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Several hundreds people are still suffering from arsenicosis in different areas of Jhenaidah.
   Even various types of awareness programmes could not eradicate the menace from the district.
   Use of arsenic contaminated water and inadequate awareness campaign are mainly responsible for the situation, said some of the affected people.
   The local people use contaminated water from tube wells and other sources.
   The deadly effect of arsenic was widely visible in the areas in 1980s with development of rashes on the bodies of the affected people.
   The affected people developed sores on the back, hands, chest and other parts of their bodies.
   Most of the affected, who are unfamiliar with the symptoms earlier, thought of the situation as a ‘curse’.
   Initially, they saw quacks and fakirs to get relief from its pains.
   The Public Health Engineering Department, with the assistance of UNICEF and the NGO Forum for Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation and Asia Arsenic Network came to the fields to combat the menace.
   A number of local non-governmental organisations also joined them in the programme.
   A survey conducted between 1980 and 1985 found that about 5,000 people were attacked with arsenicosis in the areas.
   The PHED and the NGOs tested water of the tube wells and sealed red marks on the mouths of contaminated tube wells. They advised the people not to use water of the arsenic contaminated ones.
   They also suggested use of water from dug wells, ponds, rivers and other local sources of water.
   The PHED and other NGOs installed arsenic and iron removal plants and deep tube wells which could not reach the arsenic level.
   The health department started treating the arsenicosis affected people with vitamins A,D and E and other drugs free of cost.
   The health department also launched awareness campaigns, alongside those of the NGOs.
   The PHED sources in Jhenaidah said Achintanagar, Surat, Barokamarkundu, Chhotokamarkundu, Nathkundu, Muraridah, Padmakar and some other villages in sadar upazila, Baro Bazar, Kola, Ramnagar in Kaliganj, and Parbatipur, Shastibar and some other villages in Sailkupa upazila were worst affected by arsenicosis.
   When contacted, the PHED sources could not provide any fresh information only saying the health department was working with arsenicosis for the last couple of years.
   The survey conduced by the health department in September this year found the number of the people affected with arsenicosis in the district 581.
   Of them, 229 people were affected in Jhenaidah sadar upazila, 171 in Sailkupa, 61 in Kaliganj, 28 in Harinakundu, 11 in Kotchandpur and 81 people in Moheshpur upazila.
   While visiting Barokamarkundu and Chhotokamarkundu villages in sadar upazila, the New Age correspondent talked to a number of people attacked with arsenicosis. Many spots were still visible in several parts of their bodies.
   Lalchand Mandal, 70, a grocer at village Barokamarkundu said the spots of arsenicosis were not to vanish completely from the bodies of almost all the affected people.
   Mentioning the names of the affected 11 members of his family, Lalchand said a number of AIRPs and deep tube wells had been installed in the villages to eradicate the menace.
   The PHED and the NGO forum claimed the present level of arsenic contamination as tolerable.
   He said his wife Noorjahan, 62, sons Nazimuddin, 36, and Azimuddin, 32, nephews Anwar, 28, Monwar, 24, Oliar, 22, and Oliar’s mother China Khatun, 45, were suffering from arsenicosis who could not recovery fully.
   The PHED sources said the upazila level officials of the health department had been treating the arsenicosis affected people for the last few years.
   Dr Dulal Chandra Chakrabhorty, upazila health and family planning officer, said they had conducted the survey in September.
   The health department was treating the affected people free of cost, he added.

The farmers of low lying areas in Jhenaidah are frustrated as they are harvesting aman paddy far less than expected.
   Talking to New Age, a good number of farmers expressed apprehension that aman harvest would decrease by at least 70 per cent as the recent rain had damaged the crops on a vast track of land.
   The farmers of the district cultivated aman on vast tracks of land in the hope of recouping the heavy losses of crops wrought by the flood last year.
   The natural disaster virtually broke the economic backbone of the peasants of Jhenaidah last year.
   About 90 per cent of aman paddy has been harvested till Saturday, they said.
   According to the Department of Agriculture Extension, the farmers of the district brought 95,000 hectares of land under aman cultivation this year with the production target of 3,32,500 tonnes of rice.
   Saiful Islam, of village Madhuhati in Jhenaidah sadar upazila, said he had brought 25 decimals of land under aman farming with the hope of harvesting 15 maunds (one maund is 37.3 kilograms) of paddy.
   ‘I won’t be able to harvest more than five maunds of paddy,’ he said.
   Another farmer Abu Taleb echoed the same thing.
   ‘All of my hopes have been shattered by the rain, he said.
   Abu Baakar of Shyamnagar in Modhuhati union under the same upazila said paddy on his 50 decimals of land had rotten after the rain.
   When contacted, the DAE office sources said the percentage of the damage would not be high as the farmers were apprehending.

Participants in a meeting underscored the need for proper education and empowerment of women through building their financial capability to bring an end to all types of violence against them.
   Education makes a woman aware about her rights and she can prevent many hazardous things going to happen to her and take proper measures against them, they said.
   They made the above observations while exchanging views at a discussion meeting titled ‘We can remove all types of violence against women’ at the conference room of the deputy commissioner of Faridpur on Saturday.
   The Faridpur Press Club president, Habibur Rahaman Habib, presided over the meeting where deputy commissioner Aktaruz-zaman Mohammad Mostafa Kamal was present as chief guest.
   Amra Kaj Kori, a local NGO, organised the programme with the financial assistance of Oxfam GB.
   The speakers said incidents of violence against women continued to rise across the country although it had 37 laws to combat the social evils.
   They said women face domestic violence frequently for lack of awareness among the people although there are laws against such violence. Domestic violence against women must be checked collectively.
   The speakers stressed the need for joint sincere efforts of all in stopping all sorts of violence against women for building a better society.
   They also discussed the issues related to acid violence and dowry.
   The other participants who took part in the meeting are Motin Fakir, district correspondent of The Independent, Moshiur Rahaman Khokon of Bhorer Kagoj, Zahid Ripon of Jugantar, Hasanuzaman of Samakal and Wali Newaz of New Age.
   A total of 24 local journalists took part in the discussion.

At least 10 shops were burnt in a fire that broke out near the bus stand at Nageshwari in Kurigram on Sunday.
   Local people said the fire had originated from a lamp of an electronic goods shop named Ripon Hardware at about 6:00am.
   A team of fire fighters went to the spot and extinguished the fire after hectic effort of an hour.
   Owners of the shops claimed valuables worth about Tk 1 crore were gutted in the fire.

Three persons were killed and six others were injured in a road accident on the Dhaka–Tangail Highway at Mirzapur in Tangail early Sunday.
   The deceased are Nadim, 35, Mostofa, 40, and Ramjan, 22.
   The Mirzapur police said a Dhaka-bound truck laden with potato collided head-on with a Tangail-bound truck loaded with paddy.
   Two persons died on the spot and the seven others injured were taken to the Mirzapur Kumudiny College Hospital where another one of the injured died.
   The dead bodies were handed over to the families after their post-mortem examinations at the hospital. The police detained both the trucks.
   A case was filed with the police in this connection.

The Rapid Action Battalion arrested five persons and seized a pipe gun and Phensidyl (codeine) syrup in separate drives in Sylhet on Sunday.
   A battalion team seized nine bottles of Phensidyl and arrested Kabir Uddin, 27, Abdul Hakim, 32, and Arun Devnath, 30, of Mahaldig at Kewachara in the Lakkatura Tea Garden in the city at noon.
   Earlier in the morning,
   the battalion members arrested two young men, Selim Ahmed, 25, and Younus Ahmed, 30, in possession of a pipe gun at Pashchimbhag oof Golapganj.
   The arrested were handed over to the police and the pipe gun and drugs were deposited. Two cases were filed.

The police arrested three suspected robbers and recovered looted goods in a Tangail village on Sunday.
   The sadar police officer-in-charge, Md Ashraf Hossain, said a band of inter-district robbers looted valuables from passengers of a Rangpur-bound bus at Jamurki of Mirzapur on September 30.
   Since then, the robbers had been using a mobile number of a victim passenger which eventually helped the police to locate them.
   On Sunday morning, the police conducted a drive at Changola Karigorpara of Bhuapur and arrested the
   suspected ringleader of the robbers’ gang, Rajab Ali, 29, and his associates Mahiruddin, 21, and Mukter Hossain, 25.
   The police also recovered the looted goods from them. The detail of the recovered items could not be known.