Begum Khaleda Zia is a Bangladeshi politician who served as the prime minister of Bangladesh from March 1991 to March 1996, and again from June 2001 to October 2006. She was the first female prime minister of Bangladesh and second female prime minister in the Muslim world, after Benazir Bhutto. She is the widow of former president of Bangladesh Ziaur Rahman. She is the chairperson and leader of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) since 1984, which was founded by her late husband in 1978.
The Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) is a paramilitary force responsible for the border security of Bangladesh. The BGB is entrusted with the responsibility to defend the 4,427 kilometres (2,751 mi) border of Bangladesh with India and Myanmar. It was formerly known as the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR).
Rapid Action Battalion or RAB, is an anti-crime and anti-terrorism unit of the Bangladesh Police. This elite force consists of members of the Bangladesh Army, Bangladesh Navy, Bangladesh Air Force, Bangladesh Police, Border Guard Bangladesh, and Bangladesh Ansar. It was formed on 26 March 2004 as RAT, and commenced operations on 14 April 2004.
The Directorate General of Forces Intelligence, commonly known by its acronym DGFI, is the defense intelligence agency of the Bangladesh Armed Forces, tasked with collection, collation and evaluation of strategic and topographic information, primarily through human intelligence (HUMINT). As one of the principal members of the Bangladesh intelligence community, the DGFI reports to the Director-General under the executive authority of the head of government, the Prime Minister, and is primarily focused on providing intelligence for the Prime Minister, the Cabinet of Bangladesh, and the Armed Forces of Bangladesh.
Bangladesh Television, commonly known by its acronym BTV, is the state-owned television network of Bangladesh. The network was originally established as the East Pakistan branch of PTV in 1964. It is the oldest Bengali-language television network in the world, and is the sister to the radio broadcaster Bangladesh Betar, which, along with BTV, are both owned and operated by the government.
Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed was a Bangladeshi politician who served as a Member of Parliament and as the Minister of Social Welfare from 2001 to 2007. He was executed in 2015 for war crimes committed during the 1971 Liberation war of Bangladesh.
The Bangladesh Chhatra League, formerly known as the East Pakistan Student League, often simply called the Chhatra League, is a students' political organisation in Bangladesh, founded by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on 4 January 1948. BSL is the student wing of the Bangladesh Awami League.
The 21 August 2004 Dhaka grenade attack took place at an anti-terrorism rally organised by Awami League on Bangabandhu Avenue on 21 August 2004. The attack left 24 dead and more than 500 injured. The attack was carried out at 5:22 pm after Sheikh Hasina, the leader of opposition had finished addressing a crowd of 20,000 people from the back of a truck. Hasina also sustained some injuries in the attack. The involvement of BNP-Jamaat led government is still debated to this date.
Abul Maal Abdul Muhith was a Bangladeshi economist, writer, civil servant, secretary, diplomat and politician. He served as the finance minister of the government of Bangladesh from January 2009 until January 2019.
Old Dhaka is a term used to refer to the historic old city of Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. It was founded in 1608 as Jahangirabad or Jahangirnagar, the capital of Mughal Province of Bengal and named after the Mughal emperor Jahangir. It is located on the banks of the Buriganga River. It was one of the largest and most prosperous cities of the subcontinent and the center of the worldwide muslin trade. The then Nawab of Bengal Murshid Quli Khan shifted the capital from Dhaka to Murshidabad in the early-18th century. With the rise of Calcutta during the British rule, Dhaka began to decline and came to be known as the "City of Magnificent Ruins". The British however began to develop the modern city from the mid-19th century.
Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury was a Bangladeshi politician, war-criminal, minister and six-term member of Jatiya Sangsad and member of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) Standing Committee, who served as the adviser of parliamentary affairs to Prime Minister Khaleda Zia in from 2001 to 2006. On 1 October 2013 he was convicted of 9 of 23 charges and sentenced to death by the International Crimes Tribunal of Bangladesh for crimes during the 1971 Bangladesh War of Independence. He was executed by hanging from the gallows in Old Dhaka Central Jail on 22 November 2015.
Monowar Hossain Dipjol is a Bangladeshi actor, businessman, and politician. He is the current general secretary of the Bangladesh Film Artists' Association. He was born in 1958 at Bagbari, Mirpur, Dhaka, Bangladesh. As of 2007, he owned Dipjol Food industries.
Mohammad Mosaddak Ali, also known as Phalu, is a Bangladeshi entrepreneur and a politician who was a former parliamentarian from Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). He served as the political secretary to the Prime Minister of Bangladesh Begum Khaleda Zia between 2001 and 2004. He was responsible for building special relations and partnership for development between the government and the private sector that is interested in investing in new and highly potential industrial sectors, and introducing new products and services to local industries, at a time when Bangladesh's economic growth accelerated. In 2003, Ali launched Bangladesh's first automation-based private satellite television station NTV. He also founded another satellite channel RTV and Bengali daily newspaper Amar Desh. He is the founding President of Association of Television Channel Owners (ATCO).
Bangladesh Pratidin is a Bengali-language independent daily newspaper in Bangladesh. It was founded on 15 March 2010. Bangladesh Pratidin tops the list of highest circulated dailies in the country out of 345 newspapers published from Dhaka and elsewhere, the information minister told parliament 10 March 2014. Naem Nizam is the editor of Bangladesh Pratidin. Bangladesh Pratidin is a subsidiary of East West Media Group (EWMG), which is owned by Bashundhara Group. On behalf of EWMG, the publisher of the newspaper is Moynal Hossain Chowdhury.
Enforced disappearances in Bangladesh are cases in which the Government of Bangladesh directly or indirectly kidnaps people and holds them incommunicado. According to a Dhaka-based human rights group Odhikar, at least 402 people have become victim of enforced disappearance from 2009 to 2017 under the current Awami League administration. These incidents along with extrajudicial killings in Bangladesh has been criticized by The United Nations and human rights groups including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), a special paramilitary unit in Bangladesh, is alleged to be behind most of these disappearances even though RAB claimed these allegations to be false. The current Awami League government denies involvement in these forced disappearances even when victims later surface in custody.
Bangladesh Jail is a law enforcement agency responsible for the management and security of jails in Bangladesh and is located in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Inspector General of Prison Brigadier General ASM Anisul Haque is head of the force.
The Digital Security Act, 2018, amended as Cyber Security Act in 2023, is a digital security law in Bangladesh. This act was passed with the aim of preventing the spread of racism; sectarianism; extremism; terrorist propaganda; and hatred against religious or ethnic minorities through social media, print media or any other electronic media. Any content over the internet or any other media that was deemed pornographic or otherwise inappropriate by the government could be punished by fines or prison terms of various lengths. It is a controversial law and it was feared that the law could be used to suppress dissenters against the government due to some of its provisions that are vague and ambiguous, open to interpretation or prone to abuse. This law has been used to sue and arrest journalists, activists and also cyber criminals. It has been described as a "Draconian" law.
Mushtaq Ahmed, popularly known as Kumir Bhai, was a Bangladeshi dissident, writer, and entrepreneur. His pen name was Michael Kumir Thakur. He founded the first ever commercial Crocodile breeding farm in Bangladesh. His book Kumir Chashir Diary was published in 2018. He was working on another book. He was accused with 10 others of sharing cartoons in social media posts criticizing the Bangladeshi government's corrupt and mismanaged response to covid-19 pandemic and was detained in pre-trial for almost a year. On 25 February 2021 he died in jail, after being denied bail 6 times.
Mohammad Anwar Latif Khan is a Bangladesh Army Colonel and the Sector Commander of Border Guards Bangladesh in Rajshahi. He is the former Additional Director General (Operations) at the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) an elite multi-service unit of the Bangladesh Police and oversaw crackdowns on Islamist militants. He has been sanctioned by the United States for his activities in RAB. He had previously commanded RAB-5, RAB-7, and RAB-11.
Kashimpur Central Jail, also known as Kashimpur Prison or Kashimpur Jail, is a major high-security correctional facility located at Kashimpur union in the Gazipur district of Bangladesh. It is one of the largest and most well-known prisons in the country, as well as one of the biggest prisons in Asia.
