Almost every time any government agency tried to ensure accountability and transparency of the duty-free liquor trade, it found itself in a legal limbo. Over the last two decades, diplomatic bonded warehouses, who import duty-free liquor for diplomats and foreigners, filed writ after writ with the High Court challenging the legality of the government action.

Officially, most bars and social clubs neither import nor purchase alcohol yet they log huge sales; restrictive law, high import tariff, bureaucratic nightmare encouraging smuggling; govt loses big, earning almost nothing out of this trade.

“Oh my God! Incredulous!” was the expression of a banking expert as he leafed through the Bangladesh Bank probe report. Page after page of it explains in painstaking details how a Bangladeshi business entity allegedly skimmed at least Tk 765 crore in the name of exports from the state-owned Janata Bank and the BB from January 2017 to February this year.

It's now a national crisis. The influx of deadly yaba appears to have gone beyond control despite efforts by law enforcement agencies to contain it.

Millions are now addicted to the pink pills. They take it as stimulant and end up with organ damage and mental derangement. The Daily Star has prepared a three-part series on the invasion of yaba and is running the third part today.

It was like wooing customers to have kebab and biriyani at popular Bihari restaurants. Only a few steps into the Camper Bazar, youths in small groups were looking for potential customers, holding packets full of pink tablets.

It's called crazy medicine. Produced in Myanmar, the dangerous drug very easily crosses the border and reaches cities, towns and villages of Bangladesh through various channels -- sometimes in full knowledge of law enforcers. It now seems unstoppable and is poised to cripple the country's biggest hope -- the youth.

The figures are alarming. Every year, an estimated Tk 6,000 crore worth of yaba is sold in the country, which would come to 30 crore pieces of the drug. It is a back-of-the-envelope calculation. Last year, 40 million pills were seized by different agencies, which according to standard calculation is about 10 percent of the total drug that got into the market.

Every time he extends his hands to seek alms, Sohrab Hossain, 63, looks embarrassed. Begging has never been his livelihood; it is now.

A woman allegedly committed suicide by hanging herself from a ceiling fan in her Boubazar house of Chittagong city yesterday morning.

At least 10 human skulls and some broken bones were recovered while construction workers were digging a land at Shah Doula Degree

Police recovered seven body parts of an unidentified woman, aged around 30, near the Dhaka-Tangail Highway at Baipail in Ashulia,

It started with individuals. Then shrines, mosques and temples started to become their targets while the attacks on secular and religious individuals continues.

Detectives yesterday submitted the final report in the case over sexual assault on women during this year's Pahela Baishakh celebrations, saying none of the culprits could be identified or arrested.

A Sylhet court yesterday again deferred the recording of testimonies of witnesses to January 6 in former finance

Detectives submit the final report in Pahela Baishakh sexual harassment case saying the incident took place but none of the offenders could be identified or arrested.

Police detain a rickshaw puller who was carrying a headless body stuffed in a luggage in Basabo area of Dhaka.

The body of journalist Awrangjeb Sajib, who had been missing since Sunday, was found floating in the Dhaleshwari river in Munshiganj sadar upazila yesterday afternoon.

An indigenous woman allegedly committed suicide after killing her nine-month-old daughter following a quarrel with her husband in Bhujpur of Fatikchhari upazila in Chittagong on Sunday night.

A journalist remains missing for two days after he left his duty station at Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) on Sunday, said his family and colleagues.