Farmers disrupt traffic, besiege dealers'shops

The angry farmers also assaulted two officials of Agriculture Extension Department (AED) who attempted to cool them down.

In Panchagarh, farmers laid a siege to some dealers' shops and confined three AED officials for some time.

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Police and other sources said farmers were waiting in a long queue in front of a fertiliser dealer's shop in Kaharol upazila since morning. As the dealer failed to supply fertiliser, the angry farmers came on the highway and marched towards Dash Mile intersection. They sat on the highway, stopping traffic for about four hours.

The farmers left the road after fertiliser, reportedly procured from dealers in a neighbouring upazila, was distributed among them.

In separate incidents, farmers also disrupted traffic on the Dhaka-Dinajpur highway at Hakimpur and Parbatipur and on the Dinajpur-Thakurgaon road at Birganj.

During the agitation the farmers assaulted AED official Subendunath Roy of Kaharol and Abul Kalam Asad of Birganj.

In Panchagarh, three AED officials were also confined by fertiliser-hungry farmers for a brief period.

Dinajpur Fertilizer Association officials told this correspondent that they are distributing the allocated fertilisers through 10 dealers.

They got 15,030 tonnes in February against a demand for 26,000.

Dinajpur District AED officials said 1,30,200 metric tons of fertiliser are required to meet the season's demand but 92,813 tonnes have been allocated.