3 Satkhira OCs drive out voters!
Three officers-in-charge of police forced out voters from a polling centre in Satkhira Sadar upazila around 11:00am today, reports the Bangla daily Prothom Alo.
Around 10:45am, nearly 200 female voters were queuing at Agardari Kamil Madrassa polling centre to cast their votes in the fifth phase of upazila polls.
In the meantime, three OCs -- Enamul Haque of Sadar Police Station, Golam Rahman of Kaliganj Police Station and Biplob Kumar Nath of Salikha Police Station -- along with 10 policemen got off two police vehicles at the gate of the centre.
The police officials asked the voters whether they had cast their votes in the January 5 parliamentary elections or not.
The constables began charging batons and dispersed the voters as soon as they replied negatively, the Bangla daily reports adding no vote was casted at the polling centre in the Jatiya Sangsad polls boycotted by the BNP-led alliance.
Police also prevented the journalists from taking photos of the incident.
Agitated by the police action, the voters lamented that Jamaat had prevented them from going to polling centres during ‘rajar vote’ (JS polls on 5 January) and now police were doing the same.
Though the polling centre witnessed no turnout of voters in January 5 elections, it saw 600 votes out of 2,349 voters casted by 11:00am.
Voters alleged that the ballots have been stamped last night with the help of police and administration.
Abdul Malek, president officer of the centre, has been admitted to hospitals after he had fallen sick fearing violence at the centre which is known as the stronghold of Jamaat-e-Islami. Sarwar Hossain has later been given the charge of the presiding officer.
Meanwhile, our Satkhira correspondent reports, police recovered 200 ballot papers from a room at Satkhira Government High School polling centre.
Deputy Commissioner Nazmul Ahsan confirmed the incident saying two-three young people had tried to stamp the ballot papers.
“Police however recovered the ballots which would be cancelled,” he told the Daily Star.
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