The residents of Chattogram on Friday remembered the victims of the 1988 massacre in which 24 people were killed after police opened fire on Awami League chief Sheikh Hasina’s motorcade.

The incident took place during the regime of military dictator HM Ershad. Residents of the district have been observing January 24 as the ‘Mass Killing Day’.

This year, on January 20 a court sentenced five people to death in a case filed over the incident.

Hasina, also the leader of the then alliance of 15 opposition parties, was heading towards Laldighi Maidan to attend a scheduled rally against the misrule of military dictator Ershad.

Without any provocation, police opened fire on her motorcade and the people following it. Hasina survived the attempt on her life but 24 people died in the attack. More than 300 others were injured.

A case was filed on March 5, 1992 by lawyer Shahidul Huda with the Chittagong Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court against 46 people, including then police commissioner Kazi Raqibul Huda.

Police submitted chargesheet against eight policemen on November 3, 1998. But three of the eight charge-sheeted accused died.

A memorial plague was set up in city’s court building premises in memory of the people killing on that day.

‘Energy Night 2020’ - a biannual get-together function of Forum for Energy Reporters Bangladesh (FERB) was held at Hotel InterContinental Dhaka on Thursday.

Prime Minister’s Energy Advisor Dr Tawfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury, State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid, eminent energy experts Dr M Tamim, Dr Ijaz Hossain, Dr Badrul Imam, senior officials of Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources, top executives of different public and private power and energy companies, senior journalists, energy reporters of different print, electronic and online media attended the function.

FERB Chairman Arun Karmaker welcomed everyone at the ceremony. The organisation’s Executive Director Sadrul Hasan conducted the function.

Police here on Friday arrested 16 leaders and activists of  Jamaat –e–Islami and Islami Chhatra Shibir from Charmohanpur area in Sadar upazila with cocktails and gunpowder.

Officer-in-charge of Sadar Police Station Ziaur Rahman said police arrested the Jamaat-Shibir men when they were holding a clandestine meeting in an orchard in the area at 7 am.

Some of them managed to flee but police arrested 16 of them along with 15 cocktails and half kilograms of gunpowder, he said.

Also read: 6 Jamaat-Shibir men held in Rangpur

British Minister for Asia and the Pacific Heather Wheeler has said they encourage the government of Myanmar to comply with the provisional measures, which are legally-binding, and implement the Commission’s recommendations.

"We welcome the International Court of Justice’s decision today on provisional measures," said the Minister in a statement.

The Court was clear that Myanmar must do more to protect the Rohingyas, Minister Wheeler said.

The Independent Commission of Enquiry’s admission of atrocities and its recommendations are an important first step towards meaningful domestic accountability, though we don’t agree with much of the Commission’s analysis, according to Foreign & Commonwealth Office.

In a sweeping legal victory for members of the Rohingya Muslim minority, the United Nations' top court on Thursday ordered Myanmar take all measures in its power to prevent genocide against the Rohingya people.

The court's president, Judge Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf, said the International Court of Justice "is of the opinion that the Rohingya in Myanmar remain extremely vulnerable."

The court added that its order for so-called provisional measures intended to protect the Rohingya is binding "and creates international legal obligations" on Myanmar.

At the end of an hour-long sitting in the court's wood-paneled Great Hall of Justice, judges also ordered Myanmar to report to them in four months on what measures the country has taken to comply with the order and then to report every six months as the case moves slowly through the world court.

Rights activists immediately welcomed the unanimous decision.

The newly-elected Bangladesh Awami League Central Working Committee (ALCWC) and Advisory Council, led by AL President and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Friday paid rich tributes to Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman by placing wreaths at his mazar here.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina first placed a wreath at the mazar of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

Later, Sheikh Hasina along with members of the Central Working Committee and Advisory Council of the party placed another wreath paying tributes to Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

They offered Fateha and joined a munajat seeking eternal peace of the departed soul of Bangabandhu.

A joint-meeting of the newly-elected Awami League Central working Committee (ALCWC) and Advisory Council was held there as per tradition.