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     Volume 6 Issue 14 | April 13, 2007 |


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Dhaka Diary


This incident occurred a few weeks ago when one of my classmates from coaching was driving a car without a license. The car belonged to his father and the driver was bribed to keep his mouth shut. Not satisfied with moving around the car in his garage, he decided to take his recklessness out on the streets. As luck might have it, he happened to hit the car of a police officer. The policeman who obviously sought a chance to punish someone came out grumbling and swearing. When he found out that the driver was a sixteen-year old teenager who probably did not have a license he went ballistic. He pulled the unfortunate driver out of the vehicle and took him straight to the police station where he demanded a 'fine'. The boy upon hearing this dialled a number and handed it to the officer. The officer, after chatting with the boy's father, who seemed to be anything but happy, humbly apologised and then drove him back home along with the vehicle. I later found out that this was because the boy was the son of an influential politician. This is the case of today's Bangladesh. If it is so that 'fines' are charged according to social or political power then we should all wear name-tags describing our social-backgrounds.

Azmi Syed,
Mohammadpur


The Mobile Incident
Since I work in a restaurant, I cannot enjoy Friday and relax, because it is the busiest day of the week. But I enjoy going to work on Friday because of fewer traffic jams. So it was a usual Friday and I was heading towards my workplace with a cheerful mind when I found a small crowd near the bus stop, huddled around a shiny private car. When I inquired as to what had happened, I came to know that the car had hit a passer-by and the young driver was blaming him passer-by for the accident. The passer-by was, fortunately not hurt. But the victim alleged that the driver was talking on his cell-phone while driving and that caused the accident. Hearing this the small crowd became furious and wanted to give a good beating to the young driver but an elderly person came forward and pacified the angry crowd. Later the driver apologised profusely and promised that he would never talk on the cell phone while driving in future! I think the young driver was lucky to learn a valuable lesson with an innocuous incident. So a message to all drivers, please refrain from using a cell phone while driving, especially in Dhaka City.

Md Sohel Hara
Olympia Palace Restaurant
Topkana Road

Diary from Rajshahi
An Effort

A few days ago, I was at a near-by bazaar looking to buy some chicken. One of the shopkeepers said that the price per KG was Tk 75, which seemed reasonable enough to me. I bought 2 KGs and went home. After a while, I was told that my mother needed more chicken so I would have to go to the bazaar again and buy some more. I went to the same shop and saw that the shopkeeper had just sold chicken at Tk 80 per KG to another customer. When I approached him for some more chicken, the shopkeeper failing to recognise me, asked for Tk 85 per KG. I was stunned and told him that he had just sold chicken at Tk 75 per kg just a while ago. The shopkeeper, without being unnerved mentioned that, he has been selling chicken at tk 85 per kg the whole day and that I must be mistaken, this made me very angry, to an extent that told the shopkeeper that I would call RAB if necessary. This made the keeper change his mind and sold me chicken at tk 75 per KG. It seems that this kind of malpractice goes on all over the country in many different forms. We have to be careful, since not even the higher authorities or even RAB officials can help us out.

Safiqul Raihan
Law and Justice (4th year)
Rajshahi University

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