Dollar dealers address price issue Monday

Dhaka, Oct 8 — The country's foreign exchange dealers will hold an emergency meeting to address the spiralling price of dollar against taka.

Bangladesh Foreign Exchange Dealers' Association (BAFEDA) will hold the meeting on Monday, its chairman and Janata Bank managing director S M Aminur Rahman told bdnews24.com.

"Dollar prices are rising everyday and we are going to address the issue," he said.

According to the central bank, on Wednesday, the last trading day, a dollar was sold for Tk 75.45, a record high.

That day, state-owned Sonali Bank sold a dollar for Tk 75.60, as commercial banks trade forex for a marginally higher price.

A central bank official seeking anonymity told bdnews24.com one of the deputy governors had held a meeting with the heads of the forex dealing banks to stabilise the dollar price.

"He warned that no bank should be creating an artificial crisis to raise the price," the official said.

The official added that the dealers' association meeting was an outcome of that meeting.

Saudis behead 8 Bangladeshis

Dhaka, Oct 8 — Eight Bangladeshi migrants have been beheaded in the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh.

The eight had been executed in public on Friday.

They were sentenced to death for the alleged murder of an Egyptian man in April, 2007, an interior ministry statement said on Friday.

They are Mamun Abdul Mannan, Faruq Jamal, Sumon Miah, Mohammed Sumon, Shafiq al-Islam, Masud Shamsul Haque, Abu al-Hussain Ahmed, Mutir al-Rahman.

The men were convicted of robbing a warehouse and killing the security guard, Hussein Saeed Mohammed Abdulkhaleq, an Egyptian national.

Three other men were sentenced to various prison terms, the statement in Arabic said.

Human rights group Amnesty International condemned the execution in a statement, also on Friday.

"Court proceedings in Saudi Arabia fall far short of international standards for fair trial and news of these recent multiple executions is deeply disturbing," the group's Middle East and North Africa director, Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, said.

"The Saudi authorities appear to have increased the number of executions in recent months, a move that puts the country at odds with the worldwide trend against the death penalty," he added.

The organisation also pointed out that majority of those executed recently in Saudi Arabia is migrant workers from poor and developing countries.

Most of the defendants have no defence lawyer, have insufficient hold of the Arabic language to follow proceedings and in many cases are not informed of the progress of legal proceedings against them.

They also have no access to influential figures or money, both of which might have secured them pardons. Saudi Arabia applies the death penalty for a wide range of offences, the statement said.

Criticising the process of conviction the rights body said that it might have been only based on confessions obtained under duress or deception.

The beheadings bring the number of executions in Saudi Arabia this year to at least 58, more than double than the 2010 figures. Twenty of those executed in 2011 were foreign nationals.

At least 158 people, including 76 foreign nationals, were executed by the Saudi Arabian authorities in 2007. In 2008 some 102 people, including almost 40 foreign nationals, were executed.

In 2009, at least 69 people are known to have been executed, including 19 foreign nationals and in 2010, at least 27 people were executed including six foreign nationals.

Delhi blast probe spreads to Bangladesh

New Delhi, Oct 8 —The investigations into the Sept 7 blast at the entrance to a court in Indian capital New Delhi has spread to Bangladesh, with tacit cooperation between the counterterrorism agencies of the two countries leading to the arrest of a key suspect in the case.

The arrest also once again brought under focus the terror networks of the extremist organization Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami and Hizbul Mujahideen across the sub-continent.

Indian government officials, however, did not disclose if the purported disappearance and interrogation of four Kashmiri students from a medical college in Sylhet were also linked to the probe into the Delhi High Court blast.

After a Kashmiri student of a medical college in Bangladesh was arrested by India's National Investigation Agency in connection with the blast, his father claimed that he himself had asked his son to return to India and handed the latter over to the investigators at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi soon after his arrival from Dhaka.

The NIA produced Wasim Akram Malik to a court in Delhi on Friday and he was remanded to agency's custody until Oct 21. Wasim is the son of a government official based in Kishtwar in Jammu and Kashmir and he was studying in a medical college in Bangladesh.

Wasim's parents, however, said that an incarcerated Hizbul Mujahideen militant, whom they got arrested for kidnapping their other son Junaid in 2010, set police after their family after the blast in front of Delhi High Court. Jammu and Kashmir police, however, described Junaid, who is yet to be traced, as a militant of the Hizbul Mujahideen.

The blast at the entrance to the Delhi court killed at least 15 and left many others injured.

Kishtwar came under the focus after investigations revealed that an email purportedly circulated by HuJI among media organisations to claim responsibility for the blast had in fact been sent from the town in Jammu and Kashmir.

Wasim was the third Kashmiri to be arrested in connection with blast. Earlier, two youths, Aamir Abbas and Abid Hussain, were arrested in Kishtwar.

Wasim's father Riaz ul Hassan Malik, an employee of India's state-owned National Hydroelectric Power Corporation, told journalists that he had received a letter from police in Kishtwar informing him that the NIA wanted to question his son in connection with the Delhi High Court blast.

"I made arrangements so that the NIA officials can talk to my son Wasim, who was in Bangladesh, over telephone. He readily agreed to cooperate with the investigation and I asked him to return. I received him at the airport in Delhi and then handed him over to the NIA officials," said Riaz ul Hassan Malik, who had in November 2010 lodged a complaint with the Jammu and Kashmir police that his youngest son Junaid had been kidnapped by Hizbul Mujahideen militants.

Police action on the basis of his complaint had led to the unearthing of a recruitment module of the terrorist networks and three Hizbul Mujahideen operatives, including one Azhar Ali, had been arrested. Police, however, could not trace Junaid.

The NIA purportedly started suspecting Wasim's role in the Delhi High Court blast after they questioned incarcerated Azhar Ali in a jail in Kashmir.

Wasim's family claimed that he had been in Kishtwar on the day of the blast at Delhi High Court and had not only withdrawn money from bank ATMs but also shopped in the malls, where he might have been caught on CCTV.

"My son is innocent and he had nothing to do with the blast in Delhi," said his mother Shamima Begum, who is a headmistress of a government school in Kishtwar.

Wasim, who had been in Kishtwar on Eid vacation, had gone back to Bangladesh on Sept 9, just two days after the blast.

Due to tacit cooperation between the security agencies of Bangladesh and India earlier in 2009 and 2010, a number of top leaders of insurgent organisations active in northeastern Indian states of Assam, Tripura, Meghalaya and Manipur had landed in the custody of the law-enforcing agencies of India.

In his address to the United Nations General Assembly on Sept 24, Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh had upheld the security cooperation between his country and Bangladesh as an example.

"In South Asia, there are encouraging signs of cooperation in the area of security, as exemplified in India's growing cooperation with Bangladesh. Such cooperation is adding to the security of both our countries," he had said.

SI suspended over Persona scandal

Dhaka, Oct 3 —A Gulshan police sub-inspector has been suspended for destroying evidence and neglecting duty after seizing a close-circuit TV camera of Persona Beauty Parlour.

On Sept 30 evening, a female doctor went for a spa at the parlour's branch at Banani road no 11. She discovered a camera in the dressing room she was using for changing. The woman complained verbally to police, spoke to the media and called up her businessman husband, causing rancour.

Once there, the husband erased images of her from the parlour's computer in presence of sub-inspector Mehedy Masud.

Gulshan circle's deputy police commissioner Lutful Kabir told bdnews24.com. "The relevant official reached the scene immediately after the incident. The video footage was deleted in presence of the officer. He has been suspended for his failure to protect the evidence of such a sensitive case."

Police have formed a committee, headed by additional deputy police commissioner Nizamul Haque Molla, to investigate the incident. Two others on the committee are assistant commissioners Mizanur Rahman and Nurul Alam.

Lutful Kabir told bdnews24.com, "We have constituted an investigation committee since the Persona incident is very sensitive. The committee will investigate the incident, police officer's role and the logics behind installation of the camera."

The committee will submit a report in the next three days, he said.

Cameras, however, remain hanging in other rooms of Persona.

Discussions raged on social networking site facebook.com and blogs over the secret cameras in the parlour.

But owner Kaniz Almas told bdnews24.com on Sept 1, "The cameras are there for security reasons and I do not think they are violating anyone's privacy."

"Persona will not bring down any cameras," she added.

DSE prices mark initial gains

Dhaka, Oct 5 — Trading has begun at the country's premier bourse on the last working day of the week with an initial hike in its general index.

At the end of the first half an hour of trading at the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) on Wednesday, the general index gained 35.05 points to stand at 5761.88 around 11.37am.

Shares worth a total of Tk. 471.61 million had been traded by then with prices of 176 issues rising, 11 falling and eight remaining unchanged.

Trading will not take place on Thursday due to the national holiday for the Durga Puja.