At least three cases, including two with the Gopalganj sadar police station and the other with the Kashiani police station, were filed against 1,329 people between Thursday night and Friday over allegations of attacking police and vandalising their vehicles and felling trees to create obstructions on Wednesday centering the National Citizen Party rally. The death toll from the violence in Gopalganj over NCP rally on Wednesday reached five as a rickshaw puller hit by bullet died while undergoing treatment at Dhaka Medical College Hospital early Friday.

The government, meanwhile, extended the curfew over Gopalganj district till 6:00am on Saturday and it might be extended further while the joint forces arrested 90 more people since Thursday night. The Wednesday violence in Gopalganj erupted as security forces personnel and Awami League and its banned student body Bangladesh Chhatra league members got locked into clashes after the latter attacked NCP leaders in their motorcade.

The interim government on May 12 banned all activities of the Awami League and its affiliated, allied, and like-minded organisations until the completion of the trials involving them at the International Crimes Tribunal. Ramjan Munshi, 32, a resident of Thana Para, Gopalganj town, son of Akbar Munshi, died at about 1:45am on Friday, according to DMCH officials.

Asked about the death in a gunshot injury, DMCH director Brigadier General Md Asaduzzaman acknowledged the death but did not provide details. According to DMCH officials, Ramjan Munshi was admitted to the DMCH at about 4:30pm on Thursday. They said that the body was sent to the DMCH morgue for autopsy. While talking to New Age in front of the morgue, the victim’s brother Hira Munshi said that his brother received a bullet injury in the chest at Chowrangi Mor on Wednesday.

‘We first got him admitted to Gopalganj Sadar Hospital and later shifted him to Dhaka Medical College,’ he said.

According to police, two cases were filed with the Gopalganj sadar police station but none of them were filed in connection with the killing of five people. Gopalganj sadar police station inspector for investigation Abdullah Al Mamun told New Age that a case was filed under the Anti-Terrorism Act 2009 on Thursday night against 575 people, including 75 named for beating police members with the intention to kill and vandalising a police vehicle at Ulpur under sadar upazila, on Wednesday.

‘Police filed another case with the sadar police station on Friday against 404 people, including 54 named persons under the Anti-Terrorism Act 2009,’ the inspector added.

Gopalganj district assistant superintendent of police for Muksudpur Circle Md Abdul Based said that Kashiani police sub-inspector Alimul Huda Jony filed a case against 300-350 people, both named and unnamed, on the allegation of obstructing the highway near Sampan Highway Restaurant by felling trees on the road. He, however, also said that they had arrested 90 people, including 66 in Muksudpur and 24 in Kashiani area, over the Wednesday violence since Thursday night.

‘We will continue our drive to arrest the accused,’ he added.

Earlier, the joint forces arrested 25 people and the number of arrestees rose to 115 so far. The Inter Services Public Relation directorate in a statement on Thursday said that the Bangladesh Army was compelled to use force at one point in self defence in Gopalganj on Wednesday as attackers threw a huge number of crude bombs and brick bats at them.

At about 7:30pm on Wednesday, a group of unruly people took away the bodies of the deceased from the Gopalganj District Hospital. They prevented doctors from carrying out autopsy of the bodies, said the chief adviser’s press wing on Thursday.

In the Wednesday violence in Gopalganj, a police vehicle was torched, upazila nirbahi officer was attacked, cocktails were exploded, brick bats were hurled, and the NCP rally venue and motorcade were attacked.

The police fired rubber bullets, hurled sound grenades, and lobbed tear gas shells while members of the Bangladesh Army opened fire in the air to disperse Awami League activists and to save the NCP leaders.

A recent spate of violent crimes across the country has raised serious concerns about the effectiveness of law enforcement, nearly a year into the interim government’s tenure. Data from the Police Headquarters (PHQ) presents a grim picture of violent crimes, including murder, mugging, robbery, extortion, and mob violence, in the first six months of 2025.

Moreover, many of these incidents were caught on camera and widely shared on social media, fuelling fear and insecurity among the public. Inspector General of Police Mohammad Baharul Alam admitted that the police are yet to regain their control following last year’s traumatic political upheaval.

“You may say we haven’t been 100 percent successful. Maybe not even 50 percent. The situation is widespread … we must find ways to deal with it,” he told yesterday.

Experts warned that the situation may worsen if the government fails to take prompt and effective measures to tackle it. According to PHQ, 1,336 cases of dacoity and robbery were reported across the country in the first six months of this year.

During the same period, police recorded 1,930 murder cases, though over 400 of them were filed over incidents that took place in previous years. Crimes against women and children also remained a serious concern. From January to June this year, 11,008 cases related to the repression of women and children were filed.

In addition, 515 kidnapping cases were reported in the same period, indicating a growing threat to personal security. Mob violence remained a disturbing trend. At least 89 people were killed in mob attacks between January and June this year, including 45 in Dhaka alone, according to rights group Ain o Salish Kendra. Such incidents have continued despite repeated warnings from law enforcement officials and government advisers.

One such case is the recent brutal killing of scrap metal trader Lal Chand alias Sohag in the capital’s Mitford area on Wednesday, a video of which went viral on social media, sparking public outrage. Many criticised how such a barbaric assault could occur in broad daylight and in full view of bystanders, without any intervention.

Meanwhile, a group of armed men attacked a business establishment in the capital’s Pallabi on Friday, allegedly for not getting Tk 5 crore in extortion money. Also on Friday, unidentified assailants severed tendons and shot dead a former Jubo Dal leader in front of his house in Khulna city.

The same day, a 75-year-old khatib of a local mosque was hacked with a machete after Juma prayers in Chandpur. On Friday morning, muggers in the capital’s Shyamoli area not only snatched valuables from a man but also took his shirt and shoes.

Just a day before, police recovered the body of a man bearing multiple hack wounds, with his hands cuffed behind his back and legs tied with a scarf, from a roadside in the capital’s Mirpur-11 area.Such killings have lately hogged the headlines.

Apart from these, mugging incidents, some taking place in broad daylight, have also rattled people’s confidence in the country’s law and order. These incidents kept occurring even as the army remains deployed across the country with magistracy powers to assist in maintaining law and order. IGP Baharul Alam yesterday said the authorities are yet a find a way to make the force fully operational.

“Our main challenge is making the force 100 percent effective after such a traumatic experience [last year],” he said at an event in Gendaria.

“I’m still not satisfied [with the situation]. We’re still in the process [of regaining control],” he said, adding that operations and arrests of known criminals are ongoing.

On political ties to crimes, he said the expulsion of accused individuals from political organisations is a welcome sign. Meanwhile, Home Affairs Adviser Lt Gen (retd) Jahangir Alam Chowdhury defended law enforcers. “If police were inactive, arrests wouldn’t have happened in last two days,” he said, referring to the Mitford murder.

“There may have been some delays in action, but we acted after verifying information,” he said, urging people to contact police instead of taking law into their own hands.

Meanwhile, Rapid Action Battalion Director General AKM Shahidur Rahman said the elite force is focused on regaining public trust following criticism during last year’s political unrest. “Gaining public trust is the main task,” he said at a press briefing in Karwan Bazar.

Omar Faruk, a professor at the Department of Criminology and Police Science at Mawlana Bhashani Science and Technology University, said prolonged political misuse of the police has deeply damaged the institution.

“For 15 years, police have been used politically. That damage is hard to reverse,” he told. “Police still don’t behave like they should in a democratic country.”

He added, “I have spoken to several officers. They believe the police are going through a crisis period, and once it’s over, the situation will be under control, gradually.” However, he said the government has to arrange training or counselling programmes to help officers adapt to the situation. He also said curated efforts are needed to rebuild the trust between the force and the people.

Militancy in Bangladesh was once “nothing more than a drama,” from which the country has now been freed, Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of Police for Dhaka Range Rezaul Karim Mallick has said.

“For 18 long years, we were under fascist rule — we are free from that as well. We are now working as part of the new police force of a new Bangladesh,” he said while addressing a public gathering in Shariatpur today (13 July). Addressing the issue of extortion, DIG Rezaul said police are working to stop extortion on roads, waterways, and other sectors.

“No extortion or terrorism will be tolerated. Anyone involved in extortion will be arrested wherever they are found,” he warned.

The anti-drug, anti-terrorism, and anti-militancy event was held at the drill shed of the Shariatpur Police Lines at 11am today. The event was attended by leaders of various political parties, representatives of the Students Against Discrimination, family members of those killed in the 2024 mass uprising, members of civil society, and district police officials. At the end of the programme, DIG Rezaul distributed gifts to 14 families in Shariatpur who had lost loved ones during the July uprising.

A Supreme Court decision giving the Trump administration the greenlight to lay off tens of thousands of employees threatens to reshape the federal workforce amid a broader battle over whether the president has the power to do so. The Tuesday decision was the latest example of the court stepping in to stop a nationwide injunction – leaving President Trump free to conduct widespread layoffs even as the legal tussle continues.

While a patchwork of other injunctions leaves a few limited protections in place, employees at some 17 agencies impacted by the ruling are bracing for what President Trump in February called “a critical transformation of the Federal bureaucracy.”

The Trump administration was on the precipice of carrying out layoffs when the courts blocked the plan in May – agencies had been asked to submit their plans for Reductions in Force (RIFs) by April and were just waiting for administration approval. Some agencies have already said they plan to take swift action in the wake of the decision.

“The Supreme Court decision has allowed us to commence, and that’s what we’re doing,” State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce told reporters Thursday.

“It will happen quickly. This is not going to be an extended wait for people who are listening and watching in this building or fellow Americans at home and around the world. This will happen quickly. We understand that there has been a delay, not to our interests but because of the courts.”

On Friday, the department said it would lay off more than 1,300 employees, including 1,107 civil servants and 246 foreign service officers who currently have domestic assignments in the United States. And others among the 17 agencies have already given signals as to the extent of their planned cuts. Health and Human Services, which already announced plans to cut 10,000 employees of the 82,000 on payroll at the start of the administration.

Agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency, the Social Security Agency, Veterans Affairs and more are impacted by the ruling. The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the largest federal government union, described the news as devastating for government services as it is for employees’ careers.

“There is a lot of legitimate concern among our members not just for their own jobs, but for the Americans who rely on the services they provide — from small businesses, veterans, and Social Security recipients to everyday American consumers,” AFGE president Everett Kelley

“It’s a life-altering decision for tens of thousands of American families. Federal employees across the country will sit at their dinner tables tonight with their layoff notice next to a pile of bills, knowing the Supreme Court’s action just changed their lives forever, and they’re wondering what they’re going to do next to make ends meet. They didn’t ask for this – all they wanted to do was serve their country.”

The Supreme Court’s decision only weighed the injunction lifted by a lower court judge, not the underlying layoff authority or plans themselves. “The content of the [Agency RIF and Reorganization Plans] thus remains squarely at issue in this case,” U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston wrote in a Thursday order granting further discovery in the case.

The dissent from Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, however, faulted her colleagues for giving the go ahead on a plan that may later be determined to be unlawful.

“That temporary, practical, harm-reducing preservation of the status quo was no match for this Court’s demonstrated enthusiasm for greenlighting this President’s legally dubious actions in an emergency posture,” she wrote.

The decision will allow “all the harmful upheaval that edict entails, while the lower courts evaluate its lawfulness. In my view, this was the wrong decision at the wrong moment, especially given what little this Court knows about what is actually happening on the ground,” she argued.

Unions too had argued there would be “no way to unscramble that egg.”

The ruling comes after the Supreme Court in a case dealing with Trump’s effort to end birthright citizenship placed limits on the extent lower courts can use nationwide injunctions – a massive win for the Trump administration amid complaints about district court judges blocking their policies.

Agencies are in many cases still waiting to hear back from the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management on their plans, but a joint memo from the agencies suggested speed is the goal.

Agencies were directed to seek a waiver to shorten the notification window for employees, giving workers as little as 30 days notice that they will lose their jobs, rather than the traditional 60 days. Once those plans are revealed, the specifics could also be challeneged as well as the process for rolling them out. RIF plans in some cases can require congressional or union notification.

Lawmakers in regions with large numbers of federal employees also said they plan to be engaged on any efforts for sweeping layoffs.

“The Court’s decision to allow this damage to be done before ruling on the merits shows how detached they are from the reality of the moment,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.)

“Make no mistake, the Trump Administration’s plan isn’t about efficiency, it’s about rigging the government to only benefit the wealthy and powerful special interests. We are not done fighting in Congress, in the courts, and in our communities to defend the dedicated public servants who go to work on behalf of the American people day in and day out.”

The planned RIFs follow a number of other moves from Trump to shrink the scope of the federal government. Shortly after taking office, departments across government dismissed employees still in their probationary period – a time frame that can last a year or two depending on the role and that can also be reactivated by a promotion. That too left the government dismissing thousands of federal workers who also saw their efforts to fight their dismissal hamstrung at different turns.

A challenge at the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) lost the backing of the Office of the Special Counsel (OSC) after Trump fired former President Biden’s five-year appointee to the role, Hampton Dellinger.

Dellinger backed the MSPB challenge while he was fighting his own suit to keep his job, but the OSC reversed course once courts determined he could not stay in the job amid his own legal battle.

Like with the RIFs, there are some injunctions still in place that block some of the firings, but in other cases they’ve been permitted to proceed. Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.) criticized the latest plans for firings as part of a broader “witch hunt.”

“I will continue to fight against this President’s witch hunt targeting federal workers,” she wrote on X.

“When you attack civil servants, you attack the very people they serve – the American people.”

As Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani charges into the general election, allies and opponents are mobilizing behind new super PACs—one to propel him to City Hall, the other to stop him from getting there—amid growing unease in the city’s business circles. A pro-Mamdani PAC named “OneNYC” was filed on Thursday, according to state campaign finance records. The independent expenditure lists Yasser Salem, a partner at the private investment group Hira Ventures, as its treasurer.

“Campaigning and mobilizing provides a massive platform to elevate community capabilities and culture, collectively and individually,” he wrote on X just days before the June 24 primary won by Mamdani. “After the primaries, we should reflect on this together and think hard on establishing and well-oiled machine/operation #nycmuslimvotesmatter.” Salem did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Mamdani’s campaign denied any previous knowledge of the PAC.

Mamdani, a democratic socialist Queens Assembly member, also benefits from the support of a separate PAC named “New Yorkers for Lower Costs” that formed during the primary. It raised over $1.3 million during the Democratic contest, state records indicate, and reportedly will continue operating during the general election.

At the same time, a group of business honchos dead-set on stopping Mamdani formed their own PAC — “New Yorkers for a Better Future Mayor 25” — on Tuesday, according to a Wall Street Journal report and state records. The group is reportedly planning to raise $20 million against Mamdani.

The PAC’s treasurer, Jeffrey Leb, is a managing partner at Capitol Consulting LLC, according to his LinkedIn page. Many in the city’s business community are alarmed by Mamdani’s mayoral bid, citing his plan to fund affordability initiatives by raising taxes on corporations and high earners—measures that would require approval from state lawmakers. He has proposed raising the state’s corporate tax rate from 7.25% to 11.50%, in line with New Jersey’s, and adding a flat 2% income tax increase for those earning over $1 million a year.

Mamdani, who has been meeting with business and real estate leaders worried about him becoming mayor, said on Thursday that while he holds firm in his beliefs, he has no intention of driving them out of the city.

“My vision of this city is not one where any business leader leaves this city, where any real estate developer feels as if they have no place in this city,” Mamdani said during an unrelated July 10 news conference. “It is a vision of this city where everyone stays, everyone thrives, and we actually make enough room for more to join us.”

However, the group has yet to pick a Mamdani challenger in a field that includes incumbent Mayor Eric Adams and possibly former Gov. Andrew Cuomo — who will both appear on the ballot as independents.

Adams and Cuomo are both calling on the other to drop out of the race, each believing they are the one best positioned to take on Mamdani in November. Each faces an uphill battle against Mamdani, who soundly defeated Cuomo by roughly 13% in the primary, after ranked-choice tabulations, and has been leading both by double digits in a string of recent polls.

During the primary, hedge fund manager and President Trump-ally Bill Ackman contributed half a million dollars to Fix the City, a super PAC that supported Cuomo in that race. Fix the City ended up spending over $22 million to flood the airwaves and line mailboxes with Mamdani attack ads — a massive expenditure that appeared to be in vain given Mamdani’s margin of victory.

Fix the City has reportedly continued to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars since the primary, aiming to back a candidate capable of defeating Mamdani in the general election. Ackman announced last week that he is switching to support Adams in the general election after determining the current mayor stands a better chance at overcoming Mamdani than the former governor.

The new PACs formed as establishment Democratic pols and groups have begun coalescing around Mamdani in recent days. Just this week, Mamdani was endorsed by U.S. Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-Manhattan/Bronx) and the Manhattan Democratic Party, both of whom backed Cuomo in the primary, as well as the United Federal of Teachers, which declined to back a candidate in the Democratic contest.

The second-round negotiation between Bangladesh and United States over tariff issue ended on Friday at about 4:00pm in the US capital Washington DC keeping several issues unresolved. Washington wanted Dhaka to keep distance with companies under the sanctioned-hit list from the US while Dhaka sought necessary time to meet the US demands, said an official who attended the meeting.

Both the parties agreed to carry on negotiation to solve the unresolved issues, added the official. The second-round negotiation was convened following the US president Donald Trump’s announcement of imposition of 35 per cent tariff on Bangladeshi export goods from August 1.