Farmers attack Nachole UNO office for fertilizer

FE Team | Published: July 05, 2007 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

CHAPAINAWABGANJ, July 04 (UNB/bdnews24.com): Angered by short supply of fertiliser, several thousand farmers attacked the UNO office of Nachole on Wednesday, leaving at least five people wounded, including the Upazila Nirbahi Officer (UNO).
Local sources said the upazila administration gave an announcement in Nachole on Tuesday evening through miking that farmers would be distributed fertiliser Wednesday. Farmers thronged the UNO office premises at about 10am to collect slip for fertiliser under a newly introduced rationing system.
The crowd got agitated when they found that the administration was giving chits to the farmers for distributing one bag of fertiliser to every three of them.
They requested the UNO, Manjur Morshed, to give one bag of fertilizer to two of them at least. Following their request, deputy assistant agriculture officer Saidur Rahman also urged the UNO to consider their demand, "but the UNO slapped the officer in front of the farmers", says a spot account of the incident given by the sources.
At that, the farmers went berserk and attacked and ransacked the UNO office. The unruly mob also set fire to valuable papers and documents in the office amid the raging violence.
They smashed windows, doors and other furniture at the UNO office and set fire to many official documents.
Witnesses said about 3,000 farmers gathered Wednesday morning on the premises of the UNO office to collect tokens for fertiliser.
Additional police reached the scene immediately after the violence spread but they failed to restore order. Troops from a nearby camp were dispatched to finally bring the situation under control.
Five people, including UNO Manjur Morshed, upazila Agriculture officer Abul Kalam Azad and Agriculture monitoring officer Asaduzzaman, were injured during the melee.
Of the injured, Asaduzzaman was admitted to Nachole Upazila Health Complex.