The New Nation - Internet Edition

Restaurant owner, and DND deve leader gunned down in city

UNB, Dhaka

A restaurant owner and local community leader was shot dead by gun-trotting goons in the capital's Shyampur area on Wednesday morning.

Witnesses said three to four gunmen raided Toma Hotel and Restaurant at Mojaheed Nagar under Shyampur police station at about 9:30 am while its owner Farid Uddin Sarker, 45, was taking his breakfast.

"They shot at him pointblank and fled," says a spot account of the gun attack.

Farid, also president of DND Embankment Unnayan Nagorik Forum, was hit by six bullets in the chest and two hands.

The victim was rushed to Dhaka Medical College Hospital where doctors pronounced him dead.

Local people said Farid helped Rapid Action Battalion personnel in arresting a drug peddler with 1700 bottles of phensidyl recently. It might be a reason for the killing, local people suspected.

AL observes nat'l mourning day tomorrow

UNB, Dhaka

Awami League will observe the national mourning day on Friday (August 15) commemorating the death anniversary of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

On this day in 1975, Sheikh Mujib was assassinated along with most members of his family by a group of in-service and sacked army personnel in a predawn putsch.

Awami League has chalked out a two-day programme from today to mark the death anniversary of the party leader and country's founding father.

Party leaders and activists, led by its acting President Zillur Rahman, will start for Tungipara from AL central office at about 7 am Thursday and place floral wreath at the mazar of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and also offer munajat there. A discussion will also be held at Tungipara.

National and party flags will be hoisted half-mast and black flags also be hoisted at Bangabandhu Bhaban and all the party offices at about 6 am on Friday.

The leaders and activists will place wreath at the portrait of Mujibur Rahman at the Bhaban at about 8 am.

Wreaths will also be placed on the graves of all those who were killed with Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on August 15, 1975 at 8.30am.

Other programmes include destitute feeding and milad mehfil and prayer at all religious institutions.

Similar programmes will also be held at Tingipara on Friday and Saturday in observance of the day.

Acting General Secretary of the party Syed Ashraful Islam in a statement called upon the countrymen, including leaders, activists and supporters, to observe the mourning day "in a befitting manner".

Multifaceted pvt-sector steps must to ensure health services

UNB, Dhaka

Nobel Laureate Dr Muhammad Yunus Wednesday stressed the need for multifaceted initiatives by private sector alongside government efforts to ensure health services for the people.

He noted that the poor deplore that they do not get health services while the rich go abroad for treatment as they think there is a lack of proper treatment facilities at home.

"Government's large-scale initiatives cannot fulfill the demand of the people for medical treatment. It needs multifaceted private initiatives," he said while laying the foundation stone of the Kidney Foundation Hospital and Research Institute in city's Mirpur area.

He called for more initiatives to expand and improve the medical services.

The Nobel Laureate said he took initiative 15 years ago to establish self-sufficient health centres in rural areas for the poor people under health insurance and set up 38 such health centres.

Each centre had one MBBS doctor and sufficient nurses. But, he said, now a number of these health centres are running without MBBS doctors as those physicians joined other lucrative jobs, including in government organizations.

Dr Yunus, also managing director of Grameen Bank, said he has a cherished dream of establishing an international-standard medical college and hospital and also a nursing college.

"If all, particularly specialist physicians, come forward, my dream will come true," he told his audience.

National Professor and child specialist Dr M R Khan and chairman of the Kidney Foundation Prof Dr Harun-ur Rashid also addressed the function.

Carjackers take away microbus after shooting its driver

UNB, Dhaka

A group of unidentified carjackers early yesterday snatched away a microbus after shooting its driver at Technical crossing in the city.

Police said four car thieves intercepted the microbus (Dhaka Metro Cha-11-8537) at Technical Crossing and fired at the legs of its driver Mohammad Ali, 40.

The driver was on his way home at 17/18 Housing Udayan Tower in Mirpur-2 when the incident occurred at about 3:30am.

The carjackers immediately fled the scene with the microbus.

Mohammad Ali was later rushed to Dhaka Medical College Hospital.

Meanwhile, the Detective Branch (DB) of police separately arrested Mostafa Kamal, a suspected carjacker, from Shyamoli area in the city.

Police said they detained Kamal, 38, as he was following a car for "hijacking" yesterday morning.

The detectives seized two number plates from his possession which are usually used to replace the original plates after stealing cars.

In another incident, a van puller sustained serious bullet injuries, as suspected muggers opened fire at Senpara of Parbata in the city's Mirpur area early yesterday.

Police said three to four muggers opened fire at a motorcyclist in front of Al-Helal Hospital on Rokeya Sarani but the bullets missed the target and hit the van driver, Zakir Hossain.

He was taken to Dhaka Medical College Hospital for treatment.

Four of five lakh tonnes Indian rice arrive so far

Bdnews24.com, Dhaka

India has already shipped more than four of the five lakh tonnes of rice promised to Bangladesh, the foreign secretary said yesterday.

"More than four lakh tonnes of rice has already been shipped to us," Md Touhid Hossain told bdnews24.com.

"The remaining one lakh will arrive soon," said the secretary, adding that India had offered the rice at the rate of $450 per tonne.

India has taken more than 8 months to send the 400,000 tonnes, since it pledged a total of 500,000 early last December.

Bangladesh appealed to the international community either to sell or donate rice to face a probable food shortage after Cyclone Sidr ravaged Bangladesh on Nov 15 last year.

The caretaker government invited all diplomats and donor representatives based in Dhaka to assist in amassing the more than 2 million tonnes of rice it estimated would be needed to face the aftermath of Sidr.

In response to Dhaka's call, Indian external affairs minister Pranab Mujherjee came to Dhaka on Dec 1 last year and promised to export the five lakh tonnes.

The Indian government had initially set a price below $420 per tonne, but was later forced to raise it as the price of rice in the global market soared sharply.

Khaleda's release 4-party meets today as ultimatum fails

UNB, Dhaka

The BNP-led four-party alliance will unveil its next course of programme today (Thursday) as their 72-hour ultimatum for releasing the BNP Chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia expired on Wednesday midnight.

The alliance had earlier set a 72-hour ultimatum for the government to release the former prime minister and ensure her son Tarique Rahman's treatment abroad.

The political group had threatened to take up tougher action programmes if the government failed to meet its demand by the deadline.

The alliance is mulling over new political strategies to realise their demand at a time when at least two government advisers have already said that the procedure of releasing Khaleda is at the final stage.

Mohiuddin Khan Mohon, BNP's media coordinator, told UNB that the alliance would sit in the meeting Thursday at the NAM apartment of party secretary general Khandaker Delwar Hossain at 12:30 pm.

No chance of merger of VAT, income tax wings: NBR

UNB, Dhaka

The National Board of Revenue has ruled out rumours that the agency is going to combine its Value Added Tax (VAT) and income tax wings.

"It is ridiculous. It is not so easy, this will never happen," NBR chairman Muhammad Abdul Mazid told UNB by telephone yesterday.

He said the two departments might help each other for better functioning but any possible merger was beyond imagination.

"Working styles of these two departments are different; there is no way to merge the two units."

The revenue agency boss made the thing clear as there was widespread speculation that the two departments would be merged to ease revenue collection procedures.

When his attention was drawn to the combination of VAT and income tax unit of the large taxpayers unit (LTU), he said that the two units were not merged, rather they just came under one member.

"They were not merged any way," he added.

Last year, the NBR introduced a 15-digit unified number, combining TIN and business identification number (BIN), to ensure exchange of information between income tax and VAT department of the LTU.

"The identification number was merged, not the two units. It's very clear, there is no scope for confusion," he said.

The NBR has further revamped its procedure with a target of Tk 54,500 crore in revenue collection for the current fiscal year.