Police
Six cops among 21 injured as police clash with BNP in Sherpur
At least 21 people including six police officers, were injured on Tuesday in a clash between the law enforcers and BNP supporters over the protest procession brought out against the death of a Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Deal (JCD) leader in Brahmanbaria on Saturday.
Police also detained 16 BNP supporters from the spot following the clash.
The BNP said they brought out the procession from the house of district unit President Mahmudul Hoque Rubel around 3pm protesting the killing of JCD leader Nayon in the firing of police in Bancharampur upazila of the Brahmanbaria on Saturday , as well as the arrest of 15 BNP men from Sreebardi upazila of the district.
The clash erupted when police barred the BNP men from marching toward the party office of the district in Roghunathpur area. The BNP men hurled brickbats targeting the cops protesting the barrier.
Read more: Police–BNP clash in Kishoreganj: 29 including 11 cops hurt
Police retaliated with tearshells and fired shots in the air to bring the situation under control, leaving 21 people including the cops injured.
The district unit’s BNP President Mahmudul Hoque Rubel condemned the attack. He claimed that some 100 BNP men were injured in the attack by the cops without any provocation.
Bachhir Ahmed Badal, office-in-charge of Sadar police station, rejected the BNP’s claims and said that the BNP men swooped on them without any instigation.
Read more: BNP-police clash in Chandpur: Over 500 sued, 22 arrested
“We detained 16 BNP men from the spot, lobbed tearshell and fired shots in the fire to bring the situation under control,” the OC said, adding that the situation was now under their control.
JCD-police clash in Chapainawbganj: 2 cops hurt in crude bomb explosion
Two constables were hurt in a crude bomb explosion during a clash between Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal (JCD) activists and police in Chapainawabganj on Sunday.
The incident occurred around 4 pm at Oxford Academy premises at Nachol upazila as police tried to obstruct a JCD rally on the pretext that it had not taken permission, said Mintu Rahman, Officer-in-Charge of Nachol police station.
JCD activists locked in an altercation with police and a chase and counter chase started between them after a while, said police.
Read more: JCD leader’s death in Brahmanbaria: 150 BNP men sued
At one point the JCD activists exploded a crude bomb leaving constable Palash and Alamgir injured, said OC Mintu.
The constables have taken treatment from upazila health complex and police recovered five unexploded crude bombs from the spot, he said.
Meanwhile, Hasan Imtiaz, former president of district JCD said a meeting of a faction of the party activists was going on but they left the venue after police intervened.
“Someone from the opposition might have been behind it,” he said.
Police announce Tk 10 lakh for each death row convict who fled a Dhaka court today
Bangladesh police announced Tk 10 lakh for information on each men — convicted to death in publisher Faisal Arefin Dipan murder case — who escaped from the lock-up of a Dhaka court earlier today.
AIG of media, Police Headquarters, Md Manzur Rahman told UNB that a total of Tk 20 lakh as prize money has been announced from police for assisting in catching the militants who fled court premises.
The escapees are Md Abu Siddique Sohel alias Sakib alias Sajid alias Shahab and Moinul Hasan Shamim alias Samir alias Sifat alias Imran, said Harun or-Rashid, Chief of Detective Branch (DB) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP).
Read more: Militants flee Dhaka Court: Red Alert issued, says Home Minister
“The convicts sprayed something on the eyes of two policemen and escaped while they were being taken to the court. We’re searching for them in the nearby areas. This is the first time something like this has happened in the country,” said Harun.
Publisher Dipan, son of Prof Abul Kashem Fazlul Huq of Dhaka University, was hacked to death in his office on the second floor of Aziz Supermarket at Shahbagh in the city on October 31, 2015.
A case was filed with Shahbagh Police Station the following day and later the case was transferred to Detective Branch.
Police on November 15, 2019, pressed charges against the eight Ansar-Al-Islam men in the case.
On February 10, 2021, Dhaka Anti-Terrorism Tribunal sentenced eight militants to death.
The six other death-row convicts in the case are Md Abdus Sabur alias Abdus Samad alias Sujan alias Raju alias Sad, Khairul Islam alias Jamil alias Rifat alias Fahim alias Jisan, Mozammel Hossain alias Saimon alias Shashriar, Md Sheikh Abdullah alias Jubayer alias Jayed alias Javed, Syed Ziaul Hoque, a suspended major of Bangladesh Army who is known as Sagar alias Ishtiaq alias Borobhai, and Akram Hossain alias Hasib alias Abir alias Adnan alias Abdullah.
Read more: Two militants convicted to death in Dipan murder case flee Dhaka court lock-up
Among the convicts, Sayed Ziaul Hoque and Akram Hossain-- have been absconding since the killing.
'Hello SB' app brings police services to people's fingertips
Police have brought "Hello SB," an app of its Special Branch (SB), to make it easier for people to get services.
Inspector General of Police (IGP) Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun Wednesday launched the app at SB headquarters in Dhaka to bring police services to people's fingertips.
E-passport, machine readable passport, passport renewal and correction, immigration, dual citizenship, visa issuance and renewal, registration, security clearance, NGO-related information, travel and some other services can be availed through Hello SB.
Also, through this app, any unnecessary delay in passport-related work, misbehaviour and unethical proposals by any SB member and misbehaviour and harassment by immigration officers can be reported.
Read more: Increase supervision to ensure quality service: IGP tells officers
Hello SB can be downloaded from any android mobile phone's play store.
Earlier, the IGP addressed a briefing for the members of SB, the specialised intelligence unit of the police, at SB headquarters.
SB chief Additional IGP Md Monirul Islam presided over the briefing. CID Additional IGP Mohammad Ali Mia, SB DIG (Administration) Md Humayun Kabir also spoke.
Read more: Strategic plan launched to ensure greater gender equality in Bangladesh police force
The IGP said: "SB assists the government by providing advanced intelligence on any issue, including militancy, terrorism, politics, law and order, natural calamities, and celebration of religious festivals. It has an important role in maintaining the stability of the state and law and order in the country.
Ukrainian police, broadcasts return to Kherson
Ukrainian police officers returned Saturday, along with TV and radio services, to the southern city of Kherson following the withdrawal of Russian troops, part of fast but cautious efforts to make the only regional capital captured by Russia livable after months of occupation. Yet one official still described the city as “a humanitarian catastrophe.”
People across Ukraine awoke from a night of jubilant celebrating after the Kremlin announced its troops had withdrawn to the other side of the Dnieper River from Kherson. The Ukrainian military said it was overseeing “stabilization measures” around the city to make sure it was safe.
The Russian retreat represented a significant setback for the Kremlin some six weeks after Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed the Kherson region and three other provinces in southern and eastern Ukraine in breach of international law and declared them Russian territory.
The national police chief of Ukraine, Ihor Klymenko, said Saturday on Facebook that about 200 officers were at work in the city, setting up checkpoints and documenting evidence of possible war crimes. Police teams also were working to identify and neutralize unexploded ordnance and one sapper was wounded Saturday while demining an administrative building, Klymenko said.
Ukraine’s communications watchdog said national TV and radio broadcasts had resumed in the city, and an adviser to Kherson’s mayor said humanitarian aid and supplies had begun to arrive from the neighboring Mykolaiv region.
But the adviser, Roman Holovnya, described the situation in Kherson as “a humanitarian catastrophe.” He said the remaining residents lacked water, medicine and food — and key basics like bread went unbaked because a lack of electricity.
Read: Russia says Kherson city withdrawal complete
“The occupiers and collaborators did everything possible so that those people who remained in the city suffered as much as possible over those days, weeks, months of waiting” for Ukraine’s forces to arrive, Holovnya said. “Water supplies are practically nonexistent.”
The chairman of Khersonoblenergo, the region’s prewar power provider, said electricity was being returned “to every settlement in the Kherson region immediately after the liberation.”
Despite the efforts to restore normal civilian life, Russian forces remain close by. The General Staff of Ukraine’s armed forces said Saturday the Russians were fortifying their battle lines on the river’s eastern bank after abandoning the capital. About 70% of the Kherson region remains under Russian control.
Ukrainian officials from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on down have cautioned that while special military units had reached Kherson, a full deployment to reinforce the advance troops in the city still was underway. Ukraine’s intelligence agency thought some Russian soldiers may have stayed behind, ditching their uniforms to avoid detection.
“Even when the city is not yet completely cleansed of the enemy’s presence, the people of Kherson themselves are already removing Russian symbols and any traces of the occupiers’ stay in Kherson from the streets and buildings,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address.
Zelenskyy said the first part of the stabilization work includes de-mining operations. He said the entry of “our defenders” — the soldiers — into Kherson would be followed by police, sappers, rescuers and energy workers, among others.
“Medicine, communications, social services are returning,” he said. “Life is returning.”
Photos on social media Saturday showed Ukrainian activists removing memorial plaques put up by the occupation authorities the Kremlin installed to run the Kherson region. A Telegram post on Yellow Ribbon, a self-described Ukrainian “public resistance” movement, showed two people in a park taking down plaques picturing Soviet-era military figures.
Moscow’s announcement that Russian forces were withdrawing across the Dnieper River, which divides both the Kherson region and Ukraine, followed a stepped-up Ukrainian counteroffensive in the country’s south. In the last two months, Ukraine’s military claimed to have reclaimed dozens of towns and villages north of the city of Kherson, and the military said that’s where stabilization activities were taking place.
Read: Ukraine fears 'city of death' as Russia withdraws troops from Kherson
Russian state news agency Tass quoted an official in Kherson’s Kremlin-appointed administration on Saturday as saying that Henichesk, a city on the Azov Sea 200 kilometers southeast of Kherson, would now serve as the region’s “temporary capital.”
Ukrainian media derided the announcement, with the Ukrainska Pravda newspaper saying Russia “had made up a new capital” for the region.
Across much of Ukraine, moments of jubilation marked the exit of Russian forces, since a retreat from Kherson and other areas on the Dnieper’s west bank would appear to shatter Russian hopes to press an offensive west to Mykolaiv and Odesa to cut off Ukraine’s access to the Black Sea.
In Odesa, the Black Sea port, residents draped themselves in Ukraine’s blue-and-yellow flags, shared Champagne and held up flag-colored cards with the word “Kherson” on them.
But like Zelenskyy, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba sought to temper the excitement.
“We are winning battles on the ground, but the war continues,” he said from Cambodia, where he was attending a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
Kuleba brought up the prospect of the Ukrainian army finding evidence of possible Russian war crimes in Kherson, just as it did after Russian pullbacks in the Kyiv and Kharkiv regions.
“Every time we liberate a piece of our territory, when we enter a city liberated from Russian army, we find torture rooms and mass graves with civilians tortured and murdered by Russian army in the course of the occupation,” Ukraine’s top diplomat said. “It’s not easy to speak with people like this. But I said that every war ends with diplomacy and Russia has to approach talks in good faith.”
U.S. assessments this week showed Russia’s war in Ukraine may already have killed or wounded tens of thousands of civilians and hundreds of thousands of soldiers.
Elsewhere, Russia continued its grinding offensive in Ukraine’s industrial east, targeting the city of Bakhmut in the Donetsk region, the Ukrainian General Staff said.
Donetsk Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko reported Saturday that two civilians were killed and four wounded over the last day as battles heated up around Bakhmut and Avdiivka, a small city that has remained in Ukrainian hands.
Russia’s push to capture Bakhmut demonstrates the Kremlin’s desire for visible gains following weeks of setbacks. It would also pave the way to move onto other Ukrainian strongholds in the heavily contested Donetsk region.
In the Dnipropetrovsk region west of Donetsk, Russia troops again shelled communities near the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, the Ukrainian regional governor said.
‘Police now a symbol of dependability and confidence’
Lauding the role of police in providing security, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal has said the law enforcement agency is now a symbol of dependability and confidence to the public.
He made the remark while exchanging views with high-ranked police officers during a two-day ‘quarterly conference’ at Police Headquarters in the capital.
Asaduzaman said “We are praised across the world for your (police) role in curbing terrorism risking your lives.”
Read more: Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun adorned with IGP Rank Badge
“Pirates and forest criminals surrendered to the police thanks to your operations,” he said.
Referring to the ongoing political programme by the BNP across the country, he said they wouldn’t intervene in any political activities, but none will be spared if they try to create suffering for people in the name of political programme.
Md Aminul Islam Khan, senior secretary of public security division under the home ministry, said presently work area of police and their challenges increased. Strategy and pattern of crime also got changed.
He said the police have been performing their duty with success in maintaining law and order situation of the country.
Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun, inspector general of police (IGP), said people’s confidence in police increased due to their role in ensuring law and order with professionalism.
Read more: Militancy under full control in Bangladesh: IGP
He said police acquired an outstanding achievement in curbing militant and terrorism.
CID’s head and additional IGP Mohammad Ali Mia, PBI’s head and also additional IGP Banaj Kumar Majumadr spoke at the programme among others.
Increase supervision in case investigation: Police HQ to field level officers
Police headquarters has given instruction to field level police officers to bring criminals under the law, through increased supervision in case investigation.
The instruction was given from the monthly crime review meeting held at the police headquarters on Thursday.
Additional IGP (Crime and Operations) Md. Atiqul Islam, who presided over the meeting, gave the instruction.
Read: New IGP wants to turn police station into 'a place of public trust and confidence'
All metropolitan police commissioners, tange DIGs and district superintendents of police (SPs) participated virtually in the meeting. DIG (Crime Management) YM Belalur Rahman, DIG (Operations) Md Haider Ali Khan and related officers were present at the police headquarters.
AIG (Crime Analysis) Sunanda Roy presented statistics regarding the overall crime situation of the country in the month of September 2022 such as robbery, murder, rape, gender violence, recovery of drugs and weapons, unnatural deaths etc.
Read more: Monthly Crime Review: Police have to be more active in market surveillance, against theft & robbery
A review of the statistics of various cases presented in the meeting shows that in the month of September, there has been a decrease in the total number of registered cases, rape cases, women and children abuse cases compared to the previous month of August 2022.
2 Additional DIGs sent on compulsory retirement
Two police officers of the rank of Additional Deputy Inspector General have been sent on compulsory retirement.
Public Security Division, under the Home Ministry, has issued separate notifications in this regard, signed by its senior Secretary Md Aminul Islam Khan on Monday.
According to the notices, Md Alamgir Alam, Additional DIG of Police (crime investigation department), and Md Mahbub Hakim, Additional DIG of Tourist Police, have been sent on compulsory retirement according to section 45 of Public Service Act, 2018.
Read more: Three SPs sent on compulsory retirement
The order will be in effect immediately "in public interest", the notification said.
Earlier on October 18, three police officers of the rank of Superintendent of Police (SP) were sent on compulsory retirement.
They were Muhammad Shahidullah Chowdhury SP (TR) at Police headquarters, Md. Delwar Hossain Mia and Mirza Abdullahel Baki Special Super (SS) in the Criminal Investigation Department (CID).
Read more: Benazir to get police protection during post-retirement leave
Journalist killed after police in Haiti open fire
A Haitian journalist died Sunday after being shot in the head when police opened fire on reporters demanding the release of one of their colleagues who was detained while covering a protest, witnesses told The Associated Press.
Reporters at the scene identified the slain journalist as Romelo Vilsaint and said he worked for an online news site. His body was lying face down inside the parking lot of a police station in Delmas in the capital of Port-au-Prince as colleagues surrounded it, crying out as they lifted their arms.
Richard Pierrin, a freelance photographer for Agence France-Presse, told the AP he saw police open fire and Vilsaint get hit.
Gary Desrosiers, a spokesman for Haiti’s National Police, confirmed to the AP that Vilsaint was fatally shot but declined further comment except to say it was a lamentable situation.
As journalists and citizens surrounded the police station after Vilsaint was killed, officers fired tear gas to disperse them.
Reporters at the scene said the journalist being held is Robest Dimanche, who works at local Radio Tele Zenith and was covering a protest when he was detained.
The Online Media Collective, a local journalists’ association, denounced Dimanche’s arrest, saying he was being treated like a “dangerous criminal” and said he was charged with disturbing public order. Dimanche also is a spokesman for the organization.
“Our spokesperson acted within the framework of the journalistic mission by covering a protest movement,” the organization said. “The detention ... is the latest signal, without doubt the most worrying, of a resurgence of attacks on freedom of information, and this journalist must be released.”
The organization also demanded that those responsible for the recent killing of radio journalist Garry Tess and the Oct. 25 attack on Roberson Alphonse, a reporter for Le Nouvelliste newspaper, be brought to justice.
On Wednesday, Le Nouvelliste, Haiti’s largest newspaper, announced it was suspending publication of its print product given “serious security problems” that are hampering production and distribution.
Police get 999 call from ‘thief’ for help!
Usually, people seek help when calling National Emergency Service 999. A “thief” in Barishal calling 999, however, makes for an interesting story.
Police today said they received a call from a “thief” who wanted to be “saved from a possible mob beating”, as he was stuck inside a shop in Barishal town.
Yeasin Khan (41), entered a shop in the AR Khan Bazar area of Sadar Upazila and got stuck inside the shop on Wednesday morning after sensing the presence of people in the market, said Asaduzzaman, officer-in-charge (OC) of Metropolitan Bandar Police Station.
Read: Rickshaw puller awarded prize for 999 call to save women in Chattogram
The man called 999 for help, fearing that he might be beaten up by the locals if caught, the OC added.
When police asked him why he was not coming out of the shop, Yeasin told them that it took him a long time to pack “the stolen goods” and when he was done, it was already morning and people started arriving at the market.
“In this condition, if he came out, he would be beaten up by a mob,” said OC Asaduzzaman.
Read: Stranded tourists rescued from Kaptai Lake after 999 call
Shop owner Jhantu said he didn’t realize that a thief broke into his shop.
Later, police arrested Yeasin, the thief who called 999 National Emergency Service, from the spot after rescuing him from the shop, said the OC.