Himu's Window

http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=16810   ZIA-based smuggling ring destroyed stolen artefacts Claims Rab after arrest of 10 more but fails to recover remains in daylong search; motive still unexplained   Julfikar Ali Manik and Pinaki Roy Rapid Action Battalion personnel with the help of Dhaka City Corporation workers search for the remains of the two stolen Vishnu statues at a garbage-dumping site in Amin Bazar on the outskirts of the capital yesterday. Photo: STAR   After five days of artefact theft from Zia International Airport (ZIA), investigators yesterday said a ring of smugglers based at the airport destroyed the precious archaeological masterpieces and dumped them in a dustbin in Uttara. The revelation was stunning although the Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) could not recover the broken pieces of the stolen statues even after conducting massive raids in different areas following confessional statements of the arrested suspects. Rab off...

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Artefacts heist: the crime scene http://uk.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUKDHA17836220071225 Bangladesh wants return of artifacts loaned to France DHAKA (Reuters) - Bangladesh wants a consignment of ancient artifacts on loan to France for an upcoming exhibition to be returned after two 1,500 year-old statues of the Hindu God Vishnu were stolen while awaiting shipment from Dhaka airport. "The Guimet Museum (in Paris) would be informed, regretfully, that it would not be possible to go ahead with holding the exhibition of the items as planned," a statement from the office of the head of the interim government said on Tuesday. One consignment of items had already been successfully sent to France when the theft occurred on Saturday as a second shipment was being loaded on a Paris-bound flight. A government spokesman said the French exhibition would have to be cancelled and the artifacts already in Paris returned to Bangladesh. The authorities have ordered the remaining items...

http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=15426   Killing of Intellectuals in 1971 Existing evidence enough to try killers   Zayadul Ahsan and Shakhawat Liton   Bodies of unknown intellectuals dumped at Rayer Bazar mass killing field by local collaborators of Pakistan army days before Bangladesh won the Liberation War. Photo: File Photo   The killers of intellectuals during the Liberation War can be prosecuted on the basis of evidence preserved by the government. It only needs to take a move to resume the long halted process of trial of the intellectuals' murder cases. Sufficient number of documents and records on the cases have been preserved since 1972 at the home ministry, Criminal Investigation Department, Ramna police station, district and sessions judges' courts, chief metropolitan magistrates' courts and deputy commissioners' offices. Over the years, eminent jurists said all this evidence has now become ancient documents accord...

http://thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=15429   Govts overlooked filing case under Int'l Crimes Act Shariful Islam The Criminal Investigation Department (CID), which probed an intellectual-murder case that dates back 10 years, made suggestions to the home ministry in 2001 that the government could file the case under International Crimes (Tribunals) Act 1973. No subsequent government, however, took the initiative to that end. Prof Farida Banu, sister of martyred intellectual Giasuddin, filed the case with Ramna Police Station on September 24, 1997 against two al-Badr cadres--Chowdhury Mainuddin and Ashrafuzzaman--for killing her brother on December 14 in 1971. The CID submitted the final report of the case in 2001 on grounds that it was filed under "wrong" section of law. Giasuddin was a history department lecturer at Dhaka University. The complainant now sees no hope of getting justice as the subsequent political governments and the present caretaker admi...

Rajshahi speedy trial court yesterday acquitted two teachers and a official of Rajshahi University in the case for torching a DGFI vehicle and beating its staffs breaking emergency power rules of 2007 on August 22 campus violence. But the court sentenced each of ten other accused RU students and an employee in the case to three years of rigorous imprisonment and fined them with Tk 5000. They will suffer three months more in jail in case of defaulting to pay the fine. The acquitted teachers Dr Chowdhury Sarwar Jahan Sajal and Dr Golam Sabbir Sattar Tapu of geology and mining department and Sadikul Islam, deputy chief information officer of RU Public Relations Office were released from Rajshahi Central Jail at 5pm. The convicted students are -- Bangladesh Chhatra League RU unit secretary Ayenuddin, Dipayan Sarkar Dip, Mizanur Rahman Mithu, Sardar Ayaz, SM Fakrul Islam Raihan, Abu Sayem, Shamim Ahmed, Kazi Abdul Latif, Shakhawat Hossain, Aziz Bin Kamal Uzzal. All the convicted students a...

http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=15193   Freed RU teachers to go ahead with appeal against conviction The lawyers of four Rajshahi University teachers yesterday decided to go ahead with appeal proceedings against their clients' convictions even though the government freed the academics two days ago amid mounting public demand. The defence lodged the appeals with the District and Sessions Judge's court on December 9, one day before the teachers walked out of prison. The court set December 27 to hear the appeals. The four teachers, meantime, joined their respective departments yesterday. They were given two-year jail terms on December 4 for breaking the emergency power rules by bringing out a silent procession on the campus on August 21. Two other teachers and two university staff are still behind bars on charge of abetting torching a DGFI vehicle during the violence. The verdict in the subsequent case is due today. "The teachers were freed followin...