Two people, including a woman, were shot during a scuffle over buying onion at cheaper rate from the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB) in the district’s Rikabi Bazar area on Monday.
Police insisted that the victims were “shot accidently” around 1:15pm in front of Kabi Nazrul Auditorium.
One of the injured was identified as Chandrakanto Singh, a pedestrian while identity of the woman could not be known immediately.
Rita Aktar, Inspector of Sylhet Kotwali Police Station, said they were maintaining security and handing the queue. But suddenly people from the back of the queue started to push forward.
“Amid the chaos, the loaded shotgun of one of the policemen fired accidently,” she said, adding that the injured had been hospitalised.
India’s ban on export of onion, a common ingredient in Bangladeshi cooking, on September 29 sent its prices skyrocketing, prompting many to buy it from the TCB.
Onion was selling for between Tk 180 to Tk 190 per kg in Dhaka.
Government sales at lower prices (Tk 45 per kg) have garnered huge response. Commerce Secretary Md Zafar Uddin on Monday assured that the onion market will soon become stable.
“On behalf of the government, I want to assure people that the price of onion will come down soon,” he said in Dhaka.
