A Faridpur court on Thursday sentenced a man to life term imprisonment for violating a mentally ill house wife last year. Another court in Sylhet jailed a man for life for abducting a minor girl and forcibly married her.
   Judge of the Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal Mohammad Nurul Haque handed the verdict after examining documents and cross-check witnesses.
   The court also fined him Tk 10,000, in default, to suffer another 6 months more in jail.
   The convict is Labu Kha, 22, of village Kajlashur under Alfadanga upazila of the district.
   According to the prosecution, Labu raped a mentally ill woman of the village when she came out of her house at night to go to toilet on February 2, 2007.
   The police also submitted charge sheet against him after investigation. An United News of Bangladesh report adds: A court in Sylhet on the same day sentenced a man to 14 years of rigorous imprisonment for abducting and forcibly marrying a minor girl.
   The court also fined the convict Manik Miah, 28, of Major Tila in the district headquarters Tk 10,000, in default, to suffer six months more in jail.
   According to the prosecution, Manik abducted the daughter of Abul Kalam from Shahparan area, on the outskirts of the city, on June 24, 2000 and forcibly married her.
   The police arrested Manik Miah on June 28, 2000 after Abdul Kalam filed a case against him.
   After examining the records and witnesses, judge of the Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal AKM Nasiruddin handed down the verdict.

In demand of irrigation water hundreds of farmers from surrounding areas around Dinajpur canal through Nilphamari district headquarters under Teesta Irrigation Project besieged the office of Bangladesh Water Development Board on Wednesday.
   Farmers hailing from villages of Itakhola, Ramnagar, Panchapukur unions under district headquarters said as there were no branch canals or outlets so they were to irrigate their agricultural fields by plastic water pipe from the water of Dinajpur canal of Teesta irrigation project for years which is flowing across their agricultural fields.
   They alleged the authority of BWDB collected money from farmers against such water
   supply.
   But recently the authority had imposed embargo against lifting water from their canals in this way. Besides, BWDB is not giving permission to install any machine run water pump surrounding canal area, so farmers are not getting irrigation water for their crops, they said.
   BWDB office sources said they had constructed Rangpur, Bogra and Dinajpur canal including main canal of country’s largest Teesta irrigation project to give supplementary irrigation during rainy season. Nevertheless every year farmers get irrigation water from the canal during dry season.
   Sources further said even though in the running Irri-boro season about 60,000 hectors of agricultural land are getting irrigation from their project.
   The sub-divisional engineer also the in charge of Executive Engineer of BWDB of Nilphamari Mahfuzur Rahman said there is no provision to have water from BWDB canal through siphonic system by installing plastic pipe as there is no infrastructure facilities to get water from Dundibari point of Jaldhaka to Fatehpur point of district headquarters long Dinajpur canal so about 5 thousand hectors of agricultural land are not getting irrigation.

Elephant band running wild is creating havoc in Cox’s Bazar and Bandarban districts. In three months, they took a toll of life of 15 persons.
   Two persons were killed by wild elephants in Cox’s Bazar and Bandarban just recently.
   In Bandarban, a wild elephant stamped on a farmer to death on Wednesday. The deceased was Fazal Kader, 35, of Tumbro under Naikkhongchhari upazila.
   The police said a wild elephant had entered the farm house of Fazal and damaged trees and winter vegetables.
   Fazal tried to resist the elephant while it stamped on him to death on the spot.
   In another incident, Jalal Ahmed, resident of village Badhitola under Ramu upazila was killed by a group of wild elephants on Thursday.
   Locals said elephants had attacked him while he was cutting wood in the forest area.