Bangladeshi border guards detain ex-supreme court judge near border with India
Dhaka, Aug 24: A retired judge of Bangladesh's Supreme Court was detained from the northeastern frontier with India in Sylhet while he was allegedly attempting to flee the country, the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) said late on Friday.
The report came hours after the arrest of Awami League leader ASM Firoz from his residence.
The BGB headquarters, in an SMS, informed reporters that they have detained former apex appellate division judge of the Supreme Court Shamsuddin Chowdhury Manik as he was trying to cross over to India through Sylhet’s Kanaighat border.
Newspaper Prothom Alo said Manik was kept at a BGB outpost till midnight citing the camp’s in-charge.
Bangladesh descended into chaos after ousted premier Sheikh Hasina's government collapsed and she fled to India on August 5 amid violent protests over quota for government jobs, while the Army stepped in to fill the power vacuum.
Before that, anti-government protests had killed more than 500 people since mid-July. Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus took oath as the Chief Adviser of the interim government on August 8.
Since August 5, a number of leaders of the deposed regime, including senior ministers, have been arrested -- many of them on murder charges.
The Bangladesh Army has earlier said that several hundred leaders of Hasina's Awami League and others have been sheltered in cantonments as their lives were at risk.
Former law minister Anisul Huq and the ex-premier’s private sector affairs adviser Salman F Rahman were the first to be arrested from Dhaka’s main river port Sadarghat terminal area as they were allegedly trying to leave Dhaka on a boat.
A number of members of Hasina's cabinet, including former foreign minister Hassan Mahmud and former social welfare minister Dipu Moni, several lawmakers and leaders of Awami League and its allies, including pro-left Workers Party chairman Rashed Khan Menon, and a number of recently sacked military and civil officials have been arrested.
This included sacked major general Ziaul Hassan, who was serving as the head of the government’s telecommunications system, and Chittagong Port Authority chairman rear admiral Mohammad Sohail, who once was the spokesman of the elite anti-crime Rapid Action Battalion.
A TV journalist couple Farzana Rupa and her husband Shakil Ahmed have also been arrested.
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Air India Express increases flight operations from NE destinations
Guwahati (PTI): Low-cost airline Air India Express has announced an increase in flight operations from three major destinations in the northeast – Guwahati, Agartala and Imphal – as part of its winter schedule.
This is part of the airlines’ expansion of winter services across the country, it said in a statement here.
Air India Express has increased its operations to 106 weekly flights from 63 last winter, from Guwahati.
It provides direct connectivity to eight domestic destinations of Agartala, Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Imphal, Jaipur and Kolkata. The airline also provides one-stop connectivity to 18 domestic destinations and six international destinations from Guwahati.
In Imphal, the airline hiked its weekly flights to 34 this season, an addition of 20 over last winter, the statement said.
Since adding Agartala as a station in September 2024, the airline has increased its flights from 14 to 21 weekly, and connects two destinations – Guwahati and Kolkata – directly.
It also offers one-stop connectivity from Agartala to 11 domestic destinations.
“The expansion not only facilitates easier travel for those wishing to explore North East, but also strengthens Guwahati’s role as a vital link with the rest of the country,” Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) Ankur Garg said.
“With our fleet now exceeding 90 aircraft and rapidly growing, we are well-positioned to support the evolving needs of emerging Indian cities,” he added.
