In Kalapara Upazila of Patuakhali, the farmers held a human chain and held a meeting to protect the crops of about 3000 acres of land from salt water in 11 villages.
At 11 am on Sunday morning, several hundreds of people gathered at Shahid Surendra Mohan Chowdhuri road in Kalapara town to protect their crops worth crores of Tk and demand withdrawal of harassing cases against farmers.
The farmers complained that the members of an association called Sonar Bangla Matsyajeevi Sambay Samity took only 250,000 lease for 47 acres of Pakhimara canal in Nilganj for three years. But the dominant leaseholders took over about 10 km of the canal under the influence of power.
Not only that, but the Boro paddy are being unable to be cultivated as the dominant cycle raises saline water in the canals, hampering farmers' irrigation of their crops. Apart from this, despite cultivation of
winter crops on about 1000 acres of land, crops worth several crores of rupees are about to be lost due to lack of fresh water.
The farmers demanded that they should immediately cancel the lease of Pakhimara canal and protect the crops of the farmers along with the irrigation system and open the fresh water field Pakhimara canal for the farmers and withdraw the false case of 50 lakh rupees in the name of the farmers.
Farmers Zakir Zakir Gazi, Alauddin Sikder, Sultan Ahmed, Iman Al Ahsan and others spoke in the meeting after the human chain.
