River police in Itna, Kishoreganj, have seized an engine boat carrying 108 bags of BADC diammonium phosphate (DAP) fertiliser being smuggled at Elongjuri bazar ghat around 10pm on Friday. The 50-kilogram bags held 5,400 kilograms in all. Inspector Jamal Hossain of the Dhanpur river police outpost said the smugglers fled before the raid after learning of it.
The Kishoreganj haor is the district’s main boro rice area. Land is now being prepared for boro, a stage at which DAP and other non-urea fertilisers are applied, so demand in the haor is high. Farmers say dealers do not have enough fertiliser, and smugglers are bringing it in from elsewhere and selling it above the government price.
Habibur Rahman and other farmers in Elongjuri said dealer supplies are not reaching the area in the quantities needed, so they are forced to buy smuggled fertiliser, paying Tk 100-200 extra for a Tk 1,550 bag of DAP. Local people said Abdul Mannan, the dealer for Badla union, also serves Elongjuri and Joysiddhi, but little of what he lifts reaches Elongjuri. He could not be reached for comment.
The boat’s owner and boatman, Iqbal Mia, said three traders from Elongjuri bazar hired the boat for Tk 3,000 to bring 250 bags from Mithamoin. The fertiliser had been brought from Bhairab in a larger boat; 142 bags were unloaded before the raid and the remaining 108 were seized.
Itna upazila agriculture officer Bijoy Kumar Halder said the seized fertiliser belonged to smugglers, not to the dealer. Two new dealers have been appointed for Elongjuri and Joysiddhi unions, so from December Abdul Mannan will no longer receive allocations for them.
The river police said the fertiliser is in their custody. The upazila executive officer and agriculture officer were to visit the site on Sunday, and a decision on filing a case will follow their advice.
Photo: Frameofashik / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Source: Samakal
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