M Jahirul Islam Jewel

Once flowing Rajapur canal in Jhalakathi is nearly dead now, thanks to the mindless encroachment and pollution by locals on both sides of the waterbody.

MV Dudu Mia-1, a clinker-loaded cargo vessel, sank in the Kirtonkhola river in Barishal on December 14 after a head-on collision with a passenger launch. It has not been salvaged yet.

The hapless people of the remote island of Dhalchar union, 35 kilometres from Kossopia on the mainland, have found an innovative way of facing cyclones -- they go deep into the mangrove forest and hold trees to hang on for saving life.

When students of their age usually spend their weekend playing games or hanging out with friends or family, twelve students in Barguna town made it their mission to use their spare time to bring colour in people’s lives.

One month into the attacks on law enforcers, houses of Hindus and a temple in Bhola’s Borhanuddin upazila, police are yet to identify the masterminds behind those or the “hackers” who broke into the Facebook page of Biplob Chandra Baidya.

Jewel and his two siblings were waiting for his fisherman father who promised to return home with new dresses, but they only received their father’s body yesterday morning.

The video starts with one Hasan beating an elderly man -- whose hands and legs are tied and who is visibily unconscious -- with a wooden stick. Shouts can be heard off camera, which then pans to the victim’s around 12-year-old daughter, who tries to come to her father’s aid. “Younger women than you have been raped,” Hasan says to her. At this, she backs away.

A number of religious leaders, including imams, in Bhola had broken their promise to the local administration of taking all necessary steps to postpone the fateful October 20 rally.

Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan yesterday told the BBC that they were yet to identify the person who had hacked the Facebook ID of Biplob Chandra Baidya, but Facebook authorities had given the Bangladesh government some idea, not any concrete information about the hacker.

Fearing further attacks, most of the Hindu families in Bhola, have stopped sending their children to schools and restricted their business operations, said the community leaders.

Sattya Prashad Das spent his whole life teaching religious education and humanity to his students, irrespective of religions and caste in his locality in Bhola’s Borhanuddin upazila.

The first phone call which awoke Biplop Chandra Baddya on Friday, right after lunch, may have been the most life-changing one he had ever received.

For two days, hate speech was spreading via Facebook messenger and the local administration and police failed to grasp the gravity of the situation and act accordingly, locals of Bhola’s Borhanuddin upazila said.

Fishermen of Dhal Char in Charfashion under Bhola are often deprived of fair prices as they have to sell the perishable item in a hurry to middlemen due to lack of preservation facilities.

Frequent movement of unauthorised vessels, hidden islands and narrow channel have made around 50 kilometres of Dhaka-Barishal naval route extremely risky.

More than 43 percent of doctor posts are vacant at Sher-e-Bangla Medical College Hospital (SBMCH) in Barishal for a long time, depriving patients of required healthcare due to shortage of physicians.

A number of accused in the Rifat murder case yesterday vented their frustration inside and outside the courtroom, asking why local Awami League lawmaker’s son Sunam Debnath was not named in the case.

Dengue patients are facing acute shortage of beds at Sher-e-Bangla Medical College Hospital (SBMCH) in Barishal.

There has been a shortage of pontoon at Barishal launch terminal for a long time, causing sufferings to passengers in boarding

Eighteen days after Rifat Sharif was murdered in Barguna, a human chain was formed in the town to press for the arrest and punishment of his wife Aysha Siddiqa Minni.