Participants in a programme stressed the need for adopting transplanted method of cultivating sugarcane to boost production of the cash crop.
   They said this while addressing the inauguration of sugarcane farming by using transplanted method at different places in Dhakkamara, Hafizabad and Chaklahat union parishads under sadar upazila.
   The authorities of Panchagarh Sugar Mills Ltd have launched the method to increase sugarcane production.
   Managing director of PSML M Sirajul Islam, general manager (agriculture) Mohammad
   Abdul Karim, deputy general manager Shamsul Haque, president of Sugarcane Growers’ Association Abdul Aziz and general secretary Mazharul Islam and CBA secretary Mahbubur Rahman were present on the occasion.
   Sugarcane growers of
   different places under Dhakkamara and Hafizabad union parishads, officials and employees of the PSM and local elite, among others, spoke at the three separate sessions of the programme.
   The speakers said farmers could get yield up to 30 to 35 tonnes sugarcane per acre of land through cultivating
   the crop by using the transplanted methods of farming against only 18 to 20 tonnes if cultivated in the traditional methods.

Miscreants cut the lip of a plaintiff at village Ghosherchar under Gopalganj sadar upazila Tuesday night in a bid to stop him from giving his deposition in the court in a case.
   The victim is Ibrahim Mollah, 45, of the same village. He is a retired lance corporal of the Bangladesh Army.
   The victim told New Age that a gang of miscreants led by one Mannan Bhuiyan swooped on him at about 9:00pm when he was returning home from a local mosque after Tarabi prayers.
   ‘The attackers severely beat up and also tried to strangle me,’ Ibrahim said.
   Later, the gang cut his
   lower lip and broke two of his teeth with a hammer and then threw him into a nearby water body.
   Hearing groans, a rickshaw-van puller Ibadat Ali recovered Ibrahim and took him to Gopalganj General Hospital in his van.
   He was later shifted to the Combined Military Hospital in Dhaka on Wednesday.
   The victim’s wife Panna Begum filed a case against seven persons including Mannan with the sadar police station in connection with the incident.
   In the case, she mentioned that Ibrahim had filed a case against Mannan with the chief judicial magistrate court over a land dispute two months back. The date of hearing was scheduled to be held on Wednesday.
   The police arrested two persons —Zinnat Kha alias Batu and Anwar Sheikh— on Wednesday for their alleged involvement in the attack.

Agitated people confined some policemen in a Sonali Bank branch for assaulting a client, who happened to be the husband of a female councilor-elect of Barisal City Corporation.
   Witnesses said Sardar M Syed Shah stood in a long queue for about two hours at the Sonali Bank corporate branch to deposit treasury chalan related to election expenditure statement of his wife, Reshmi Begum, a newly-elected councilor.
   At one stage, he saw the bank official at the counter serving another customer breaking the queue.
   An angry Syed Shah protested at it, but the bank official at the counter Abul Hossain shouted at him and called in police, witnesses said.
   As the cops beat Syed, he took shelter in the cabin of Suvash Chandra Roy, assistant general manager of the bank branch.
    A police team from Barisal Kotwali police station came to the spot and again started beating Syed, identifying him as a snatcher and paying no heed to his points.
   Hearing the incident, BCC councilor-elect Reshmi Begum, along with some of her colleagues, rushed to the bank, while their supporters encircled the policemen inside the bank branch until senior police officials intervened.
    Hayatul Islam, assistant commissioner of Barisal Metropolitan Police and Mahmudul Huq Chowdhury, detective police officer freed the policemen at about 4:00pm after assuring that action would be taken against the policemen responsible for the incident.
    AGM Suvash Chandra Roy said a compromise had been reached and action would be taken against the responsible officer.
   BMP assistant commissioner Hayatul Islam said they were investigating the incident and the platoon on duty was already closed to the police line.

A Jhenaidah court on Wednesday sentenced seven persons to life-term imprisonment for killing a teenage boy five years ago.
   The district and sessions judge, Md Qamrul Hossain, handed down the verdict.
   The convicts are Shahjahan Ali, Mainuddin Roni, Rezaul Islam, Sahidul Islam, Amirul Islam, Jamirul Isalm and Tazul islam.
   They were also fined Tk 20,000 each, in default, to suffer one year more in jail.
   The court acquitted one Sohrab Biswas of the charge as it could not prove his guilt.
   According to the prosecution, the convicts killed Anisur Rahman, 13, of village Falsi under Hirnakundu upazila on February 15, 2003.
   The local police recovered the body of Anisur the following day.
   The victim’s father Ayub Ali Ayub Ali filed a murder case with the local police station.
   After investigation, the police submitted charge sheet against the convicts.