Mohammad Jamil Khan

Around 30,000 restaurants across the country were eagerly waiting for this year’s Pahela Baishakh, expecting that they would get booming sales. But none of them could have imagined what would happen in the coming days.

Vegetable farmers are incurring severe losses amid the countrywide shutdown that has been imposed to contain coronavirus spread.

Amid a supply shortage of imported fruits -- that reportedly meets 60 percent of the country’s demand, prices are rising in markets at the capital.

At a time when law enforcers are enforcing social distancing among people to prevent the spread of Covid-19, the agency is failing to apply the same for its own members.

Empty streets and people everywhere walking around in masks have made business owners in the capital weary, as a number of recent reports suggest that some criminals are looking at the countrywide shutdown as an opportunity.

When thousands of homebound people on March 24 thronged Airport Railway Station in Dhaka, sepoy Saddam Hossain of Railway Nirapatta Bahini (RNB) was given the responsibility to deter people from getting on the train roof.

The directorate of prisons has opened six division-wise isolation centers inside jails for inmates, to keep any potential coronavirus patient.

“Have you brought food for us?” This was what 10-year-old Sohana asked these correspondents at the beginning of this conversation at Kamalapur Railway Station on Sunday noon.

They were cooks by profession and had a reputation for cooking quite well.

Police yesterday arrested six people for “spreading rumours” and claimed to have kept over 100 social media accounts under surveillance for their involvement in spreading misleading information and rumours regarding the coronavirus outbreak.

The 10-day shutdown that has been imposed to prevent contagious spread of coronavirus induced a sleep-like quiescence on the streets of Dhaka. Both security guards and users of the ATM booths in the capital are feeling the pinch of such an unprecedented emptiness.

At least 30 beds for as many policemen are crammed into a dorm room of about 450sqft at Mohammadpur Police Camp in the capital.

Some police personnel resorted to excesses while restricting people’s movement and enforcing social distancing in some parts of the country yesterday.

Amid mounting concerns over the spread of coronavirus, police have so far been able to locate and ensure the quarantine of only 2.7 percent of the total number of returnees from different countries in the last three month.

Counterterrorism unit officials of police claim to have identified around a hundred social media accounts, whose users have allegedly showed interest in joining militancy or the war in Syria.

They used to target female subscribers of mobile banking and financial services.

The Department of Immigration and Passport (DIP) is going to launch e-passport service at 10 more regional passport offices this month to ensure easy availability of electronic passports.

Police’s Detective Branch (DB) have completed all necessary preparations to submit the charge sheet in the rape case of a Dhaka University (DU) student in the capital’s Kurmitola area, and they are expecting to submit it within this week.

In yet another case of gang culture in the capital, a youth lost his life while a teenager has been held on charge of the murder.

Nearly a decade after Md Sujon, a grille-shop owner in Sabujbagh, was murdered, the investigation into the case reveals that the crime was orchestrated by his ex-wife’s brothers and her lover for Sujon trying to stay in touch with her after divorce.