Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) 10 students remanded

Police arrested them at a hotel in the Dhaka’s Wari on Thursday midnight, the Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) said in a media statement on Friday.
A judicial magistrate granted the one-day remand for the detainees after the police produced them before him.

The accused are Julhas Biswas, 24, Md Idris, 22, Sujajit Hossain, 22, Shahidul Islam, 21, Dewan Kamrul, 22, Jamilur Islam, 24, Samiul Shahid, 23, Naimul Arif, 22, Mujibul Hossain, 23, and Rabiul Islam, 23.
BUET's students' welfare advisor Delwar Hossain has confirmed the detainees are students of the university.
Earlier in the morning, police said they arrested 21 suspected militants from Star Hotel in Wari on Thursday night after being tipped off that a group of militants were holding a secret meeting there.
Wari police OC Tapan Chandra Saha said they had raided the hotel where a group of 72 men, most of whom BUET students, were meeting.
He said 51 of them were handed over to the university authorities and the rest were taken to Wari Police Station.
BUET Registrar AKM Masud said police contacted them at night over the matter. Newly appointed Computer Science and Engineering teacher 'Nayem', who was sent to the police station, brought back 51 students.
Wari police Sub Inspector Ilias Sharif said 11 of the 21 detained after primary quizzing had admitted they were BUET students. Three of them are former students and the rest are students of Salimullah Medical College, BRAC University, Stamford University and Notre Dame College.
Ten of these 21 detained were released in the afternoon after signing bonds as they were not involved with any acts of violence, OC Saha said.
The rest 11 were taken to the detective police office for interrogations.
However, detective police Sub-Inspector Jahangir Hossain told bdnews24.com that he had received 10 accused and got one day’s remand.
Police suspect these students are involved with militant organisations.
"We suspect they are Islamic extremists," Deputy Commissioner Ilias Sharif said.

India's Border Security Force (BSF) Four men suspended

BSF sources told bdnews24.com that the four who were suspended belonged to the 40th Battalion of the BSF deployed at Andrail border outpost opposite Bangladesh's Putkhali border outpost manned by BGB.
They are Head Constable Y.N. Bhatt, Assistant Sub Inspector Narayan Singha, Constables Prasenjit Das and Mohammed Ayub Ali.
However, the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) in a media statement on Friday said the BSF headquarters had informed them of suspending three accused troopers after primary investigation. The media release did not name the suspended BSF officials.
BSF sources said a high level court of inquiry has been ordered into the shootout in which two Bangladesh nationals were killed at a spot about 800 yards from the Andrail border outpost.
"A senior commandant will conduct the enquiry," they said

The BSF sources said that the BSF headquarters in Delhi has asked the BSF South Bengal area to take "very strict action" if the BSF troops who opened fire were found to have done it without "much provocation".
"Our director general has taken a very serious view of the matter," they said.
After a preliminary enquiry, the soldiers who were put under suspension had told the senior officials that they had opened fire when they were attacked by a group of 150 smugglers involved in taking away cattle from the Indian side.
"One of our soldier was about to be lynched by them, so we were forced to open fire," Head Constable Bhatt had told the enquiry.
He said the BSF troops first fired from pump-action guns that had now been issued to them to avoid casualties.
These guns fire pellets and not bullets and they are not designed to shoot to kill.
"But when we fired pellets, the smugglers said these are nakli (fake) guns and they attacked us, so we had to use rifles," Bhatt told the enquiry.
BGB identified those killed in the BSF firing as Habibur Rahman, 30, from Benapole’s Shibnathpur village and Faruk Hossain, 25, of Basatpur Colony.
According to the BGB, it had held a flag meeting with its Indian counterpart on the night of the shootout and condemned the killings. The BSF had assured them that such incidents would not be repeated, it said.
The BSF had come under fire from various national and international rights groups for its atrocities. The border force had been accused of tortures and killings along the Bangladeshi border. Faced with criticisms, New Delhi had promised to provide it with 'non-lethal' killings.
Deaths along the border continued to rise, despite India's repeated pledges to bring border killings down to zero.
Cattle smuggling is believed to be a TK 10 billion annual contraband trade between India and Bangladesh -- so the stakes are high and those involved are often armed and willing to take on borderguards.
Former BSF chief UK Bansal had advocated legalising cattle trade in a bid to bring down the number of deaths along its porous border with Bangladesh.
A West Bengal-based human rights group moved India's National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) for the second time in a month, asking it to rein in the BSF, which it says is making life difficult for people on the India-Bangladesh border.
In its latest petition to the NHRC, Banglar Manabadhikar Suraksha Mancha (MASUM) alleged that the BSF continues a campaign of torture and terror, often falsely implicating villagers on charges of smuggling.

US offers Bangladesh $2.5mn grants for safer RMG sector

The grants also seek to improve representation and protection of workers in the sector on fire safety issues.
The department’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs announced the competitive grant solicitation in a release issued on Thursday.
The department will fund one or more recipients who will work to strengthen the Bangladesh government's ability to improve its enforcement of fire and building safety standards.

Its recipient(s) must build the capacity of worker organisations to effectively monitor violations of fire and building safety standards.
The applications are due on Aug 2.
It said, “Readymade garment production has been central to Bangladesh's economic development, with the sector accounting for the vast majority of Bangladesh's exports to the US.”
The industry, it said, was also the focus of longstanding concerns for its violations of worker rights and safety standards.
Bangladesh has been the subject of a review under the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) trade programme since 2007.
These concerns were rejuvenated in the wake of the devastating fire at Tazreen Fashions factory in November 2012 which killed at least 112 garment workers.
Another massive disaster soon followed after multi-storey Rana Plaza collapsed in Savar on Apr 24 killing at least 1,230 workers and leaving numerous more with disability. Rana Plaza used to house five garment factories, so the vast majority of the victims were garment workers.
The Bangladesh government, industry, worker and civil society organisations along with other groups have increased efforts to address concerns of fire and building safety.

Awami League and BNP Both camps confident

Both the rival camps, Awami League and BNP, are confident that their favourites will win today’s vote battle in four city corporations.
Senior leaders of the camps at the last moment, however, expressed differences about deployment of army for making the polls free and neutral.
The BNP camp is for army deployment as it thinks the local administration may back the ruling party-blessed candidates.
“Besides, we apprehend local ruling party-backed goons will use fear as a tool to gain votes for their candidates which will deteriorate law and order,” BNP standing committee member Goyeshwar Chandra Roy told yesterday.
Another BNP leader Selima Rahman, who had been campaigning for her party favourite in Barisal, said law enforcement agencies, including the Rapid Action Battalion, had been arresting their activists in Barisal city creating panic in the opposition camp.
But ruling party lawmaker Amir Hossain Amu, who campaigned for Awami League-backed candidate in Barisal, rejected outright the BNP allegation.
He said, “The law and order is well under control there, as a large number of Rab personnel and border guards have been deployed.”
Since yesterday, no outsiders or even no motorbikes had been seen in the voting areas, he said, adding that this was why army deployment was not necessary.
On Thursday, lawmakers of the treasury and the opposition bench locked horn in the House over deployment of the army in city corporation areas during the polls.
Two BNP MPs sought the Speaker’s intervention to this end while a ruling party MP claimed that fearing definite defeat of their favourites, the opposition was raising allegations against the government.