When farmers turn into burglar: 202 sacks of fertiliser will find their way to crop fields

Due to not receiving their allocated fertilizer, farmers broke down the door of a warehouse and looted 202 bags of urea. The incident took place in Bhurungamari, Kurigram, on Sunday afternoon, when local farmers entered the storage facility at the Dhaldanga Bazaar in the Shilkuri Union and took the fertilizer.

According to locals, farmers had not received any fertilizer for the past three days during the peak season of transplanted Aman paddy cultivation. On Sunday, upon hearing news that fertilizer would be distributed, a large number of farmers gathered at the dealer point of Messrs Shah Amanat Enterprise in Dhaldanga Bazaar.

After waiting for a long time with the dealer point remaining closed, the farmers broke down the warehouse door and looted approximately 10,000 kilograms (202 bags) of urea fertilizer.

Allegations from Farmers:
The farmers alleged that the owner of Messrs Shah Amanat Enterprise, Taifur Rahman Mukul, had received an allocation of 1,320 bags of urea but was deliberately delaying its supply. Of this, 340 bags were stocked in the warehouse at the time. The agitated farmers took away 202 of those bags.

Dealer Taifur Rahman said, "According to the latest delivery order, I had withdrawn 340 bags of fertilizer. Today, during the time of distribution, a huge crowd of farmers showed up. Before I could understand anything, they broke the door of the warehouse and took away the fertilizer by force."

Police Response:
Md. Azimuddin, Officer-in-Charge (OC) of Bhurungamari Police Station, said, "The demand for fertilizer in that union is nearly 4,000 bags, but the withdrawal was much lower. The farmers took the bags from the warehouse out of fear that they would not get fertilizer at all."

He added that police went to the spot and brought the situation under control. Due to police efforts, by 4:00 PM, 60 farmers had returned 60 bags of fertilizer. Efforts are ongoing to recover the remaining bags.