Dhaka, April 17
One of the detained sons of former Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia was released early today.

It was a part of a deal with the army-backed government that her family go into exile, newspapers reported.

But Zia ‘s rival Sheikh Hasina,who has been charged with murder and extortion,vowed to return home from the USA to contest what she called the ''false and fake cases'' against her.

Both of Khaleda's sons have been arrested since the interim government's crackdown on corruption began following the imposition of emergency law in the politically unstable country on January 11.

The younger son,businessman Arafat Rahman,was detained by army-led joint forces early yesterday following the arrest of her elder son and political heir apparent Tareque Rahman last month.

Leading English-language newspapers, the Daily Star and the New Age, reported that Arafat's release was part of a ''negotiated deal'' with the government under which Khaleda's family would go into exile.

''She will be leaving the country for Saudi Arabia in a couple of days.Initially, she will be leaving with a one-month visa to perform Umrah (a minor pilgrimage to Mecca) and her permanent residence there will be finalised upon reaching the kingdom of Saudi Arabia,'' the paper said, citing a senior government source.

''Everything has been finalised ... now only the formalities,including getting a visa,remain to be completed,'' the Star said, adding that the younger son would leave with his mother and the elder brother would follow later.

Government officials and leaders of Khaleda's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) were not available for comment.

Khaleda, who has been under virtual confinement at her home for more than a week, ended a five-year term as Prime Minister in October last year,handing power to a pre-election interim authority. — Reuters

Multan, April 17
Four brothers were hanged in eastern Punjab today for murder.

They had murdered their own relatives eight years ago over a land dispute, the police said.

The men--Khuda Bukhsh,Mohammad Akram, Mohammad Iqbal and Mohammad Asghar-- were executed at the Multan central prison,police officer Afsar Khan said.

He said the brothers along with their father had slaughtered 13 of their relatives, including women, over a land dispute near Multan in 1999.A court sentenced the four a year later but the father died in custody before the conviction.

''All of their appeals were rejected as there was solid evidence against them and also nobody left in the deceased family to pardon them,'' Khan said.

Under Islamic law,Pakistani courts can set aside the death penalty if the heirs of a deceased person pardon a murderer.

A leading human rights group in Pakistan has reported that more than 7,000 people are still on death row in the Muslim country and more than 50 were executed in the first half of 2006.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said in its most recent report that most of the death sentences were carried out in Punjab, the country's most populous province, where some 6,985 prisoners are on death row. — Reuters

Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has received no support from the White House for her bid to return to Pakistan,while in the US Congress, interest in the matter has been barely lukewarm.

Despite waging wars in Afghanistan and Iraq with the intended goal of spreading democracy,President George W. Bush's administration appears to have no interest in supporting the return of exiled democrats to Pakistan, which is currently ruled by a military dictatorship.

Sherry Rehman, president of central policy planning in Ms Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP),told a gathering in Washington on Monday that her party was "getting feelers" from American Congressional delegations,but that was it.

Ms Rehman said one of the main problems in the U.S.-Pakistan relationship was Washington's preference to invest in militarydictatorships.

Criticising what she called a "one-window transaction",she said "U.S.security goals are seen as a tradeoff with democracy.The U.S. engagement has been too self-serving."

Noting a doubling of U.S. aid for Gen Musharraf's regime in comparison to similar assistance for democratic governments in Pakistan,Ms Rehman said "policy-makers need to ask: Are we ignoring the state of the swamp we need to drain?"

She denied Ms Bhutto was cutting any deal with Gen Musharraf in order to return to Pakistan,but said the party was "open to dialogue."

The PPP in January signed Washington-based lobbying firm Burson-Marsteller on a $28,500-a-month contract through the end of June to assist its efforts to foster U.S. support for "free elections" in Pakistan.

Four U.S. senators - Patrick J. Leahy, Joseph R. Biden Jr, Blanche L. Lincoln and John F. Kerry - shot off a letter to Gen Pervez Musharraf in March urging him to allow "all legitimate parties and candidates to contest the elections, including the senior leadership of the Pakistan Peoples Party and the Pakistan Muslim League."

The government and Amnesty International have been locked in a war of words in recent weeks after Amnesty decided to take its growing concerns regarding human rights violations in Sri Lanka to the venue of the cricket world cup in the West Indies.

The issue has angered the government which says Amnesty is exaggerating the instances of violations and in the latest turn of events the government has refused visas to two members of the rights group to visit the country to carry out an assessment.

The Amnesty officials had approached the Sri Lankan High Commission in London for their visas but,the Mission acting on the instructions from Colombo had rejected their applications.

The government says the reason to reject the visas was taken after perusing recent activties involving the human rights group which Sri Lanka sees as prejudicial to her interests and exposes the bias shown by Amnesty International.

Amnesty launched the "Play by the Rules" campaign to coincide with Cricket World Cup to focus on Sri Lanka's human rights violations which called on the government, the Tamil Tigers as well as other militant groups in Sri Lanka to take steps to prevent civilians caught between as violence intensifies.

In the wake of the campaign,the Sri Lanka government protested to the International cricket Council (ICC) as well as Amnesty International,saying the timing might undermine the morale of the Sri Lanka team playing in Super 8 round currently in the Caribbean.

A group of activists, affiliated to the Janatantrik Terai Mukti Morcha (JTMM), led by Jaya Krishna Gohit, the breakaway faction of former Maoist rebels, killed an official at district education office in Bara district on Tuesday morning following his abduction.

According to eyewitnesses, a group of 10 armed JTMM activists abducted Bashudev Poudel (50), instructor of the Primary Teachers Training Centre (PTTC) in Gangapur, on Monday evening and shot to death.

His body was found in a wheat field at Bajnariya VDC, a kilometre west from the PTTC, this morning.

Locals informed the police of Poudel's death, after discovering his body in the fields. His hands were tied behind him and there was a bullet hole in his head. The Goit faction today owned the responsibility for the killing over a telephone call made from an unidentified location.

The district police recovered a spent bullet shell belonging to a 7.62 SLR.

In an another accident, armed activists of the JTMM, led by another former rebel Jwala Singh, launched a surprise attack at the Chetnagar police station in Rautahat, Dumriya-7 early this morning.