A video showing a dealer's fertiliser being moved from one place to another in Gurudaspur, Natore, has spread on Facebook and stirred anger over alleged smuggling. The footage, circulated on Wednesday, shows several sacks loaded on a shallow-engine 'bhotbhoti' cart heading towards Tarash in neighbouring Sirajganj. Dealer Giyas Uddin Pramanik denies any smuggling.

Voices in the video mention 40 sacks and a destination of Sabujpara in Tarash; the cart driver can be heard naming Giyas Uddin.

The dealer says the video dates from 11 September. Two farmers from Ranigram in Mashinda union, Shahidul and Rashidul, bought eight sacks each — 16 in all — at the fixed price, with receipts and their names entered in the register, he says. On the way, a local man named Ranga Molla stopped the cart and demanded Tk 20,000; when that was refused, and a later demand for Tk 10,000 too, the 'smuggling drama' was staged and the video released.

Ranga Molla rejects the extortion allegation. Fertiliser was being smuggled through the dealer into Tarash upazila, he says, and the dealer is accusing him only because he stopped it. The claim that the sacks were sold to two farmers is untrue, he adds.

K M Rafiul Islam, the Gurudaspur upazila agriculture officer, has promised an investigation and said action would follow under the law if the allegation is substantiated. Seven mobile courts have been run on fertiliser matters in the upazila this season, he said, and the upazila has no shortage.

The episode — subsidised fertiliser allegedly crossing an upazila boundary — surfaces amid a wider debate over supply in several districts, with the agriculture ministry insisting there is no national shortfall, only problems in distribution.

Source: Prothom Alo