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Power supply situation has worsened across the country with the onset of summer although power generation this season is 200-500MW more than that during the same period last year.
   The interim government’s evening ban on power consumption by shopping malls and shops other than pharmacies and eateries for the last two months have had no visible impact on the overall power situation forcing the authorities to decide on staggered holidays in industries from this week to ease the crisis.
   Most of the city areas have been facing power outages for two to four hours, sometimes more than an hour at a stretch, for the last few days while areas outside the capital face frequent load shedding, up to 12 hours a day, in the fierce summer heat.
   Daily power generation last summer was around 3,000-3,200MW while the generation increased to 3,400-3,700MW this season because of availability of gas and coal and timely maintenance of some power units, said officials of the Power Development Board. Some 15 power units have now remained out of order while the number last summer was about 22.
   Massive load shedding hit the country last summer when power generation came down to 2,800MW at times against a demand for around 4,800-5,000MW because of frequent tripping of some power units and shortage of gas and coal supply.
   The demand for power this summer should be around 5,300MW as per the power sector master plan but PDB officials claimed that the demand was around 4200-4400MW.
   Consumers including farmers are facing difficulties in the sweltering heat because of frequent power outages while industries are also suffering.
   When asked why there was frequent load shedding this season despite an increase in power production and evening power ban on shops, power and energy adviser Tapan Chowdhury said on Friday, ‘I have heard about power outages across the country. I have asked the PDB officials to explain the reasons’.
   Tapan, also sports adviser who returned from a week’s tour of the West Indies where he attended a post-World Cup cricket meeting, said that he would be able to assess the situation after receiving the PDB explanation next week.
   PDB officials, however, claimed that the load shedding situation had not deteriorated this summer because of increase in power generation.
   ‘It is true that there is load shedding because of a gap between generation and demand. Each year power demand increases by 8 to 10 per cent. As the production has increased this summer, the load shedding situation has remained almost the same compared to last summer,’ PDB chairman Khijir Khan told New Age on Friday.
   He said that despite the increase in power production the gap between generation and demand was around 700MW.
   ‘It is a reality that there will be load shedding as we have shortage of generation. We are trying to divert electricity to rural areas where the crisis is more acute than in the cities. If we can cut power for one hour at a city area, a rural area gets two to three hours of power supply,’ Khijir said.
   Asked if the evening power ban on shops has improved the situation, Khijir said, ‘Definitely the ban has made some impact. There would have been much more load shedding had the shops remained open after 7:00pm’. The government hopes to save 100MW of power by the evening ban on shops and divert the power to residential and industrial areas.
   He hoped that the power situation would improve after the enforcement of staggered holiday plan for industries this week.
   The industries across the country have been divided into seven zones and factories located in the areas would stagger their weekly holidays over seven days.
   The government expects to divert around 125MW of power from these industries to residential and irrigation areas.
   Officials of PDB, however, said that as no new power generation units were coming up soon, the power situation could worsen if any of the running units tripped.

Most of the ministries and divisions of the government are not properly following the cabinet division’s instructions to reduce use of electricity under the current load management system.
   The cabinet division at a recent meeting reviewed the progress of its initiatives launched on March 13 to trim down power consumption by the government agencies. The meeting found that only two ministries had followed its instructions properly while the remaining 43 ministries and divisions were very reluctant to do so, cabinet division sources said.
   The meeting instructed the public works department to visit every ministry and division to ensure proper implementation of the directives and taking action against any unauthorised use of air conditioners, heaters or incandescent light bulb.
   The cabinet division in a circular on March 13 asked the agencies to minimise the use of electricity and prescribed some instructions to follow. It asked to cut air conditioner connections for officials bellow the rank of joint secretary, to run air conditioners in authorised rooms at 24 degree centigrade, to stop use of heaters and use energy-saving fluorescent bulbs instead of incandescent ones, to switch off all fans and lights before leaving the office, and to stop using lights at gardens at night.
   The cabinet division also formed a business team to monitor the load management system. The team found the instructions were being ignored in most of the ministries and divisions, the sources said.
   ‘We evaluated the progress of the implementation of the circular in the past one month and found it unsatisfactory,’ a cabinet division official told New Age, adding that the meeting expressed dissatisfaction at the performance of most of the ministries and divisions.
   He said only two ministries — the liberation war affairs ministry and food and disaster management ministry — out of the total 45 ministries and divisions were following the instructions properly.
   ‘The performance of other ministries in following the load management instructions was very poor,’ the official said, adding senior assistant secretaries and deputy secretaries, who received air conditioners under various projects, were still using them in violation of the circular. After the evaluation, additional secretary of the cabinet division Mohammad Zahid Hossain issued another circular on April 17, asking the ministries and divisions to follow the instructions.
   The senior assistant secretaries and deputy secretaries who are still using air conditioners, however, claimed that if the machines were kept off for a long time they would become inoperative in the future.

The Power Division initiated a move for a further hike in power tariffs in less than two months after a 5-10 per cent increase came into effect in March to help Power Development Board offset its loss.
   The division last month submitted a proposal to the Finance Division for an increase of Tk 0.45 for each unit of electricity (one kilowatt-hour) at consumer level and Tk 0.37 at distribution agency level.
   As per the proposal, electricity price should go up to Tk 2.95 from Tk 2.50 or by 18 per cent per unit for residential consumers who use 0-100 units, Tk 3.60 from Tk 3.15 or by 14 per cent for the use of 101-400 unit and Tk 5.70 from Tk 5.00 or by 9 per cent for 401 units and above.
   An increase of Tk 0.45 per unit has been proposed for industrial and commercial users, Tk 0.37 hike for distribution agencies including Dhaka Electric Supply Authority, Dhaka Electric Supply Company, West Zone Power Distribution Company and the Rural Electrification Board.
   But the Finance Division sent back the summary proposal late April asking for a downward revision of the proposed hike and making 10 queries, said sources in the Finance Division.
   The proposal was initially forwarded to the Cabinet Division, which sent it back for the finance ministry’s scrutiny.
   Power Division officials said that they were now reviewing the finance ministry’s queries and would send a fresh proposal soon.
   Proposal for fresh hike in power tariffs is subject to approval of the advisory council after endorsement by the Cabinet Division.
   The interim government in February endorsed a decision of the previous BNP-led four-party government to hike power price by 5 per cent at consumer level and 10 per cent at agency level and increased tariffs came into effect in March.
   But the Power Division observed that the increase was not enough to offset the loss PDB incurs due to the wide gap between transmission cost and selling price.
   The division observed that the price at consumer level should be increased further as the PDB wanted to increase its selling price for the agencies by Tk 0.37.
   Sources in PDB said that even after the hike in bulk tariff by 10 per cent in March, PDB would count a loss of around Tk 500 crore a year because of the gap between the supply cost (that includes generation cost and transmission costs) and agency-level price. The overall loss, however, would be around Tk 800-1000 crore because of the system loss and other reasons like depreciation of taka against dollar.
   They said that the supply cost (including Power Grid Company’s transmission charge) of each unit of power to an agency stood around Tk 2.50-2.53 whereas PDB and PGCB were getting around Tk 2.05- 2.39 from the agencies, after the latest hike in power tariffs.
   The Finance Division in its queries, however, asked the Power Division to review the proposed rates of price hike after considering reduction of system loss.
   It observed that recent drive against illegal power connections and bill defaulters should bring good results.
   It also advised that Power Division could offload shares of power agencies to raise money.
   Justifying the fresh move for power price hikes, a high official of the Power Division said, ‘The latest hike, which took effect from March, was long overdue and should have been made effective last year. PDB will not survive as the cumulative loss is soaring every month as it is selling power at lower price.’
   The price of electricity was last increased in September 2003, about three-and-half years before the March hike.

Scorching summer heat and frequent power outages have forced the people to change their lifestyle and become dependent on alternative power sources like battery-charged instant power supply units.
   ‘It is no more a luxury good but has now become an essential,’ said businessman Aminur Rahman Nipu, who had installed an IPS in his residence due to the unbearable heat and frequent power cuts.
   He said he had spent Tk 26,000 to install the 1000-watt IPS for his six-room house.
   ‘The rush for IPS is so much that if you order a company like Rahimafrooz for an IPS today, you will get the delivery not before two weeks,’ said Nipu, recalling that delivery and installation of his previous IPS of 500 watt took only one day five years back.
   Dealers said the price depends on the watt and any IPS of more than 500 watt requires two batteries that increase the price as well as maintenance cost.
   ‘We had power cuts even 20 years ago, but the open space provided some respite from the summer heat. No such open space is left now,’ Nipu argued regarding the necessity of such appliance.
   The number of apartments equipped with IPS is on the rise in the capital. Apart from local ones, instant power supply devices are making their way into Bangladesh from countries like China and India.
   The present power situation in the country has compelled large industrial units and business organisations like television channels to keep industrial IPS in order to maintain unbreakable power supply to their highly sensitive machines. The country’s overall power demand stands at about 5000 megawatt as against the Power Development Boards capacity to supply nearly 3200 megawatt.
   Experts said the power situation is unlikely to improve in the next few years as the government is yet to decide on installation of larger power generation plants.

The ongoing intense summer heat is causing various illnesses like heatstroke, dehydration, diarrhoea, and pneumonia, hospital sources said.
   Heatstroke and dehydration have turned out to be the most prevalent heat-related diseases across the country, affecting thousands of people everyday, especially the children, day-labourers, rickshaw-pullers, and the elderly.
   According to the health directorate control room, due to the hot spell, a total of 350 diarrhoea patients have been admitted to various district hospitals and upazila health complexes in 15 districts till 7:30pm Friday.
   The day saw more than 300 persons suffering from diarrhoea getting admitted to the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease and Research, Bangladesh, hospital sources said.
   Meteorologists said a lack of wind and very little gap between the maximum and the minimum temperatures might deteriorate the situation further in the next few days.
   The mercury level has ranged between 34.8 and 38 degree Celsius in the past few days, a narrow gap that made the heat blistering, said an official at the Dhaka Met Office.
   High humidity also has had a share in making the heat unbearable, according to the Met Office, which forecast that the temperature would remain almost the same in the next two or three days. It also forecast thunderstorms with temporary gusts and squally winds in many parts of the country. The thunderstorms, however, are not expected to bring any significant change in temperature, which will continue to feel extremely humid and uncomfortable.
   On Thursday, the highest temperature was recorded at 37 degree Celsius in Rajshahi. In the capital city, the lowest temperature on the day was 25 degree and the highest 35.9 degree Celsius, said Abdul Barek, a meteorologist’s assistant at the Dhaka Met Office, on Friday.
   Traffic in Dhaka has been thin in daytime, with people choosing to stay indoors, if possible, and rickshaw-pullers charging higher than usual at midday.
   Power cuts and lack of water supply have made the situation worse, complained a number of city-dwellers.
   Sales of cold beverages saw a boost in the city.
   The sweltering heat and high level of humidity have made life miserable in Dhaka as well as elsewhere in the country, especially for the working class, said medical experts.
   A large number of people suffering from heatstroke have been admitted to different clinics and hospitals in Dhaka.
   According to the records of Dhaka Medical College Hospital, the number of patients, both children and adults, suffering from heatstroke and dehydration has increased sharply in the recent days.
   Heatstroke is a form of hyperthermia with accompanying physical and neurological symptoms. Unlike heat cramps and heat exhaustion, two less-severe forms of hyperthermia, heatstroke can be fatal unless properly and promptly treated, medical experts said.
   The symptoms of heatstroke are like the heart attack. Sometimes, a person experiences symptoms of heat exhaustion before progressing to heatstroke, said Kazi Azizul Haque, a medical officer at the DMCH.
   Symptoms of heat exhaustion include nausea, vomiting, fatigue, weakness, headache, muscle cramp and aches, and dizziness. Many people may develop the symptoms of a heatstroke suddenly and rapidly without warning, Kazi Aziz said. The common symptoms of a heatstroke are high body temperature, absence of sweating, red or flushed dry skin, rapid pulse, breathing difficulties, confusion, agitation, disorientation, hallucination, seizure, and coma.
   A heatstroke patient must receive immediate treatment to avoid any permanent organ damage. ‘First and foremost, cool the victim,’ said the doctor. ‘Get the victim to a shady area, remove the clothing, apply cool or tepid water to the skin, fan the victim to facilitate sweating and evaporation of sweat, and place ice packs under the armpits and at groins.’

The Election Commission is yet to make any move to resolve the long-standing legal complexities over preparation of a separate voters’ roll for election to the Chittagong Hill Tracts Regional Council and three hill district councils.
   The issue was not even discussed in any of the meetings of the Election Commission since its reconstitution in February. The interim government also has not taken any initiative to resolve the dispute over the issue which surfaced after the signing of the 1997 CHT peace treaty which brought decades of bush war in the south-eastern hill districts to an end.
   The CHT treaty singed between the government of Sheikh Hasina and the Parbatya Chattagram Jana Sanghati Samity, headed by Santu Larma, in 1997 suggested a ‘separate voters’ list’ for the people of the ethnic groups having land or specific addresses in the region for the hill district council polls. But the previous election commission led by former CEC MA Syed argued that the existing election rules, formulated in line with the constitution, did not permit separate voters’ rolls for a particular geographical area within the country or its population.
   The authorities concerned say elections to the three hill district councils — Rangamati, Khagrachhari and Bandarban — have remained pending since 1994 due to lack of a separate voters’ list. Some local quarters have, however, alleged that there is a lack of ‘political will’ in not holding the polls.
   When contacted for comments, the authorities concerned, expressed their ignorance about the matter.
   The law, justice and parliamentary affairs adviser, Mainul Hosein, told New Age on Saturday that no file to this effect was placed before him and he was ignorant about the issue.
   Two election commissioners—Muhammed Sohul Hussain and M Sakhawat Hussain—also said they had no knowledge of the matter.
   The issue of a separate voters’ roll for hill district council polls remains unresolved as a file with conflicting views of the EC and the law ministry is yet to be disposed of. The law ministry suggested that the EC should prepare rules for the voters’ roll keeping in mind ‘special conditions’ of the local voters and land disputes in the region.
   The law ministry’s suggestion, made in a draft rule prepared by the CHT affairs ministry, was termed ‘illegal and contradictory to the constitution’ by the then commissioners as it excluded settlers. The election commissioners also found the law ministry’s note inconsistent with the constitutional provisions, under which the country was supposed to have a single voters’ roll irrespective of religion, race, caste and sex of the citizens.
   Sources indicated that the whole affair remained shelved with the attorney general’s office after moving through a number of government establishments in the last three years. The file, seeking opinion for a separate voters’ list, was sent to the attorney general’s office in February, 2005 for the second time when differences between the law ministry and the EC surfaced.
   The CHT ministry took an initiative to solve the problems by making some changes in the electoral rules in 2002 and the law ministry approved the draft.
   The draft is, in fact, consistent with the provisions of the peace accord, signed in 1997.
   According to a controversial provision of the treaty, settlers in the hill districts, with no land or specific addresses, would not be considered eligible voters for the district council polls.
   Referring to the Electoral Roles Ordinance 1982, and the peace treaty, the election commissioners, who opposed the suggestion of the law ministry, also observed that there was no provision permitting a separate voters’ list for elections to the chairmanship and the membership for the hill district councils.
   Notably, article 121 of the constitution, dealing with voters’ roll, reads, ‘There shall be one electoral roll for each constituency for the purpose of elections to parliament, and no special electoral roll shall be prepared so as to classify electors according to religion, race, caste or sex.’
   The last elections to the three hill districts were held on June 25, 1989, with the voters’ list prepared for the general elections. Stopgap bodies were formed, after 21-member elected councils had served out their term in 1994, due to legal problems. The government has extended tenures of the interim councils time and again.

A month after the Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh, announced to offer duty-free market access for products of its poorer SAARC neighbours, Dhaka has now decided to complete a ‘technical exercise’ of making a permissible list of items for export to India.
   Officials at the government agencies concerned also said they were yet to receive any formal offer or response from New Delhi to implement the ‘tariff-rate quota’ for exporting garment items to India under the South Asian Free Trade Area.
   ‘Since no progress from the Indian side is in sight at the moment, we have decided to have recourse to “begin charity at home” so that we can utilise it some day,’ a commerce ministry official told New Age.
   Dhaka wants to capitalise on Manmohan Singh’s unilateral announcement during the SAARC summit last month to provide duty-free access to products of the least developed countries of the eight-nation forum without reciprocity.
   A few years ago, Bangladesh made a plea through political and diplomatic channels to India for making a similar announcement of quota- and duty-free access of most exportable items from Bangladesh.
   However, even after Manmohan Singh’s announcement, Dhaka fears that, apart from keeping a long sensitive list, Delhi may delay in following up the overture which, if implemented, will significantly increase Bangladesh’s exports to India.
   In his announcement, the Indian prime minister made it clear that Delhi would not insist on reciprocity — similar duty-free access to Bangladesh market — accepting India’s asymmetrical responsibilities to open its market to its South Asian least developed neighbours. Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal and the Maldives belong to the category of regional LDCs.
   Officials of the commerce ministry, Bangladesh Tariff Commi-ssion, and foreign ministry, at a planned meeting later this week, will try to finalise Bangladesh’s expected list of items for getting access to the Indian market without creating any hindrances.
   Dhaka’s target is to focus on some 200 items that have prospect of export to India. Officials concerned also said the country could immediately benefit from the duty-free facilities should India not restrict import of some 30 most exportable items or impose tariff and non-tariff barriers on them.
   Apart from the duty-free access offer, Delhi is not also making any follow-up of an earlier move to allow six million pieces of garment items to Indian market under the SAFTA tariff-rate quota. ‘Some Bangladeshi exporters termed it too small to cash in on, although some others wanted to start exporting garment items to India with this,’ said an official concerned.
   Bangladesh will be able to export garment items under the facility if Delhi lifts restrictions related to entry ports and mandatory conditions of sourcing from India, the official added.

The Commonwealth secretary general, Donald McKinnon, on Thursday said his office was not convinced by the interim government’s claim that it would take 18 months to prepare the grounds for the next parliamentary elections and would ask for clarification of the issue from the government.
   McKinnon also said he strongly believed that a return to democratic governance at the soonest should be the only way forward for Bangladesh and that chief adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed’s government should be wary of the people’s patience running out in the interim.
   McKinnon made the comments when former prime minister and Awami League president Sheikh Hasina called on him at the Commonwealth Secretariat in London on Thursday.
   Meeting sources told New Age that McKinnon reiterated the Commonwealth Secretariat’s support for a return to democratic order in Bangladesh and expressed his concern that elections held towards the end of 2008 or later would try the patience of the people.
   He also said his office would be convinced about the 18-month timeframe announced by the interim government to prepare grounds for the ninth Jatiya Sangsad elections only if the government could provide a month-by-month breakdown of those plans.
   Hasina agreed with McKinnon on the 18-moth timeframe not being justified, calling it ‘arbitrary’, but assured McKinnon that she would be in talks with the government immediately upon her proposed
   return this week ‘to get a better idea of their plans’.
   In particular, Hasina said, she would ask for a clarification of why it would take so long to hold the next polls.
   Hasina did warn, however, that if the interim government did drag its foot for too long and the people lost patience with what they might interpret as delay tactics then she might have no option but to move in favour of the people’s will to return to a democratic order.

The 18th National Tagore Song Festival began at the National Public Library in Dhaka on Friday with a call for singing without fear for people’s well-being.
   Tagore singers’ platform Bangladesh Rabindrasangeet Shilpi Sangstha has organised the five-day event marking the 146th anniversary of birth of Rabindranath Tagore.
   On the opening day, the organisation honoured playwright Atiqul Huq Chowdhury for his contribution to promoting plays by Tagore.
   Opening the festival, Professor Anizuzzaman of Dhaka University said, ‘Tagore was devoted to music all through his life.
   Atiqul Huq said, ‘Tagore songs will survive as long as the world exists.’ He urged the young generation to concentrate on Tagore songs and his writing to enrich values.’ The organisation president, Kalim Sharafi, put out a call for fight against all troubles around in line with Tagore’s spirit.
   The organisation’s general secretary Tapan Mahmud put forth a seven-point charter of demands.
   The demands included public holidays on the birth anniversaries of Tagore and Nazrul, mandatory programmes at all educational institutions on the occasions, and the setting up of an academy for research on Rabindranath Tagore.
   Thirty-three singers from other districts joined the session of songs in the evening. Thirty-seven songs were sung.
   The programmes on the concluding day will also feature the celebrations of Kalim Sharafi’s 84th anniversary of birth. Kalim Sharafi was born at Khoiradihi in Birbhum, West Bengal, on May 8, 1924. Today’s programmes will feature a procession beginning at 9:00am and recitation and a session of songs beginning at 5:00pm.

Bangladesh army chief Lieutenant General Moeen U Ahmed is expected to visit New Delhi shortly for a crucial meeting with his Indian counterpart General JJ Singh, in which the two will discuss issues relating to security and trade, Indian media report.
   Quoting highly placed Indian sources, Assam Tribune newspaper reported Thursday that the army chiefs of the two countries were likely to meet for a ‘crucial deliberation shortly’.
   ‘Although no date has been fixed as yet, Dhaka has confirmed that the chief of Bangladesh army would be travelling to New Delhi shortly for a meeting with General JJ Singh,’ the report stated.
   There was, however, no official confirmation available in Dhaka.
   The newspaper quoted unnamed sources as saying that the two army chiefs would discuss vital issues ranging from the transit route of gas for the Indian north-eastern states to flushing out of the militant outfits.
   The growing clout of the fundamentalist forces is also another area of concern that is expected to be conveyed [to the Bangladesh army chief], said the newspaper report posted on an Indian defence website.
   Dhaka proposed to send its army chief to India as its interim government earlier expressed its readiness to mend fences with New Delhi, the report claimed.
   The report, in this context, referred to the New Delhi visit of chief adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed to attend the SAARC summit, when he met Indian premier, external affairs minister and home minister.

Tony Blair, in his last electoral test as British prime minister, saw his Labour Party suffer losses in Scotland and Wales Friday as results came through in local and regional elections.
   But although opposition parties made some gains in municipal councils in England, senior Labour figures said the predicted rout there had not materialised.
   Some 39 million voters are having their last say on Blair and his government, which has suffered a polls slump because of opposition to the war in Iraq and a series of scandals that have dogged his administration.
   The result will also be the inheritance of Blair’s likely successor, finance minister Gordon Brown, and a political barometer ahead of the next general election, which is due by May 2010 at the latest.
   The keenly-fought contest to be the largest party in the 129-member Scottish Parliament was a two-way affair between Labour and the Scottish National Party, which wants an end to the 300-year-old union with England and Wales.
   Much of Labour’s political energy and the country’s attention are focused on Scotland because of the SNP’s strong challenge and pledge to call a referendum on independence by 2010.
   Results showed a swing towards the SNP, which ousted Labour from key seats in Dundee West and Central Fife, which are both in the backyard of Brown, a proudly British Scot.
   The SNP also secured a hugely symbolic victory in Glasgow Govan given the area’s industrial, shipbuilding past and working-class roots.
   SNP leader Alex Salmond, who won in Gordon, north-east Scotland, predicted Labour would suffer its lowest share of the vote since 1922, striking a blow to support in its traditional heartland.
   ‘There’s a wind of change blowing through Scottish politics. That’s evident from the results that we’ve seen so far,’ he said.
   But the contest was overshadowed after an unprecedented number of spoilt ballot papers.
   Labour is likely to still be the largest party in the 60-seat Welsh Assembly, which has limited powers over areas like health and education, but is, expected to lose overall control.
   In England, where about 10,500 seats were contested in 312 councils, it was unclear how much of a victory had been scored by the main opposition Conservative Party as many types of council have not yet begun counting.
   Significant gains included Gravesham, the last local authority in south-east England that Labour ran on its own, and in the former industrial city of Birmingham, where it became the largest party for the first time in 24 years.
   Labour also lost overall control in Blackburn, where former foreign secretary Jack Straw is the British parliament representative, and saw Hull, home to Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, falls to the Liberal Democrats.
   Analysts have predicted that Labour could lose between 600 and 700 local council seats, while the SNP could grab the lion’s share in the devolved Scottish parliament in Edinburgh.
   The Conservatives are trying to secure an electoral bridgehead for their return to power at the national level, which they lost in 1997 to Labour.
   Although they have polled well — and voters appear taken with leader David Cameron — they are still struggling to
   make gains in northern English cities.
   Labour minister Hilary Armstrong told BBC radio that a mid-term slump was expected but results ‘do not look as bad as we might have expected’ after it clung on to councils it had been expected to lose.
   But Jon Cruddas, a candidate for the Labour deputy leadership, said: ‘We urgently need to address the collapse of the party on the ground and the breakdown in our relationship with the electorate.’
   Local polls are being watched with interest on the ground, but in London all eyes are on Blair, who is expected to announce his resignation next week.

The law enforcers are yet to find out any clues or trace people behind Tuesday’s bombings at the railway stations in Dhaka, Chittagong and Sylhet.
   The police and the intelligence agencies in Chittagong are looking for the woman beggar, who gave the bomb to a rickshaw puller, and intensively interrogated two suspected Hizb ut-Tahrir activists arrested at Chhantek of Jatrabari in Dhaka on Wednesday.
   The suspects, Golam Azam and Mozammel Hossain, were produced in the court of chief metropolitan magistrate in Dhaka on Thursday. The court allowed the police to remand the suspects in custody for seven days each for interrogation.
   The investigation officer, subinspector Abdul Aziz of the Jatrabari police in the forwarding report said the arrested were active members of Hizb ut-Tahrir and they might be involved in the bombings.
   Abdul Aziz told New Age, ‘We are intensively interrogating them and collecting information. But we will not disclose them in the interest of the case.’
   The law enforcers have, meanwhile, been put on high alert across the country following information that an Islamist militant attack might be carried out.
   In the capital, the law men frisked people entering mosques to say their jumma prayers on Friday. They also stood around the mosques throughout the day.
   Intelligence sources said they had recently had information that a new militant organisation would be floated soon and it would announce its presence by distributing leaflets in Dhaka, Rajshahi, Chittagong and Bogra. But the intelligence officials did not think that the militant outfit would introduce its presence by exploding bombs at railway stations.
   A high intelligence agency official told New Age, ‘Law enforcers in Bogra are on high alert on information that Islamist militants might carry out attacks at the place.’
   As part of stepped-up security measures, the police checked vehicles on the streets in Bogra. Policemen have also been deployed at Ahmadiyya mosques, temples, and public and other important places to avert any possible attack, the police said.
   The Dhaka Metropolitan police commissioner, Nayeem Ahmed, told New Age, ‘We are working based on some statements given by some of the arrested, who are now being interrogated in our custody.’
   ‘But now we will not disclose the details in the interest of the case,’ he said.

The Awami League on Friday communicated with the interim government seeking permission to accord a reception to party president Sheikh Hasina at the Zia International Airport on her scheduled arrival from London Monday, party sources said.
   Senior leaders, who went to
   see party general secretary Abdul Jalil at his Gulshan residence Friday afternoon, decided that only the members of the AL central working committee would be present at the airport to receive the party chief, insiders said.
   They also said that the leaders had communicated with an adviser to the interim government and sought permission for a formal reception
   of the party chief assuring the government that emergency rules would not be violated anyway.
   ‘We talked to a representative of the government about the planned reception to our leader and the government asked for a list of the leaders who want to be present at the airport to receive her,’ a central leader of the party told New Age.
   Senior leaders, however, refused to say anything about any discussion among
   themselves or communication with any adviser to the
   government regarding the return or reception of the party chief.
   ‘We have come here just to see our ailing general secretary who has returned from Singapore after treatment,’ senior presidium member Tofail Ahmed told New Age.
   Asked about the party’s preparation to receive Sheikh Hasina at the airport, Abdul Jalil said the party would inform everything about Hasina’s return in due time.
   Earlier, Hasina failed to fly home from London as the British Airways on April 22 refused to carry her at the request of the Bangladesh government. The government slapped a ban on her return on April 18, which was withdrawn later.
   Party sources earlier said Hasina, who left Dhaka on March 15 on a private tour to US, would return home Monday.

The US president, George W Bush, has been dropped from Time magazine’s list of the world’s 100 most influential people for the first time, in a further sign of his flagging political fortunes.
   While Osama bin Laden, Pope Benedict XVI and even Borat creator Sacha Baron Cohen managed to find a spot on the fourth annual list due to hit newsstands Friday, the magazine decided that Bush just didn’t make the grade any more.
   ‘I think Bush by this point in his presidency probably has less influence than the position should grant him automatically,’ Time’s deputy managing editor Adi Ignatius told the news agency, explaining the decision to ditch Bush.
   ‘He’s a lame duck ... but his influence is below that of a normal lame duck figure. We just thought Bush was at a low ebb in terms of his influence.’
   However, plenty of other politicians, notably Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, managed to squeeze into a packed and varied field of entertainers, philanthropists, sportsmen and entrepreneurs. The ‘artistes and entertainers’ category includes Hollywood heavyweights Martin Scorsese, Cate Blanchett and heart-throbs Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio, along with fashion model Kate Moss.
   Pop sensation Justin Timberlake is named along with Senegalese musician Youssou N’Dour, while former US vice-president Al Gore’s shift to environmental campaigner got him nominated in the ‘scientists and thinkers’ category.
   The list, which is designed to recognize ‘the men and women whose power, talent or moral example is transforming our world,’ does not appear in any order or give the magazine’s reasons why some people were chosen over others.
   The ‘leaders and revolutionaries’ category features Queen Elizabeth II, Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni — in an entry penned by US counterpart Condoleezza Rice — and Rice herself, appearing for a fourth year running.
   California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger makes a showing next to Raul Castro, the younger brother of Cuban leader Fidel Castro, Indian Congress Party leader Sonia Gandhi and Chinese president Hu Jintao.
   Other politicians in the mix include German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Liu Qi, head of the 2008 Beijing Olympics committee.
   Besides Rice, US talk show host Oprah Winfrey is the only person to have appeared all four years, featuring in the ‘heroes and pioneers’ section in an entry written by anti-apartheid campaigner Nelson Mandela.
   Other ‘heroes’ include billionaire investor and philanthropist Warren Buffett, rubbing shoulders with tennis champion Roger Federer, footballer Thierry Henry and Chinese online activist Zeng Jinyan.

Four people drowned in the River Buriganga Friday night when they jumped off a launch after being attacked by the people of the launch owner after they reportedly had a brawl on their way back on a river cruise.
   The victims, all from Keraniganj, were with a 100-men picnic party that paid Tk 250 each for a daylong cruise up to the Meghna.
   The party entered into the brawl when a dancing group broke one of the glasses of the launch, MV Nilachal 4, said a survivor.
   Before arriving at the Sadarghat terminal, the group members thought that the matter had been settled, but they came to be attacked by a large group of people on their arrival.
   Some of members of the group went missing when many of them jumped into the river to avoid being attacked at about 8:45pm.
   The fire service officials, who rushed to the spot at the news, recovered four bodies till 11:15pm. The police and fire service officials were still searching for more bodies while relatives of the group from Keraniganj gathered at the terminal.

The investigation of the Ramna Batamul bombing case has been almost completed and the charge sheet will be submitted soon with the authorities saying that the.plotters and perpetrators of the Bangla New Year’s Day carnage six years ago have been identified.
   A powerful bomb ripped through the crowded Ramna Batamul function in the city on Pahela Baishakh on April 14, 2001 killing at least 10 people and leaving over 100 injured.
   A murder case and an explosion case were filed with Ramna police station in connection with the terror attack on the same day. The Criminal Investigation Department has almost completed the investigation of the case.
   Inspector general of police Noor Mohammad told newsmen on Friday, ‘We will submit the charge sheet of the case before the court soon as the investigation of the case has been almost completed.’
   ‘We have already identified the people who carried out the bomb attack at Ramna Batamul and their patrons,’ the police chief added.
   Replying to a query the IGP said the police had already arrested some of the perpetrators and issued directives to track down the remaining fugitive militants involved in the bombing’.
   The police chief said the law enforcers were determined to bring to book the godfathers who had aided and abetted Islamist militants. ‘The law enforcement agencies have widened their dragnet across the country to nab the culprits who patronised the militants with financial support and shelter.’
   Abu Hena Mohammad Yusuf, the seventh investigation officer of the case told New Age, ‘We have all possible clues to the blast as well as the names of others involved in it’.
   ‘We are now cross-checking the information extracted from Hannan and Rouf who were involved in the attack’, he added.
   Mufti Abdul Hannan and Maulana Rouf are now being interrogated by the Task Force Intelligence in Dhaka. The two militants were remanded in custody for five days on Monday.
   The investigation of the Ramna Batamul blast case took a new turn after it had remained stalled for six years after Mufti Abdul Hannan, operation commander of the banned Harkatul Jihad Al-Islami, confessed to his involvement in the bloody carnage.
   The home ministry on February 28 this year instructed the investigators to resume the probe. The instruction came following the confessional statement of Mufti Hannan before a magistrate on November 19, 2006, CID sources said.
   Hannan confessed that seven Harkatul Jihad operatives, including two Dhaka College students—Hasan and Omar Faruq, carried out the attack on the Chhayanaut’s Pahela Baishakh function at Ramna Batamul. The other attackers were Maulana Abdur Rouf, Abu Taher, Sheikh Farid, Abu Bakar, Yahiya and Abdul Hye.
   The law enforcers arrested all eight but later six of them, except Mufti Hannan and Maulana Abdur Rouf, were released on bail.
   Moulana Akbar Hussain, a suspected Harkatul Jihad operative who was arrested after the blast, gave a confessional statement to a metropolitan magistrate on June 14, 2001 disclosing the names of Hannan and his other accomplices.
   But on June 28, 2001, Akbar retracted his statement claiming that he was tortured and forced into confessing in remand.

The depression over the central Bay of Bengal and adjoining areas moved slightly northwards on Friday.
   Maritime ports in Chittagong, Cox’s Bazar and Mongla have been advised to flag local cautionary signal 3 as squally weather threatens the ports, the Met Office said.
   The depression was centred at 6:00pm about 650km south-southeast of the Chittagong port, 555km south-southeast of the port in Cox’s Bazar and 735km southeast of the Mongla port.
   The depression is likely to intensify and move in a north or north-easterly direction and cross the Myanmar coast near Sandoway by Saturday morning.
   The maximum sustained wind speed within 44km of the depression centre is about 40kph, rising to 50kph in gusts or squalls. Sea will remain moderate.
   All fishing boats and trawlers in the north Bay have been advised to keep close to the coast and proceed with caution till further notice.
   The river ports have also been advised to flag cautionary signal 1, and look out for further developments.

Benazir Bhutto, self-exiled former prime minister of Pakistan, said on Friday she might reach some political deal with President Pervez Musharraf, but he should quit his role as army chief to foster true democracy.
   Pakistan has been rife with speculation in recent weeks that Musharraf and Bhutto were overcoming their mutual distrust to forge a common front against religious conservative forces ahead of a general election later this year.
   ‘We admit there are contacts because we want transparency, but we don’t say the deal has been done,’ she told reporters in Dubai in a telecast carried by Pakistani networks on Friday
   Bhutto said previous contacts had come to nothing, but added: ‘This time, there might be a deal and there might not be a deal.’
   However, she insisted Musharraf should fulfil his commitment to step down as army chief by the end of 2007 before any deal could be reached.
   ‘A president in uniform and democracy cannot go together — we want military to go back to barracks,’ Bhutto said.
   Musharraf, an important ally in the US-led war on terrorism, promotes a vision of ‘enlightened moderation’ and Bhutto’s liberal Pakistan Peoples Party is seen as his natural ally to counter the growing influence of religious hardliners.
   Bhutto wants the government to drop corruption charges against her in Pakistan and abroad so that she can return home to lead her party.
   Analysts say Musharraf, locked in a legal row over his move to sack the country’s top judge, might be willing to improve relations with Bhutto to stem the slide in his popularity and answer critics who accuse him of stifling democracy.
   Bhutto faces considerable opposition within her own party to working with Musharraf, who took power in a 1999 military coup.
   But she risks losing her support base the longer she stays out of Pakistan, having been in self-exile for almost a decade.
   The shape of any prospective deal remains hazy.
   Whether it would result in outright power-sharing is uncertain, but it would have to start with Bhutto offering tacit support for Musharraf’s re-election in return for the all-clear to return home.

Two Cuban army deserters tried to hijack a passenger plane to escape to the United States with hostages on Thursday but were arrested after killing an unarmed military officer on board, the government said.
   The soldiers, who fled from an army base where they were doing military service, commandeered a city bus with several passengers before dawn, drove it onto the tarmac of Havana airport’s domestic terminal and seized an empty airliner.
   They killed one hostage, army Lt. Col. Victor Ibo Acuna, when he tried to stop the hijacking, but were then captured by security forces, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.
   ‘Effective and coordinated action allowed security forces to frustrate the kidnappers’ plans and save the lives of the other hostages,’ it said.
   The two young men had been on the run since escaping on Sunday from an army base with two AK-47 rifles. They shot dead a soldier and wounded another in their escape. A third deserter was arrested earlier, the government said.
   Cuba blamed the attempted hijacking on the US policy of encouraging Cubans to escape to the United States by offering them virtually automatic residency.
   ‘The responsibility for these new murders falls on the highest US authorities, adding to a long list of terrorist acts that Cuba has been victim of for almost half a century,’ the government said.
   Armed hijackings are rare in Cuba. In March 2003, two domestic passenger planes were hijacked to Key West, Florida. A month later, three men who hijacked a Havana Bay ferry in a bid to cross the Florida Straits were executed by firing squad.
   The soldiers deserted from an army base in Managua, about 15 miles south of Havana, home to one of Cuba’s largest tank regiments.
   A leaflet distributed earlier this week by police searching for the fugitive recruits in Havana identified them as Alain Forbus, 19, Yoan Torres, 21, and Leandro Cerezo, 19, from the eastern province of Camaguey.
   It said they had abandoned their guard posts at the tank base and were armed and dangerous.
   The plane they seized was a Boeing 737 owned by Spain’s Hola Airlines and leased to Cuba’s national carrier, Cubana, for flight to Venezuela, an airline source said.
   In December, three recruits killed two officers and escaped from an army unit in eastern Cuba with their weapons, but were quickly captured and are awaiting trial, according to Cuba’s main human rights group.

The army-led joint forces in the early hours on Friday arrested a close aide to the Awami League president, Sheikh Hasina, and another leader of the party in Dhaka.
   Meanwhile, a Juba League activist, Jahangir Alam, picked up by the navy on Thursday, died at Teknaf upazila health complex in Cox’s Bazar early Friday.
   In Dhaka, the joint forces detained Saifuzzaman Shikhor, a personal aide to Hasina and a former leader of the party’s student wing, at his house on Dhanmondi Road 4.
   The forces also picked up Gazi Golam Dastagir, an AL candidate of the scrapped January-22 general polls for a Narayanganj constituency, from his Siddheswari Road house. None of the two was handed over to the police till 9:00pm.
   In Cox’s Bazar, the navy detained Jahangir at his village home in Sikderpara under Teknaf upazila on Thursday noon and handed him over to the police at about 8:00pm.
   As his condition seemed critical, the police took him to the local health complex where he died at about 12:30am Friday.
   The body was sent to Cox’s Bazar Sadar Hospital morgue for autopsy. The victim’s family alleged Jahangir died as a result of severe beatings by navy troops while he had been in their custody. The police said Jahangir was wanted in two cases but was remanded on bail by the court in both the cases.

Bangladesh could weigh the use of atomic energy to generate electricity, which is a logical and viable option, the energy adviser, Tapan Chowdhury, said on Friday.
   He said Bangladesh should immediately start looking for alternative energy sources to reduce dependence on fossil fuel— coal and gas.
   He threw the idea at the inaugural function of the two-day annual conference of the Bangladesh Physical Society at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology auditorium.
   Tapan said short-term steps the interim government had taken to provide the priority production sectors with the minimum requisite power supply had proved fruitful to some extent.
   Striking upon longer-term sustainable options for meeting the increasing power needs is a must as both coal and gas deposits are dwindling every day, the adviser pointed out.
   Presiding over the session, the BPS president, CS Karim, reiterated the need for continued research in science and technology to ensure overall sustainable development.
   Karim, also agriculture adviser to the interim government, said he would recommend naming a road after the celebrated physicist Satyendra Nath Bose and urge the government to make more funds available for scientific research.
   Former chairman of the Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission, Karim said utilising atomic energy in power generation could be a plausible option.
   The 45 nuclear power plants commissioned throughout the world of late have reduced the global demands of fossil fuels successfully, he said.
   The government committee led by the head of the caretaker government will soon meet to review the situation, the adviser said.

Overseas calls will continue to be difficult and expensive for an unstipulated period as the formulation of a policy guideline for opening up internet telephony to the private sector might take several months to finalise, said experts and industry insiders.
   The advisory council’s meeting on Saturday, presided over by Chief Adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed, asked the ministries of posts and telecommunications, science and communication technology and information to work out a guideline for Voice over Internet Protocol, also termed internet telephony.
   The council, however, did not mention the time in which the ministries would complete the formulation of a guideline for VoIP, a technology that enables transmission of voice data in a digitised packet through the internet at much cheaper rates than the land-phone.
   VoIP remains illegal in Bangladesh though Khaleda Zia’s cabinet approved the legalisation of internet telephony in November 2003.
   ‘The overseas calls will continue to face a setback in the meantime because of the insufficient international gateway capacity of the BTTB,’ said an official of the Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board, Bangladesh’s sole provider of international calls.
   ‘The latest decision will definitely put a strain on the already burdened international network of the BTTB, which may make the overseas callers vulnerable to congestion, abrupt disconnection and poor voice quality,’ said the official.
   Officials said the BTTB has only 12,000 international circuits to manage the huge rush of international call traffic after the Rapid Action Battalion’s crackdown on VoIP outfits across the country.
   As most of international calls at present are channelled through the BTTB’s network, it now has to cope with nearly 85 lakh minutes of calls a day, whereas it had to handle only between 35 lakh to 40 lakh minutes of calls a day before the anti-VoIP drive.
   ‘Though the call traffic increased to more than double, the capacity remained the same, resulting in difficulties in overseas communications,’ said the official.
   Industry insiders also expressed frustration over the delay of opening up VoIP to the private sector as it will ultimately deprive the people of cheap overseas calls.
   ‘Formulation of new guidelines will ultimately delay the process and may preclude the possibility of opening up VoIP to private business,’ said Akhtaruzzaman Manju, former president of the Internet Service Providers Association of Bangladesh.
   ‘We are running out of time,’ he said, adding that the government should take the decision quickly instead of wasting time in forming committee after committee.
   Sumon Ahmed Sabir, an executive member of the association, also said that it would be very frustrating for the industry if the government took too much time to open up VoIP to the private sector.
   ‘We have seen several committees in the past trying to find out the ways and means of opening up VoIP to the private sector. A lot of recommendations were made, but nothing was finalised,’ said Sumon.
   Some industry experts believe that the government should not unnecessarily waste time formulating a policy guideline for issuing the VoIP licence as it can easily implement the recommendations of a seven-member committee which recommended opening up the VoIP to the private sector for an interim period through the submarine cable gateway.
   The government-formed seven-member committee headed by Saiful Islam, a professor of the BUET, in March recommended the opening up of VoIP licences to all types of telecommunication service providers and allowing them to route their VoIP traffic through the existing data transmission gateway of the submarine cable for an temporary period until the BTTB completes the setting up of its VoIP platform.
   The nine recommendations also included allowing private operators to set up VoIP platforms in addition to the one planned by BTTB, increasing the capacity of BTTB’s international voice circuit, exploring the possibility of joining another undersea cable as a back-up for SEA-ME-WE-4, setting up a technical monitoring committee comprising officials of BTTB and intelligence agencies, and punishing illegal VoIP operators.
   The government in February formed the committee to suggest various options to immediately open up the VoIP for a temporary period as overseas communications faced a severe setback because of raids by the RAB on dozens of VoIP outfits since December to stop illegal business in Bangladesh.
   ‘I do not find any logical reason to formulate a guideline as the committee report has clearly mentioned various options and techniques to open up VoIP,’ said a member of the committee.
   Another member of the committee expressed surprised over inclusion of the information ministry in the process of formulating the guideline.
   ‘It is not the job of the information ministry as the matter is mostly technical in nature. It seems that the advisers were confused about VoIP or misguided,’ said the member.
   According to various estimates, the state-owned BTTB, which alone has the authority to provide overseas calls, loses about Tk 600 crore a year in revenue because of illegal internet telephony.

Asia’s population is most at risk from rising sea levels and more powerful storms, but few countries in the region have made detailed plans to deal with the hazards their coastlines and ports would face.
   Scientists have predicted a dire future of human-induced global warming causing rising sea-levels that could drown low-lying areas and hit Asia hard; though experts agreed in a UN report on Friday fighting climate change was affordable.
   ‘In most of Asia, if you put that on a list of priorities it falls off the bottom of the page,’
   said Steve Williams, head of Energy Solutions, which does consultancy work on industry services such as ports and infrastructure.
   One in 10 people, mainly in Asia, live in coastal areas most at risk, an international study published last month found.
   The researchers said many countries cannot afford Dutch-style dykes but urged governments to make billion-dollar policy shifts in long-term planning to encourage more settlements inland.
   Limiting global warming to a 2 degrees centigrade rise would cost just 0.12 per cent of
   global Gross Domestic Product (GDP), with the technology available, a UN climate change report said on Friday after
   days of wrangling at talks in Bangkok.
   The Thai capital could be under water in 20 years because of rising seas from global warming and subsidence, a top Thai climate expert, who warned of a tsunami years before the 2004 disaster, told Reuters in an interview this week.
   Smith Dharmasaroja, head of Thailand’s National Disaster Warning Centre, said the city of 10 million people was sinking at an alarming rate and to avert disaster it needed to construct a massive sea wall. He said the government did not pay attention.
   For fellow Southeast Asian country Singapore, where low-lying land has been reclaimed from the sea in recent decades, global warming is a big threat to its future, the city-state’s founder Lee Kuan Yew told Reuters in an interview last week.
   ‘What dykes can we build? Where do we get materials for the dykes? Do we excavate the sea bed? We are into a very serious problem,’ Lee said.
   Even so, experts say wealthy Singapore — known for organisation and efficiency — is the most likely country to push ahead with sea defences to avoid being partly submerged under six metres of water in a worst case scenario.
   ‘The first country that would really start thinking about this is Singapore — they have a lot of landfill,’ said Energy Solutions’ Williams.
   Neighbouring Indonesia, which banned sand exports for land reclamation to Singapore this year, has said it could lose 2,000 islands by 2030.
   It has been drafting a national strategy to deal with climate change.
   Ranked by population, China is most at risk to rising sea levels with 143 million people living by the coast, followed by India, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Indonesia and Japan.
   Regional powerhouse China is expected to be vulnerable along its storm-prone southeastern coastline, though government environmental protection efforts have been more committed to tackling rampant air and water pollution.
   In India, where ports are being expanded to boost fuel shipments from its booming oil refining sector to a region hungry for more fuel, environmentalists say coastal development has reduced natural sea defences such as sand bars and mangroves.
   ‘We need to understand these things, their implication and certainly a strategy needs to be worked out — but it’s not that we have a plan tomorrow,’ said PS Goel, Secretary at the Ministry of Earth Sciences. ‘Something needs to be done for the ports— certainly we all are worried.’

The moveable property of former state minister and LDP presidium member Redwan Ahmed was attached from his house at village Matadda under Chandina upazila in Comilla on Friday.
   Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Court directed the police to take the action as the LDP leader did not appear in the court in a case filed with Uttara thana in Dhaka under the Narcotics Control Act.
   Chandina police seized the moveable property from 10:00am to 1:00pm on Friday.

A minor girl was injured in a bomb explosion in remote village Chak Ramakantopur under Manda upazila of Naogaon on Friday, police sources said.
   The sources said Sheema, 7, daughter of Dulal Mia of the village found three bombs in their cowshed and started playing with those taking them to be toys. At one stage, one of the bombs was exploded when Sheema sustained serious leg injuries.
   Hearing the sounds, her mother rushed to the cowshed, rescued her injured daughter and threw two other bombs to the nearby pond. One of the two thrown away bombs was exploded soon in the pond.
   Sheema was admitted to a local clinic with serious injuries at her leg.
   On information, Manda police went to the spot and recovered the unexploded bomb from the pond and the debris of the exploded bombs from the spot.
   Senior officials from Manda upazila and assistant superintendent of police of Manda Circle Sohel Rana visited the spot and talked to the local people.
   The police have started investigation into the incident and explosive experts have been called for examining the unexploded bomb and debris of the exploded bombs.

India’s Border Security Force on Friday returned the bodies of two Bangladeshis, shot dead by the border guards in Thakurgaon early Wednesday, after a company commander-level flag meeting with the Bangladesh Rifles in the afternoon.
   The meeting was held at Chanduria border under Pirganj in the district.
   The bodies were handed over to the Pirganj police, who sent them to Thakurgaon hospital for post-mortem examinations.
   The deceased were Ramiz Uddin, 45, of Amirpara at Pirganj, and Rafiqul Islam, 40, of Sadamangal at Bochaganj.