S Dilip Roy

Farmers of Lalmonirhat Sadar upazila and Kurigram’s Chilmari upazila are worried about their future.

Rabiul fell to the ground and lost consciousness after a policeman kicked him in the crotch around 10:00pm on Thursday night, said a man who claimed to be among those standing close to the scene.

Freedom fighter Abdur Rahman said that the construction of the house will destroy the sanctity of the place. 

“We were tied together with a few other locals and beaten mercilessly," said Parvez. "Right before our eyes, some were tortured and suffocated to death by the Pakistan army supporters and their bodies were dumped in an abandoned hole next to the high school," he said.

Boro paddy on more than 100 bighas of land has remained submerged for several days in Aditmari upazila of Lalmonirhat district due to obstruction of drainage through a canal.

For five hours yesterday, a no mans’ land in Lalmonirhat was transformed into a witness of bittersweet, short-lived reunions.

While some farmers say that potato yields were low this year, most of them argue the opposite as they got the same output as they had in previous years.

Over Tk 23 crore was spent only last year to excavate a 65-kilometre stretch of rivers and canals in five upazilas of Lalmonirhat. But most of the excavated earth, piled up on its side, has already made it back to the rivers and canals obstructing water flows.

The long-running problem of drying and processing tobacco leaves on two school grounds in Lalmonirhat came to an end after a report was published in The Daily Star on Monday.

Cotton growers in the Rangpur region are elated thanks to the increase in the price of the key textile raw material buoyed by rising demand, which is expected to encourage the farmers to expand acreage by manifold in the coming years.

More than 500 students and teachers of two government schools have been suffering immensely as local farmers dry and process tobacco leaves on their campus premises in Lalmonirhat’s Aditmari upazila.

Just a few days ago, Zainal Mia (47), a farmer from Lalmonirhat’s Teesta-par, and his family were living in extreme poverty.

The Burimari land port has long been suffering from space shortage and traffic congestion, preventing businesses from Bangladesh from elevating trade with India, Bhutan and Nepal as its capacity has not expanded in line with rising commerce.

Farmers in char areas of Brahmaputra river in Chilmari upazila are spending Tk 83 for a litre diesel to irrigate their boro land instead of the government-fixed rate of Tk 80 enjoyed by mainland farmers.

Last year most farmers of Rangpur had no option but with a heavy heart let tomatoes rot in the fields as prices they were selling for were far from recouping labour and transportation costs.

Samiul Islam, a resident of Fulgachh village in Lalmonirhat sadar upazila, began his journey as a sole proprietorship several years ago by peddling sanitary products to low-income households in the area.

Around 20,000 farmers in Lalmonirhat and Kurigram who cultivated cauliflower and cabbage have been left pleasantly surprised by unexpected profits this year following significant losses in 2021, when nationwide lockdowns were imposed to curb the spread of Covid-19.

Aklima Begum, 22, wife of farmer Mohor Ali of remote char ‘Karai Barisal’ in Chilmari upazila of Kurigram, gave birth to her first child four years ago suffering from various complications.

Although horse-drawn carts are a thing of the past in most parts of the world, these outdated buggies still facilitate movement across 450 char areas in Kurigram and Lalmonirhat.

The biggest peanut market in Rangpur is almost never found on the same spot two years in a row due to the changing waters of Brahmaputra river in Chilmari upazila of Kurigram.