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  BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia has been kept confined to her Gulshan office in Dhaka for the eighth consecutive day. Two pick-up vans and water cannon, which were kept in front of the office since Sunday midnight, are still there. However, the main gate of the office was found unlocked since 8:00pm yesterday. The security in front of the office seems quite relaxed today, reports our correspondent from the spot. Khaleda was confined to her office since Saturday midnight. Protesting her confinement in her Gulshan office and the locking of the party office by police, Khaleda called an indefinite countrywide blockade which started from January 5

  Human Rights Watch (HRW) has strongly criticised Bangladesh government’s steps towards “curbing” the activities of BNP, the Jamaat-e-Islami, and the media saying such censorship will inflame the already tense situation in the country. In a press release issued today, the global rights group said the government should immediately end “use of excessive force, stop arbitrary arrests of members of opposition parties, and lift restrictions on the media.” “The government’s indiscriminate use of force, arbitrary arrests, and censorship will only inflame an already tense situation,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Authorities have an obligation to protect the public, but need to do it in a way that doesn’t throw human rights and the rule of law out the window...

The ancestral home of High Court judge Quazi Reza-Ul Hoque in Feni was set on fire hours after he ordered the government to stop publicising BNP Senior Vice-Chairman Tarique Rahman’s statements in the media. His ancestral residence in Mohammadpur area of Feni Sadar upazila was torched sometime last night, reports our local correspondent from the spot. Locals said unidentified assailants poured kerosene on the tin-shed house and set it on fire. The house was partially gutted, however, no one was injured in the incident. Soon after receiving information, additional superintendent of Feni police, Saiful Haque, rushed to the spot. “We do not know who are involved. Appropriate actions will be taken against the perpetrators after investigation,” he told reporters. Yesterday, Justice Qua...

  National team cricketer Rubel Hossain was sent to jail today after his surrender before court in connection with a rape case filed by film actress Naznin Akter Happy. Rubel, who received a four-week anticipatory bail on December 15, appeared before the court of Metropolitan Magistrate Anwar Sadat this morning and submitted a petition for bail. After hearing, the court rejected his petition and ordered authorities to send Rubel to jail. The pacer, who is in the 15-member national squad which is going to represent Bangladesh in the upcoming cricket World Cup, was at the centre of controversy since Happy came up with the allegation of rape against him recently. Happy filed the case under the Prevention of Women and Child Repression Act on December 13 accusing Rubel of luring her...

A US judge on Tuesday rejected a request by a Bangladesh diplomat and his wife to dismiss a lawsuit by a former domestic worker who accused them of forcing him to work without pay in slavery-like conditions. US District Judge Sidney Stein in Manhattan said Monirul Islam, a former New York consul general of Bangladesh, and his wife Fahima Tahsina Prova were not immune from the lawsuit by Mashud Parves Rana, because their employment and supervision of him were not "consular functions." Rana sued for back pay and punitive damages last March, shortly before Islam began a new job in Morocco as Bangladesh's ambassador to that country. The lawsuit was filed several days after Devyani Khobragade, once India's deputy consul general in New York, won dismissal of a federal indictment concerning ...

  A Dhaka court today sent Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir to jail after rejecting both the remand and the bail petitions in connection with an arson case. Metropolitan Magistrate Tareq Mainul Islam Bhuyan directed the investigation officer of the case to interrogate the acting secretary general of BNP Fakhrul at the jail gate within 10 working days. The order came after sub-inspector Khandakar Jahangir Hossain of Paltan Police Station and also investigation officer of the case produced Fakhrul before it with a 10-day remand prayer. Soon after the order, pro-BNP lawyers raised hue and cry on the court premises and chanted slogans demanding withdrawal of the order. They also brought out a procession on the court premises. Earlier in the day, police sought Fakhrul in custody for ...

  On the fourth day of confinement, BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia still cannot leave her Gulshan office with law enforcers still deployed in front of the main gate. A dozen sand laden-trucks which were parked since Sunday midnight near Khaleda’s office from early yesterday, have been taken away. But the main gate still remains locked, our correspondent covering the event reports from the spot. But two lorries of policemen and the water canon remained standing there since Sunday midnight. The security in front of her office was seen relaxed from 7:30pm yesterday but it has been again enhanced this morning. Meanwhile, police asked three leaders of Tablig-e Jamaat to take permission from the deputy commissioner’s office when they tried to enter Khaleda’s office. “We came here...

Detectives picked up BNP acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul as he came out of the Jatiya Press Club in Dhaka around 24 hours after he took shelter there amid protest by pro-government journalists and took him to DB headquarters. In protest against the arrest, BNP has called a 24-hour hartal from 6:00pm today in Thakurgaon district, the hometown of Fakhrul, reports our district correspondent. Four officers of the Detective Branch of police forcibly got in his car as it left the press club premises, our correspondent reported from the spot. Speaking to The Daily Star reporter from his car, the BNP leader said the ongoing anti-government movement will continue “even if I am arrested.” Minutes before getting out of the press club, Fakhrul held a press conference at the VIP conference...

  A security net thrown around BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia’s office will there as long as necessary, State Minister for Home Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said today. “If police feel that there is no risk for her on the way, she can leave (her Gulshan office),” the minister told reporters at the Secretariat this afternoon. “Personally, I feel she should have the security as long as necessary.” BNP chief Khaleda Zia has been residing in her Gulshan office for the past two days. Supporters and activists have said that she was confined inside the house by police ahead of the party’s protest programmes marking the first anniversary of January 5 election. The road leading to the office has been barricaded off at both ends by a dozen trucks. Law enforcers in plenty, including those from Rap...

  BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia this afternoon announced an indefinite countrywide blockade to protest government restriction on 20-party rally. “The programme will continue until my further instruction. We will set the next course of action after the situation clams down,” she said while speaking to journalists after law enforcers barred her from getting out of her Gulshan office this afternoon. Earlier, she got in her car to leave her office Dhaka’s Gulshan to join an anti-government rally, but cannot leave the office premises as police kept all the gates under lock and key. As the aggrieved BNP activists tried to force open the gate from inside, police used pepper spray on them and scattered them away. Wearing a cream colour sari, Khaleda got in the car around 3:45pm and waite...