At least 200 houses were burnt in a fire that broke out at Mymensinghpara slum adjacent to local public health engineering office in the Rangamati town on Friday night.
   The fire originated from the oven of a slum dwelling, said sources in local fire brigade.
   Fire-fighters and personnel of security forces with the help of locals doused the fire at about 1:45am on Saturday after five hours of effort.
   The army in Rangamati distributed cooked food among about 1,000 fire victims on Saturday morning as the fire destroyed all the belongings of the slum dwellers.
   The extent of damage caused by the fire was initially estimated at about Tk 2 crore, station officer of local fire brigade said.
   Earlier in the afternoon, 12 houses including office of the sub-divisional engineer and section officer of the roads and highways department at Reserve Bazar in the town were burnt in a fire.
   Fire brigade personnel with the help of local people extinguished the fire after about a two-hour effort, said fire brigade sources said.
   Office furniture, records and contractors’ work measurement books were burnt in the fire which were kept in the tin-shed houses of the roads and highways department, said Bipul Chandra Saha, executive engineer of the Rangamati RHD.
   The extent of damage caused by the fire, reportedly originated from an adjacent house, was estimated at about Tk 15 lakh, Bipul said.
   On April 18, five houses were burnt in a fire at a slum besides the Rangamati Government Women’s College.

Two suspected killers were rounded up by local people when they were fleeing away with a snatched motor cycle after killing its owner early Friday at Amtali upazila in Barguna.
   Abdur Razzak, officer-in-charge of the Taltali police station under Amtali and local sources said Mahbub, 20, and Shahid, 18, of Kanthalia in Pirojpur rented a motorcycle used in carrying passengers on Taltali-Barguna route at about 8:00pm on Thursday.
   The two youths hacked Md Panu, owner-cum-driver of the motorcycle, to death at Dayalvanga of Pachakoralia union in the Taltali area at about 11:00pm.
   Afterwards, the killers were trying to cross the River Purakatha in a trawler. But seeing the blood strained motorcycle, the trawler driver and local people challenged them and handed them over to the police at about 2:00am on Friday.
   According to the confession of the killers, the police recovered the body of Panu on Friday morning and sent it to hospital morgue for post-mortem examination.
   Father of the victim lodged a murder case against the two killers with the Taltali police.

Draught like situation caused a bad harvest of chilli this season in Nilphamari but the farmers are getting higher prices than the previous year due to the increasing demand of the spice all over the country.
   Some Nilphamari farmers said the chilli production was very well in the last season, but that time the farmers were badly affected due to low price in the market.
   This year the farmers produced chilli in 2,250 hectares of land, which was 120 hectares less than the target.
   Lutfor Rahman, a farmer of Dangarhat under Dimla upazila told the news agency that this year frustrated farmers reduced chilli cultivation considering last year’s low price.
   Fortunately the farmers received high price this year even the production of Chilli was hampered due to drought like situation, added he.
   He said the farmers could bag with a reduced amount of one and a half tonnes of chilli in per hectare of land during the current season.
   Sources in the local Department of Agriculture Extension said only 84 millimetres of rain were recorded in the last four months.
   The farmers become happy this year for getting Tk 500 to 600 per maund (1 maund equals to 37.5 kg) of chilli.
   The chilli productions of Nilphamari especially from Domar and Dimla upazilas are fulfilling the major demand of the country, said local sources.
   Green chilli, a good source of Vitamin C, is a popular spice. At present, it is supplied to different parts of the country including Dhaka, Chittagong, Khulna, Rajshahi and Bogra from 10 to 12 bazaars of the two upazilas.