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To: Sawtooth who wrote (105564)	9/26/2001 10:11:48 AM
From: Jon Koplik	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 152472

AP News -- Cellulars Banned for Bangladesh Vote September 26, 2001 Cellulars Banned for Bangladesh Vote By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Filed at 6:56 a.m. ET DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) -- The government has a new target in its campaign to prevent violence on election day: Cell phones. The ban on Bangladesh's 547,000 mobile phones on Oct. 1, when the nation elects a new Parliament, is intended to prevent troublemakers from organizing riots or tipping each other off to flee authorities. ``Cell phones will be out of business for 24 hours on the day of the election,'' chief government spokesman Harunur Rashid told The Associated Press on Wednesday. The country's four cellular phone service providers have been ordered to shut down their networks for 24 hours beginning at 6 a.m. Oct. 1, Rashid said. The move is the latest in the interim administration's efforts to quell violence in this Muslim-majority country's quest for democracy. The caretaker government overseeing the polls replaced Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina after she finished a five-year term July 15. Violence in the election campaign has killed more than 100 people and injured nearly 3,000. The administration has taken other unusual steps, such as asking police to search fish ponds where illegal weapons wrapped in waterproof plastic bags are often hidden. The search yielded no firearms, but some decomposing bodies have been found. The caretaker government also has ordered holders of licensed weapons to deposit them by Monday. Out of 300,000 weapons, only about 6,200 have been surrendered. The violence is blamed on the bitterness between the country's two most powerful politicians, Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia, one of whom is expected to become prime minister. ``The two women of the two top political parties hate each other and that hatred gets reflected among their cadres' behavior,'' said Sirajul Islam Chowdhury, a political analyst and professor of history. Chowdhury also attributed the unrest to high unemployment among youths in the world's most densely populated country: 130 million people are packed into a nation the size of Ireland. Hasina is the daughter of Bangladesh's slain independence leader and first president, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, while Zia is the widow of another assassinated general-turned-president, Ziaur Rahman. In the past two months, police detained nearly 130,000 suspects in a crackdown against illegal holders of weapons. But courts freed most of them on bail for lack of evidence. This weekend, the caretaker administration deployed 57,000 troops to help build confidence among voters. About 75 million Bangladeshis are eligible to cast ballots in 33,000 polling centers across the country. Copyright 2001 The Associated Press