Zyma Islam

Yesterday afternoon before a Dhaka court, Imtiaz Hossain Rocky, brother of Ishtiaque Hossain Jonny who was tortured and killed in police custody in 2014, was constantly on his feet.

“Differently abled, not disabled” -- this is how Noor Nahian, the founder of Bangladesh Wheelchair Sports Foundation captioned a photo of himself sitting in his wheelchair, that he posted on Twitter.

Shafiqul Islam Kajol was missing for 53 days, discovered by law enforcers roaming the India-Bangladesh border in Benapole in the middle of the night, subsequently thrown in jail and denied bail for 3 months -- and yet the only investigation being done by the state is about a Facebook post by Kajol.

While all eyes are on the Teknaf police right now, it is imperative to remember that deaths due to “gunfights”, “shootouts”, and “crossfires” happen all across the country -- and that the numbers have skyrocketed since the war on drugs was announced in May 2018.

Nestled between hills on one side and the sea on the other, Marishbunia village in Teknaf’s Baharchhara union is pure beauty. Babbling brooks, mossy arched bridges and hibiscus shrubs in full bloom -- this was the last location where Maj (retd) Sinha Rashed Md Khan was filming before he was killed in police firing on July 31.

People taking turns to talk on a particular issue, placing testimonials, and administrators listening cautiously and coming up with certain commitments publicly is how a public hearing takes place.

At least 87 people have been killed in 48 incidents of “gunfights” involving Teknaf police alone between August 1, 2018 and August 1, 2020.

“Why was my son killed? If he had broken any law, they could have shot him in the leg or injured him or made him surrender or taken him to the police station for interrogation. But why was he murdered?”

Four months into the pandemic, a major coronavirus testing facility is still functioning with volunteer technologists who have begun to go on strike demanding payment.

Something strange is happening in the capital’s slums -- Covid-19 cases are hard to come by.

It was a small piece of news published on June 6, hardly noticeable in the slew of coronavirus coverage -- 219 migrant workers deported from Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain have been sent to jail on charges of “tarnishing the image of Bangladesh”.

Over the last 48 hours, young women have been taking to social media to talk about a rare topic -- how women seeking gynaecological help often receive insensitive, traumatising and humiliating “advice” from doctors.

During a time period that has seen an unprecedented rise in cases filed under the infamous Digital Security Act, the digital sphere is more unsafe than ever before.

You may have already seen the social media campaign ‘#payup’, asking Kardashian sisters Kendall and Kylie Jenner to pay up their suppliers in Bangladesh. You may have also read about British brand, Debenhams, which is asking for a whopping 90 percent discount on products from 40 suppliers in the country. What you may not know is that these are only two of at least 1,931 brands which have either delayed, put on hold, or straight-up cancelled their orders since the onset of Covid-19, as per data received from the BGMEA.

While Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman University Vice-Chancellor Prof Kanak Kanti Barua verbally spurned the Rapid Dot-Blot test developed by Gonoshasthaya Kendra last Wednesday, calling it “ineffective in detecting Covid-19”, the full report justifies and recommends its use as an antibody test.

Has asking questions about, commenting on, or critiquing the health sector, and the agents responsible for it, become tantamount to an activity for which one can be punished and even arrested?

A 22-year-old nurse of the capital’s Ibn Sina Hospital died in front of its emergency unit allegedly after being refused admission yesterday.

A nurse from Ibn Sina Hospital died without admission at the same hospital’s emergency yesterday, after allegedly being refused on grounds of her not having a Covid-19 clearance certificate.

Save for a slash in income tax, there is no respite in this year’s budget for the penny-pinching middle class. Their expenditures will continue going up even as the global pandemic and resulting recession hits their incomes and slashes their jobs.

With the opportunity offered to money launderers by the government to whiten black money failing to draw a significant response, the new budget has made a new, lucrative proposition -- invest the money and no one, not even the income tax authority, will be able to question its source.