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Cultivation of boro on about one lakh hectares of land in three northern districts under the Teesta Irrigation Project has become uncertain following the suspension of the supply of water by the Water Development Board.
   The WDB has suspended the supply of water after onrush of water through the breaches of the right embankment of the main irrigation canal under the project submerged several hundred acres of land at least six villages under Jaldhaka and Dimla upazilas on Wednesday.
   If the breaches at the right embankment stretching about 100 feet in length can not be repaired immediately, the WDB will continue to stop the supply of irrigation water to one lakh hectares of Irri-boro land in the command area of the irrigation project in Rangpur, Dinajpur and Nilphamari, local source said.
   The WDB is desperately trying to repair the breaches.
   Controversy is raging on how the breaches occurred at the right embankment.
   The WDB officials said the embankment suffered damages when some people of the area cut it to install plastic pipes for stealing water from the canal for the irrigation of their lands.
   Refuting the allegation of the WDB, some local people claimed that the embankment development holes and breaches as it was built with sub-standard raw materials. Sand was mainly used instead of earth at the time of its construction, they maintained.
   They also pointed out that breaches often developed here and there at the embankment due to its weak foundation.

A housewife sustained burn injury as miscreants threw acid on her at her residence at Nayabati in the Bagerhat town on Wednesday night.
   The police and locals said a group of four to five miscreants suddenly threw acid on Parveen, wife of Ali Hayder, at around 10:30pm and fled away. Her upper part of the body was seriously burnt.
   The locals rescued her and admitted to Bagerhat Sadar Hospital.
   The police, quoting locals, said the miscreants might throw acid on her following rivalry over a piece of land.
   Her husband lodged a case with the Bagerhat sadar police on Thursday accusing three persons and two other unidentified miscreants.
   The police could not arrest anyone in this connection till filing of the report on Thursday evening.

A squad of the Rapid Action Battalion arrested eight suspected members of a fertiliser smuggling racket during their separate drives at Chakoria and Ramu upazilas of Cox’s Bazar early Thursday.
   The RAB members also seized 296 bags of urea fertiliser and three fertiliser laden trucks in this connection. The arrested smugglers include fertiliser dealer and retail traders, a RAB news release said.
   The arrested smugglers could not produce any legal document of the seized fertiliser but told the law enforcers that they had procured the fertiliser from the government owned Chittagong Urea Fertiliser Factory Ltd for selling in the local market.
   ‘But they were trying to smuggle the fertiliser out to Myanmar,’ RAB sources told the news agency.

Triennial council of the Lalmonirhat Awami League will be held at district conference room today nine years after its last council.
   The AL general secretary, Abdul Jalil, will inaugurate the programme and presidium member of the party Tofayel Ahamed will present as chief guest. Among others, Asaduzzaman Noor MP will address the council.
   Two panels — one led by Motahar Hossain and Advocate Motiyar Rahman and the other led by Abul Hossain and Nazrul Haque Patwary Bhola — are in the race to win in the council.
   Meanwhile, district administration sources said security was beefed up for the smooth arrangement of the council.
   There are 145 councilors in five upazilas and two municipalities in the district AL.

A rickshaw puller was stabbed to death by his rivals at village Pantapara under Birganj upazila in Dinajpur on Wednesday night.
   The dead is Abdul Hakim, son of late Monjur Ali of the village.
   Family sources said co-villagers Nur Islam and Hanif called Hakim out of his house on the night and stabbed him indiscriminately taking to a nearby maize field.
   The police recovered the body on Thursday morning.
   The wife of the deceased claimed that her husband was killed by the assailants at the behest of an influential man following a land dispute with him.
   A case was filed with the police in this connection.

The Workers Party general secretary, Bimal Biswas, on Thursday expressed dissatisfaction over the alliance government’s ‘failure’ to supply diesel and fertilisers during IRRI-boro season.
   While addressing a protest rally at Kharbaria Bazar under Kalia upazila in Narail on Thursday Bimal called
   upon the people to make the UNO office lay-siege programme, announced by Jatiya Krishak Samity and the Khetmojur Union on March 1, a success.
   Chaired by party’s Narail district secretary Nazrul Islam, the rally was addressed, among others, by party leaders Hafizur Rahman, Iqbal Kabir Zahid and Mahmud Hasan.