(August 18)
Moulana Yahiya, new Ameer of banned Islamist outfit Harkatul Jihad al Islami (HuJI) Bangladesh and two of his associates- Bahauddin and Year Mohammad,- were arrested from a Kishoreganj-bound bus on Dhaka-Sylhet highway in Bhairab in Kishoreganj district. RAB officials said Moulana Yahiya was wanted in connection with August 21 grenade attack case and Ramna Batamul bomb attack case. During interrogation, Yahiya reportedly said that Shiekh Farid was nominated as Ameer of HuJI after arrest of HuJI supremo Mufti Hannan. Yahiya was made head of HuJI following arrest of Sheikh Farid, the newly-arrested HuJI chief revealed.
(August 19)
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s international affairs adviser Dr Gowher Rizvi, said Pawan Kumar Bansal, Indian Water Resources Minister, will arrive in Bangladesh on Sept 5 to give the final touch to an interim agreement between Bangladesh and India on sharing of waters of the Teesta and Feni rivers, to be signed during Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Dhaka on September 6-7. Dr Rizvi told journalists after retuning home from New Delhi where he, accompanied by Dr Mashiur Rahman, PM’s economic affairs advisor, held a series of meetings with senior Indian officials in the run up to Manmohan’s visit. He told that the two PMs will decide the ratio of water-sharing. On the Mujib-Indira Land Boundary Agreement of 1974, Dr Rizvi said there is no problem as the LBA, 1974 clearly set out the principle to settle the matters.
(August 21)
Ruling party Awami League (AL) observed the 7th anniversary of the deadly August 21 grenade attack on its anti-terrorism rally in 2004 that killed 24 Awami League leaders and workers including their Women’s Affairs Secretary Ivy Rahman. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina narrowly escaped the attack, which injured 500 more. Since the attack, AL has been accusing the then BNP-Jamaat coalition government of plotting the deadly attack as the then government did not take any legal action against this dastardly massacre. Trial is ongoing in the case, accusing 52 people including some political bigwigs like Tarique Rahman, Harris Chowdhury, Shah Mofazzal Hossain Kaikobad, MP, and others.
(August 21)
Sixteen people infected with anthrax were detected in Pabna upazila on Sunday. The infected people are Anwar Hossain, 35, Nazrul Islam, 40, Murad, 24, Runnama Begum, 25, Mostakim, 40, Asad, 30, Jamela, 60, Ahmed Ali, 35, Aduri, 25, Ataur, 35, Masud Rana, 30, Sader Ali, 40 and Marzina, 55 of Khirshintikar village and three others unidentified in the upazila. One of the infected people said they ate the meat of an Indian cow on August 3, and got infected. The disease also afflicted those involved in the process of slaughtering the cow. Some 60 people had undergone treatment in the fear of anthrax disease for the last two weeks.
(August 23)
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) decided to refix the face value of all shares at Tk 10 with effect from December 1, SEC spokesperson and its executive director Saifur Rahman. The decision came after the SEC sat together for its regular meeting, and also approved the Repeat Public Offering (RPO) of Bangladesh Shipping Corporation. Earlier, the regulator fixed November 30 as an identical record date for the shares and mutual funds the face value of which is now Tk 100 or more than Tk 100. There will be no trading in the stock exchanges on the record day.
(August 24)
US Country Report on Terrorism 2010 – released by the US Department of State Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism on August 18 – praised Bangladesh for continuous improvement in counterterrorism cooperation with the international partners in 2010. The report added law enforcing agencies made several arrests of some individuals accused of having strong ties to extremist groups including Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT) and Harakat ul-Jihad-i-Islami, Bangladesh (HUJI-B) in October, 2010, and the government passed the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2009. It also said few convictions appeared to have resulted from those arrests, however, as the judiciary continued to work slowly on cases involving terrorism due to a lack of prosecutorial capacity and requisite legal provisions.
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