Chattogram, Sept 22 (UNB) – Police on Sunday detained four more employees, including a female one, of Election Commission’s local server station to interrogation about enlisting Rohingyas into the voter list and providing them with national identity cards.
 
Palash Kanti Nath, deputy commissioner of Counter Terrorism unit of Chittagong Metropolitan Police, said they picked up the four, who are employed as data entry operators, from the server station at Love Lane in the city around 12 noon.
 
Earlier, police arrested four other people, including two EC employees, over the forgery.

Currently, the Anti-Corruption Commission and Election Commission are looking into how Rohingyas got NID cards. 
 

Dhaka, Sept 22 (UNB) - Agriculture Minister Dr Muhammad Abdur Razzaque on Sunday said the ongoing drive against illegal casinos will continue under the directives of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina although she is abroad now.

“Action will be taken against anyone, no matter which party he or she belongs to, if specific allegations are found,” the minister said this while talking to journalists at the Bangladesh Secretariat.

Razzaque said nobody thought that Chhatra League would go ashtray so soon, and that is why the Prime Minister asked its president Shovon and secretary Rabbani to quit.

The minister also said law enforcers have been directed to take legal actions against those who misused their positions and power, and indulged in extortion.

Replying to a question about Awami League’s image due to the ongoing drive, Razzaque said it will not harm the party in any way. “In fact, there’s no point to hide all these things.”

These are being made public for the sake of the country’s welfare and all the perpetrators to be brought to justice. “Whatever it is, the Prime Minister is strict now.”

On Friday, Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) arrested Jubo League’s central committee leader Golam Kibriya Shamim and later on Saturday the court put him on a 10-day remand in two cases filed under narcotics control and arm acts.

Besides, Rab detained five people, including Kalabagan Krira Chakra President Safiqul Alam Firoz, and recovered a pistol and yaba from the club’s office and the Court on Saturday. He was also put on a 10-day remand in two cases filed under narcotics control and arms acts.
 

Rangpur, Sept 22 (UNB) - A case has been filed against BNP Vice-chairman Shamsuzzaman Dudu here for threatening to kill Prime Minister and Awami League President Sheikh Hasina.

Additional public prosecutor Advocate Abdus Sattar filed the case with the court of Senior Judicial Magistrate Delwar Hossain on Sunday noon.

The plaintiff complained that Dudu in a talk-show at a private television channel on September 17 said Sheikh Hasina has to go like her father.
 

Dhaka, Sept 22 (UNB) – Though the Bangladesh Army has become a bigger and modern force, the Ministry of Defence largely remains ineffective as most executive power lies with the Armed Forces Division (AFD) of the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), said security expert Brigadier General (retd) M Sakhawat Hossain on Sunday.

He thinks the Ministry of Defence has to be a functional ministry and there could be a separate minister to run it like other ministries.

Speaking at a lecture programme, Sakhawat, also a former Election Commissioner, said a collective civilian control should be established over military to guide it in achieving national goal and defend the territorial integrity.

The Shaheed Colonel Jamil Ahmed Memorial Lecture 2019 styled ‘Civil Military Relations (CMR): Current Status in Bangladesh and the Future’ was held at the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh in the city.

“The Armed Forced Division (AFD), headed by the Prime Minister, functions like a ministry…the Prime Minister is also the Defence Minister, but the ministry remains ineffective with mostly administrative tasks like signing different deals and MoUs. Even, no-one knows the name of the defence secretary as the ministry is not functioning,” Sakhawat said.

“There has to be a structural control mechanism with reorganising Defence Ministry to make it more responsive and controlling and supervising one,” he pointed out.

Established in 1978 as a small headquarters under the Defence Ministry, the ex-military official said the role of the AFD has changed after it was integrated into the PMO and got the ministerial status to deal with the rest of the ministries on equal footing.

Sakhawat said the AFD is now a principal government organ for the coordination of all operational matters as well as important administrative matters relating to the Armed Forces.

He also touched upon the areas of procurement by the Navy, Army and Air Force in their own way saying that there is no coordination as such.

“Though called the army of liberation, Bangladesh Army maintains the same structures and retains its elite organisation till today like any other commonwealth country,” Sakhawat said.

When professional military officers control national politics it is called military dictatorship, he said adding that lack of control over the military may create “a state within the state”.

“Now we have to look at establishing that vital control to guide the military in achieving national goal and defend the territorial integrity. This is high time to establish horizontal and vertical civilian control and a collective control mechanism, as enshrined in the constitution, be a developed for national defence and security policy formulation and implementation through which the professionalism should be enhanced and organisational freedom is kept intact,” he said.

The former Election Commissioner, however, said control should not be a one-man one or bureaucratic one as it has to be collective one by people’s representatives without curtailing the organisational and operational freedom.

As part of collective control, the former military officer also said Bangladesh needs to reorganise the present AFD into Joint Services Headquarters with designated Joint Chiefs of Staff who would be the key professional advising the head of the government.

In the beginning of his lecture, the ex-military officer recalled his memories with Brigadier General Jamil and said he had conversations with him barely a week before his martyrdom.

Sakhawat said Brigadier General Jamil was the lone military officer who rushed towards Road No 32, Dhanmondi to save Bangabandhu after receiving his phone call on August 15, 1975 and laid down his life.  

In 2010, Colonel Jamil was posthumously promoted to Brigadier General and awarded the Bir Uttam, Bangladesh's second highest military decoration.

Chaired by Vice-Chancellor of the National University Prof Harun-or-Rashid, the lecture event was attended, among others, by Shaheed Colonel Jamil Ahmed Memorial Trust Management Committee Convener M Abdur Rahim, UNB Chairman Amanullah Khan, Brigadier General Jamil’s daughter Afrozaa Jamil, and Prof Dr Md Anwarul Islam of Zoology department, Prof Sabbir Ahmed of Political Science department, Dr Shameem Reza and Dr Robayet Ferdous of Mass Communication and Journalism department of Dhaka University.

Pabna, Sept 22 (UNB) – Police here on Sunday seized a total of 28 bottles of foreign liquor along with a mobile phone from a drum that was floating on the Padma River near Goaria Bazar in Sujanagar Upazila.
  
Hadiul Islam, officer-in-charge (investigation) of Sujanagar Police Station, said that some fishermen spotted the drum when they were fishing in the morning and informed police.

Later, police went to the spot and recovered the foreign liquor from the drum, he said.

Drug traders were using a new method for smuggling and using the mobile phone for tracking the location, the OC suspected.