Some miscreants cut down banana, papaya and lady finger trees planted on 10 Bighas of land in Ishwardi Upazila of Pabna on Thursday night. 8 owners of the 10 Bigha land have claimed that they have incurred a loss of Tk 50 lakh in the incident.
The incident took place at Fashkhali village of Muladuli union in Ishwardi upazila. A written complaint was lodged with Ishwardi police station on Friday evening in this connection.
The affected farmers are Sultan Hossain, Abdus Salam, Ahmed Hossain, Arman Ali, Abdul Karim, Delwar Hossain, Yasin Ali and Akmal Hossain of Fashkhali village.
According to the complaint, the farmers returned home on Thursday evening after completing the maintenance work on their respective lands.
They came to their land on Friday morning to find that hundreds of their banana and papaya trees had been cut down. Besides, lady finger trees have also been cut down and destroyed.
Affected farmer Sultan Hossain said he planted banana trees in rows on 66 decimal of land. Hundreds of these banana trees held lots of bananas this time and the bananas were at the stage of ripening. However, on Thursday late night some miscreants destroyed all the bananas brutally.
Similarly, miscreants have cut down all the papaya and banana trees planted on 99 decimal of Akmal Hossain's land. Another farmer, Yasin Ali, said in a tearful voice that he used to run his family by cultivating lady fingers on the land thought the year. “The miscreants have finished everything”, he said expressing grief. He is worried sick about how will he survive in days to come. The rest of the farmers also gave details of the destruction of the trees planted on their land in a similar manner.
The affected farmers said that in all, they have lost about Tk 50 lakh. They demanded exemplary punishment from the administration for those who have ruined their crops.
Ishwardi police Officer in Charge (OC) Md. Asaduzzaman said that, eight farmers have lodged a written complaint with the police station. Those who have done this will be brought under the law after investigation.
