BNP Chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia has arrived in London for advanced treatment.

The air ambulance carrying her landed at Heathrow Airport at 2:55 pm on Wednesday (January 8) Bangladesh time.

After monitoring her physical condition at the airport, Khaleda Zia may be admitted to a London clinic. An ambulance has been kept ready for this.

Earlier, the air ambulance carrying Khaleda Zia left Dhaka at 11:45 pm on Tuesday (January 7). The BNP Chairperson made a stopover in Doha on her nearly eight-hour journey before reaching London.

Bangladesh Ambassador to Qatar Nazrul Islam met and inquired about the Chairperson's physical condition. Earlier, leaders and activists started gathering in Gulshan in groups since the afternoon surrounding Khaleda's London trip. BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir entered Khaleda Zia's residence after the evening.

People from all walks of life, including BNP leaders and activists, gathered on both sides of the road in Gulshan and on the way to the airport to bid farewell to Khaleda Zia.

Obaidul Karim, the owner of Orion Group, has built a mountain of wealth in Dubai by stealing the country's money. He trapped the Dubai contracting company Belhasa and amassed billions of taka through various misdeeds including fraud, deception, and embezzlement. He then laundered that money to Dubai himself. With the laundered money, he bought luxury hotels, flats, houses, and land in the posh areas of Dubai.

It is learned that none of the assets in Obaidul Karim's name in Dubai were purchased using his Bangladeshi passport. In the registration documents for buying a four-star hotel in Dubai, he identified himself as an Albanian citizen. In the documents of the Albanian corporate registry, the name of a company owned by him, Agri Products Europe, is mentioned which was established in the Albanian capital Tirana on November 11, 2013. Albania granted him citizenship through the Golden Passport Scheme against investment until 2023. The Cypriot government granted him citizenship under an investment program. In this case, he had to invest 200,000 euros or about 250,000 dollars in the Cyprus government's research and land development fund and about 2 million euros or about 2.5 million dollars in real estate in Cyprus.

Meanwhile, Orion Pharma Limited had a 30 percent stake in a pharmaceutical company in Bahrain. Obaidul Karim and his son Salman were on the board of directors of this company. However, although his son is mentioned as Bangladeshi, Obaidul Karim is mentioned as an Indian citizen. The company was established on January 6, 2015.

Obaidul Karim's daughter, Zarine Karim, owns the United Arab Emirates-based company Jesha General Trading LLC, where she is mentioned as a citizen of the Dominican Republic.

Obaidul Karim and his wife Arjuda Karim have Dominican passports. The passport was issued by that country on November 14, 2022. Their daughter, Zareen Karim, was appointed as the Honorary Consul of Dominica to Bangladesh in 2024 and still holds this position. Zareen Karim also invested 200,000 dollars in the real estate sector of the Dominican Republic to obtain citizenship.

Meanwhile, Obaidul Karim owns a 49 percent stake in the four-star hotel in Dubai called ‘Palette Royal Reflection Hotel and Spa’. Built in 2014, this 100-room hotel is located in Dubai’s elite area of Bar Dubai. Obaidul Karim, his wife Arjuda Karim and daughter Zareen own two houses and a three-bedroom flat in Dubai’s Al Merkadh and World Trade Center Residences. In total, Obaidul Karim and his family members have immovable assets worth Tk. 700 crore in Dubai. In addition, they have movable assets worth about Tk. 300 crore including luxury cars.

Obaidul Karim obtained the entire amount of thousand crores of taka smuggled from Bangladesh to build a huge property in Dubai through fraud, forgery and embezzlement.

During the construction of the 41-storey City Center in Motijheel, Dhaka, he forged the signature of Majed Ahmed, the managing director of the lead company Belhasa Group, and embezzled it by taking a loan of at least Tk. 176 crores from a bank in three phases. Although Obaidul Karim took the loan through fraud, Belhasa's name appeared on the list of defaulters. However, no one in Belhasa knew that Obaidul Karim had taken this huge loan in the name of their company. Even without taking the loan, Belhasa fell into Obaidul Karim's clutches and was listed as a defaulter. Although Belhasa Engineering and Contracting Company had 60 percent shares in that City Center, Obaidul Karim alone secretly sold 22 floors and embezzled about Tk. 450 crore and smuggled it abroad without the knowledge of the shareholders.

In addition, during the construction of the Jatrabari-Gulistan flyover, the company memorandum of Belhasa Ekom & Associates Limited, a joint venture of Orion and Belhasa, was forged as the builder. Here, Belhasa's representative was secretly excluded from the company memorandum through complete fraud. In this incident, Zubair Ahmed Bhuiyan, the authorized representative of Belhasa Engineering and Contracting Company's Managing Director Majed Ahmed, filed a case in the Fourth Joint District Judge's Court of Dhaka. The case alleged that Obaidul Karim forged signatures and formed a new company by excluding Belhasa's representative through forgery. In addition to Obaidul, his son Salman Karim and son-in-law Mehedi Hasan were made accused in the case. The then mayor of Dhaka City Corporation, registrar of joint stock companies, chairman of the Securities Exchange Commission and secretary of the Dhaka Stock Exchange were made counter-defendants. It is also alleged that Obaidul Karim embezzled Tk. 500 crore invested by Belhasa.

It is alleged that Obaidul Karim smuggled all the embezzled money abroad through corruption and incompetence.

Courtesy: Khabar Kagoj

On the day of the Felani killings, the JU branch of the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement held a protest march and short rally at Jahangirnagar University (JU) against killings at the border by Indian forces and Indian hegemony.

On Tuesday (January 7), the march took out from the Battala area at 8:30 pm and circled various important roads of the university before ending at the foot of the Shaheed Minar.

Meanwhile, under the leadership of Imran Shahriar, senior joint convener of the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement JU branch, Member Secretary Towhid Mohammad Siam said, the movement of ‘24 was not only a fight against Hasina, but also against Indian hegemony. With the fall of Hasina on August 5, we slapped Indian hegemony in the face. I want to make it clear that if the Indian government still considers Bangladesh as its province, they will be given a befitting reply. The interim government must bring all the agreements made during the previous government's tenure before the people. Every murder on the border must be tried. Otherwise, the people of Bangladesh will be angry again.

In his closing speech, the convener of the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement JU branch, Arifuzzaman Ujjal, said, "Not only the Felani murders, but hundreds of such murders were not tried by the previous fascist government. Due to which a culture of impunity has been created in Bangladesh. We do not want to see any more murders on the border in the future. India has always shown a hegemonic attitude towards Bangladesh due to its knee-jerk foreign policy. We have dismissed the fascist government through the student movement. The foreign policy of the fascist era must be thrown away. Then India will not be able to show this hegemonic attitude again. Today, we stand for the Felani murder so that we do not have to stand for any other brother or sister."

According to the human rights organization 'Adhikar', from January 2009 to November 2024, the BSF is alleged to have killed 588 Bangladeshis and injured 773 Bangladeshis on the border.

Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) Public Relations Officer Maqbul Hossain was stabbed. Later, he was rushed to United Hospital in Gulshan in a serious condition. He is currently undergoing treatment in the hospital's emergency department.

The miscreants committed the incident at around 9:45 pm on Tuesday (January 7) at the old office of the DNCC Revenue Department on Road No. 90 in Gulshan.

Eyewitnesses said that Maqbul Hossain, along with some other officials of Dhaka North City, were playing on the temporary badminton court at the old office of the Revenue Department on Road No. 90. Then a man wearing a helmet went there and called Maqbul Hossain. The man put his hand on Maqbul Hossain's shoulder and took him outside the office towards the road while talking. After a while, Maqbul Hossain called out to everyone in his injured condition, and others went and rescued him and took him to the hospital.

Executive Magistrate Shahidul Islam said that doctors have given him medicine and treatment to stop the bleeding for now. He will undergo surgery on Wednesday morning to find out if there are any major injuries anywhere on his body or if blood vessels have been cut. He has stab wounds below his right shoulder, below his right elbow and in three places on his chest.