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Fifteen army officers, both serving and retired, against whom arrest warrants were issued for alleged involvement in "disappearances and crimes against humanity" during Sheikh Hasina's tenure, have been taken into military custody."15 former and current army officers accused of crimes against humanity have been taken into military custody," Major General Md Hakimuzzaman, Adjutant General of the Bangladesh Army, told reporters on Saturday.He added that the Bangladesh Army would "fully support" the ongoing legal process.Earlier, on October 8, Bangladesh's International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) issued warrants against 30 accused, including former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, in two separate cases related to crimes against humanity committed through enforced disappearances during the Awami League regime.The ICT ordered that the accused be arrested and produced in court by October 22. The three-member bench of the tribunal, led by Justice Md Golam Mortuza Majumder, passed the order on Wednesday.Apart from Hasina, arrest warrants were also issued against former Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan, retired Major General Tariq Ahmed Siddique, who served as the former Prime Minister's defence adviser, and former police chief Benzir Ahmed. Twenty-seven of the remaining defendants are former or serving army officers.The prosecution filed two formal complaints of enforced disappearance with the ICT. Chief Prosecutor Mohammad Tajul Islam presented both complaints to the tribunal and sought the issuance of arrest warrants, which were subsequently granted.In one case, 17 people, including Hasina and her adviser Tariq Ahmed Siddique, have been charged with abducting opposition activists and detaining them at the secret Taskforce for Interrogation (TFI) cell, allegedly operated by the Rapid Action Battalion, where victims were reportedly tortured.The prosecution has brought five charges of crimes against humanity in this case.In the second case, Sheikh Hasina, Tariq Siddique, and 11 others have been charged with detaining victims at the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence's (DGFI) Joint Interrogation Cell (JIC) and torturing them.This case also includes five charges of crimes against humanity and names five former DGFI directors general among the accused.

New Delhi: Artificial intelligence will make telecom networks self-healing and improve customer services, telecom secretary Neeraj Mittal said on Saturday. Speaking at the India Mobile Congress 2025, Mittal said that the government is trying to keep up pace with the fast-evolving technological landscape and come up with the organised response as a country along with ITU (International Telecommunication Union) to see the manner in which AI and telecom developments can be harmonised for good. "As we move from 5G to 6G, There is a tremendous role for AI to improve the intelligence in the networks, make them self-healing, move from generative AI to agentic AI, where both in the front end, deep in the network, and in the middle part of the network, there will be a lot of functions which AI will replace, make the customer service better," Mittal said. According to telecom industry players, 6G trials are expected to start in 2028 and commercial deployment will take some more time. Mittal said while AI is being used for good, there is also risk associated with AI for its bad usage and hence there is need to remain vigilant about the use of technology. "I look after telecoms in the Government of India. We are able to see how artificial intelligence aided tools are leading to deep fakes, they are leading to cloning of voice, leading to financial fraud, bypassing voice signatures, bypassing even videos to establish identities and therefore we have to be very vigilant about what the telecom network will look like with artificial intelligence," Mittal said. The Department of Telecom has developed an AI-based fraud risk indicator tool using which payments app PhonePe and Paytm have claimed to protect citizens from fraud worth Rs 200 crore and blocked more than 48 lakh suspicious transactions. "We feel that the AI for good, the foundational pillars of innovation, skills capacity building, governance and standards should lead to trusted, impactful and accessible solutions for everybody. India is advancing the AI for good vision to a USD 1 .25 billion India AI mission by investing in research, startups, and scaling to advance the goals of a secure and inclusive AI ecosystem," Mittal said. He said that India continues to shape the AI fairness and governance agenda through leadership at the World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly (WTSA-24) and contributions to the ITU's AI standardisation framework.