the college governing body, the plaintiff was describing in the case.

As denied, Minu threatened them with dire consequences. On July 4, 2006, Nazrul, Milon and Sentu went to the college and demanded Tk 1 lakh toll for not including them.

However, they forcibly took away 10 pairs of school benches worth Tk 13,000.

And on March 29, the accused persons waylaid Khan at Baharampur Bypass intersection while he was coming out of the college and assaulted him. They demanded Tk 4 lakh again and threatened him with death.

Khan said, all those who are involved with works of establishing the college are facing risks of life following threats of the terrorists.

Mizanur Rahman Minu, talking to newsmen, claimed that the allegations made in the case were baseless. “I am sure my political rivals had roles behind filing of the case…it’s a conspiracy”.

http://www.thedailystar.net/2007/04/21/d70421012015.htm
Aminul, his brother sued on charge of land grabbing
A case has been filed against former post and telecommunications minister Barrister Aminul Haque and his brother on charge of grabbing a piece of land in Godagari upazila.
Mojibur Rahman of Madarpur village filed the case with Godagari Police Station, accusing eight people, including Aminul and his brother Dr Asaduzzaman, on Thursday night.
Two of the accused–Saidur Rahman and Fariduddin–were arrested yesterday.
Mojibur alleged that the accused forcibly captured some 92 decimals of land belonging to him in 2004 for an NGO named Carb.
He said that his wife Nazira Begum bought the land in 1991. After election in 2001, Dr Asaduzzaman, ex-director of Barind Multipurpose Development Authority and chairman of the NGO, wanted to buy the land.
Mojibur said as he refused to sell the land, Aminul and his brother Asaduzzaman tried to force him to give the land.
In 2004, the accused forcibly took possession of the land, alleged the plaintiff, adding that he could not file the case earlier for fear of life.

http://www.thedailystar.net/2007/04/21/d70421013322.htm
New lists of Naogaon, Rajshahi criminals
Fresh lists of criminals, especially militants of JMB and PBCP outlaws, are being prepared in seven police stations of Rajshahi and Naogaon districts.
Some 1500 people have already been listed from Bagmara, Mohanpur, Durgapur and Puthia of Rajshahi and Atrai, Raninagar and Manda of Naogaon districts, said sources in the police.
The anti-crime task force and law enforcement agencies have started gathering information on militants, outlaws, political cadres, corrupt government servants and smugglers at the roots level, sources said adding that a crackdown against these listed people would start soon.
The list is being prepared in three phases. In the first phase, names of PBCP cadres and JMB militants have been included.
Secondly, names of those who have been engaged in criminal activities under shelter of political leaders and in the third phase, names of professional
criminals, smugglers and convicted fugitives will be included.
During the last three months, police and joint forces arrested 281 JMB militants and 194 outlaws from different places of the seven upazilas.
After execution of six JMB men including the militant organisation’s kingpins, many JMB cadres of the region went underground, but their activities have not fully stopped, said the sources adding that PBCP outlaws are also being reorganised.

http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9052421

Bangladesh

No going back

Apr 19th 2007 DHAKA
From The Economist

The army exiles the country’s leading politicians

AFP

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ENDING an era in Bangladeshi politics dominated by the two mutually-loathing heads of feuding dynasties, the generals behind the interim administration this week exiled them both. On April 17th, Khaleda Zia (pictured left), leader of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and prime minister until October 2006, agreed to go into exile in Saudi Arabia—which also took in another exiled former prime minister, Pakistan’s Nawaz Sharif. The next day Mrs Zia’s nemesis, Sheikh Hasina Wajed, prime minister from 1996 to 2001 and leader of the Awami League, the other big party, was declared a “national-security risk” and barred from Bangladesh.

Mrs Zia had, in effect, succumbed to blackmail over the fate of her two sons, both facing corruption charges. Her departure, accompanied by her younger son, was said to be imminent. Her firstborn, Tareque Rahman, is in jail as the main trophy for the army’s anti-corruption drive and unlikely to go anywhere. Sheikh Hasina, who was in America, had threatened to come back to Bangladesh on April 23rd to fight murder and corruption charges. Immigration posts were told not to let her in.

With their leaders exiled, the two main political parties face leadership vacuums, after 16 years in which the two bickering “begums” alternated in power in this country of 150m people. The parties are crippled, with many senior members in jail. Prosecutors are, in effect, choosing the parties’ leaders for them. Last week, for example, saw the arrest of Moudud Ahmed, a close confidant of Mrs Zia and in the popular mind the “BNP’s brain”. The army said it found alcohol and more than 200 saris meant for government relief operations for the poor in Mr Ahmed’s bedroom.

So pervasive and debilitating is the corruption in Bangladesh’s public life that the army’s drive is still popular. Fakhruddin Ahmed, head of the interim government installed by the army, has promised a “beautiful Bangladesh” without militancy, intolerance or Islamic extremism. Sadly, this seems a pipe-dream.

Foreign diplomats in Dhaka still give his administration the benefit of the doubt. Mr Fakhruddin has promised a parliamentary election by the end of 2008. But the good intentions of his overstretched interim government matter less than a power struggle in the army. The term of the army chief, General Moeen U Ahmed, expires in June 2008. His main adversary, and probable successor, General Masud Uddin Chowdhury, is widely seen as the driving force behind the state of emergency imposed on January 11th.

With troops on the streets for months, and no end to their deployment in sight, frustration among army officers has been mounting. Senior ones know that a return to civilian politics would probably cost them their jobs. Nor are they likely to back General Moeen, whose time is running out. Rumours of a counter-coup led by General Masud surfaced on March 26th, Bangladesh’s independence day. They proved unfounded. But events since have not dispelled the impression of disunity within the armed forces.

The legal cover for the administration the generals are backing is wearing thin. The initial 120 days of emergency rule allowed under the battered constitution expire on May 10th. But the state of emergency can be extended, and there seem few other options. The big parties are in shambles. Muhammad Yunus, a Nobel-prize-winning microcredit pioneer, seen as a potential saviour earlier this year when he announced plans to enter politics and launched a new party, has walked off the pitch. Already there is talk in Dhaka that the army might form its own civilian party—or not bother with such niceties and declare outright martial law.