Congratulatory messages have been pouring in for Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her party Awami League.

The Communist Party of China (CPC), the Developing Eight Organisation for Economic Cooperation (D-8) and the prime minister of Sudan in separate messages have congratulated Hasina and her party for the win in the December 30 parliamentary polls.

“Delighted upon hearing the victory of the Awami League [AL] in the 11th parliamentary elections of Bangladesh, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China [CPC] wishes to extend to the AL our heartfelt congratulations,” said a CPC message on Friday.

It said the long-standing friendly relations between the two parties have played the role of political guidance in the development of Bangladesh-China strategic cooperative partnership.

“On the threshold of new and important opportunities for the development of China-Bangladesh relations, the CPC stands ready to strengthen exchanges and cooperation with the AL in our concerted effort to build a new type of party-to-party relations that seeks to expand common ground while reserving differences, and enhances mutual respect and mutual learning and to promote the steady progress of China-Bangladesh relations at an even higher level,” the CPC said.

Meanwhile, Sudanese Prime Minister Mutaz Musa Abdalla in another message on Friday said, “On my behalf and the People and the Government of the Republic of the Sudan, it gives great honour to extend our heartfelt congratulations and best wishes for Your Excellency's re-election as the prime minister of the People's Republic of Bangladesh.”

In a message issued on Thursday, D-8 Secretary-General Ku Jaafar Ku Shaari felicitated Hasina and the people of Bangladesh on the AL's re-election.

“We, in D-8 Secretariat, share the same spirit with and join the people of Bangladesh in celebrating the outcome of this election. This decisive victory is a reflection of the people's aspirations for a prosperous Bangladesh and a stronger position and more assertive role in international affairs,” said the statement.

Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, Indian National Congress Chairperson Sonia Gandhi, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani,  King Salman of Saudi Arabia, Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman, King of Bhutan Jigme Singye Wangchuck, Bhutan's Prime Minister Lotay Tshering, Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, West Bengal and Tripura chief ministers Mamata Banerjee and Biplab Kumar Deb also congratulated Hasina and her party.

Hasina led the AL to a thumping victory in the December 30 polls, in which the ruling party-led Grand Alliance secured 288 out of the 300 seats.

Ambassador of Switzerland to Bangladesh René Holenstein today said Switzerland commended all parties for their participation in 11th Parliamentary Elections in Bangladesh.

“Switzerland took note of the results of the 11th Parliamentary Elections and commended all parties for their participation in the process,” said Holenstein during a meeting with Bangladesh Foreign Secretary M Shahidul Haque today.

The Swiss ambassador deplored the violence that occurred before and during the elections causing unnecessary suffering and pain, according to a statement.

Referring to reported accounts of intimidation, irregularities and further obstacles to a level playing field throughout the process, which have tainted the electoral campaign and the vote, Ambassador Holenstein underlined the need to address these reports in full transparency and according to the rule of law.

“Switzerland trusts that the new Government of Bangladesh will uphold the democratic values it was elected upon and that it will support the people’s will to move towards democracy in full respect of human rights and fundamental freedoms,” he said.

He assured the foreign secretary that Switzerland looked forward to its continued partnership with Bangladesh.

A journalist has been arrested in Khulna in a case filed under the Digital Security Act for publishing “false” information on the number of votes cast in a constituency during Sunday's polls.

Hedayet Hossain Mollah, local correspondent of the Dhaka Tribune, was arrested yesterday, a day after the case was filed against two reporters, including him, with Batiaghata Police Station in the district.

The other accused is Rashidul Islam, staff reporter of the daily Manab Zamin, reports our correspondent in Khulna.

According to the initial announcement of the election results, the number of votes cast in Khulna-1 was higher than the total number of voters in the constituency. As the matter was brought to the returning officer's attention, he said it was a mistake and later came up with a correction, said local journalists.

By the time the correction could be made, the two media outlets ran reports saying the number of votes cast was around 22,000 higher than the actual number of voters, they said.

Documents provided by the returning officer's office showed 45,000 of the 2,59,420 voters did not cast their ballots.

Batiaghata Upazila Nirbahi Officer Debashish Chowdhury, also the assistant returning officer, filed the case against the two journalists.

The case statement said the accused published false, fabricated and provocative information on the voting with the use of electronic devices, including laptops, which might confuse people and create a chaotic situation.

Such activities made the “fair election” questionable, the statement said.

Mahabubur Rahman, officer-in-charge of Batiaghata Police Station, told The Daily Star that they arrested Hedayet near Gallamary Bridge in connection with the case.

However, several witnesses said the journalist was picked up near Picture Palace intersection in the city when he was returning home from the Khulna Press Club.

Hedayet's wife Sayida Laila Akhter told this newspaper that she called her husband over the phone but another man picked it up and introduced himself as the OC of the police station.

“Last night, the returning officer had requested my husband to apologise for the news. Otherwise, he said my husband would face action,” she said.

Despite repeated attempts, the RO could not be reached over the phone for comments.

Handcuffed, Hedayet was produced before a district court which sent him to jail.

Meanwhile, a former deputy secretary of the Election Commission has been picked up by detectives in the city's Agargaon area for “leaking information on the election”.

Shamsul Alam was allegedly collecting election results submitted to the commission from across the country and sending those to “others”, said police and EC sources.

He was picked up near the Nirbachan Commission office on Monday night, they said.

GG Biswas, officer-in-charge of Sher-e-Bangla Nagar Police Station, said the official was kept at the DB office on Mintoo Road.

Abdul Baten, additional commissioner (detectives) of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police, said they picked up Shamsul for interrogation. 

The Awami League used party men, police and administration officials to influence the 11th parliamentary polls, BNP-led Jatiya Oikyafront leaders said yesterday at a “mass hearing”. 

The alliance leaders said ghost cases were filed against its activists and they were harassed and detained without warrants.

“There was no voting on December 30 and so the government formed from it is not valid,” said Maj Gen (retd) AMSA Amin, who had run with Dr Kamal Hossain-led Gonoforum ticket from Kurigram-2.         

The Oikyafront arranged the “mass hearing” on “so-called parliamentary election” at the Supreme Court Bar Association auditorium. A number of the alliance candidates had filed election petitions with the High Court challenging the December 30 polls results.

At least 41 candidates testified during the over seven-hour-long session of the “mass hearing” before a panel that included Dr Kamal and former Dhaka University vice-chancellor Prof Emajuddin Ahmed.

Leaders of the BNP and its political allies said they, by taking part in the December 30 polls, had “unmasked the ruling party”. Top BNP leaders, including its Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, Vice-Chairman Abdullah Al Noman and Standing Committee Member Abdul Moyeen Khan attended the programme.

Sabina Yasmin, who ran from Natore-2, said, “I was getting ready to go to the polling stations after learning that my polling agents had been driven out of there on election day.”

She said she could not cast her vote even because her house had been padlocked from the outside that morning.

Detectives in plainclothes picked up her husband -- BNP Organising Secretary Ruhul Kuddus Talukder Dulu -- on December 12. Dulu is now in Keraniganj jail.

Sabina said on December 20 when they were distributing campaign flyers, 30 to 40 AL men harassed her and 15 women working for her campaign.

Four days later, about 500 armed AL men attacked her campaign team of 200, most of whom were women, said Sabina, adding that she along with her activists took cover in a drug store.

They were confined to the shop until police rea

Attendees at the programme offering prayers for the victims of the Chawkbazar fire. Photo: Prabir Das

“I hired fewer men [for the campaign] because they used to get clobbered with hammers,” she said.

Sabina claimed that she could not campaign after December 24.

Anisur Rahman Talukder, who was the BNP candidate for Madaripur-3, said the AL had repeatedly been saying that “the opposition party didn't campaign, didn't have posters printed, and didn't ask for votes”.

Whenever they tried to campaign, they were harassed, attacked, and their posters were torn, he said.

Several other candidates echoed him. Law enforcers cordoned off candidates' houses and when they or their activists came out of the houses, they were picked up, often without any arrest warrants, they said.

Anisur said he learnt from his sources on election day morning that 80 percent of the votes had been cast between 2:30am and 5:00am that day.

BNP leader Rumana Mahmud, who ran from Sirajganj-2, said police fired at her and her activists when they were campaigning on December 14. Her aide Mery Begum lost her eyesight in the attack, she said.

Sardar Sakhawat Hossain Bakul, BNP nominee for Narsingdi-4, alleged that his polling agents were ousted from 152 of 155 polling centres in his constituency on election day.

Nitai Roy Chowdhury, who ran from Magura-2 and bagged around 65,000 votes, alleged that before election day, police went to every ward, union and village in his constituency and threatened his party leaders and activists, detained some of them. They also harassed the women, he claimed.

BNP candidate for Satkhira-1 Habibul Islam Habib said he was nominated several times by the party and had bagged 1.46 lakh votes in the 2008 polls.

He said it was incredible that he got only 17,445 votes and had not got a single vote in 20 of 188 polling stations.

Other defeated candidates of the 11th parliamentary election also accused the ruling party, Election Commission, officials of the administration, intelligence and security personnel of violating the constitution and stripping people their right to vote.

Thanking the alliance members for arranging the “mass hearing”, Dr Kamal said, “It [December 30 polls] cannot be said an election but an event where the government in the name of election staged a farce.”

The government deprived the country's people of their rights, violated the constitution, and insulted democracy, he said.

Without mentioning any name, Dr Kamal said state servants who were in the administration should be ashamed of themselves because they forgot their constitutional duties and became servants of “a single individual”.

The eminent jurist also said BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia should be immediately released, unconditionally.

“It is a pity that even after 48 years of independence, we have to raise such demand for those who contributed to democracy,” he said, calling for unity to “restore” democracy in the country.

The national election of December 30 has turned the life of Mofiz Uddin upside down -- and all for supporting BNP.

From a decent tea-shop vendor at Rabeya market of Bonkishore village in Rajshahi's Tanore upazila, the 48-year old man now works on a potato field.

“I have been a dedicated BNP worker since the 90s,” Mofiz said. “If I have committed a crime, it would be my engagement with BNP.”

In a tin-roofed earthen room under a Koroi tree at the market, Mofiz started the shop and ran it for over the last 20 years.

Furnished with a television, eight chairs, five tables, four benches and a few racks of bakery items, sweets and groceries, his tea-shop fetched him around Tk 3,000 a day to support his family of seven.

On December 21, Mofiz joined the election campaign for BNP candidate Aminul Haq when the latter went to Pachondor union.

Later that evening, a group of stick wielding men went to the market and ransacked the outside of his tea-shop, according to eye-witnesses.

“The attackers were outsiders, not known to me,” said a local businessman.

“I heard about the attack on my shop when I reached home, after campaigning that day,” said Mofiz. A friend of his called him from the market and told him to hide as the attackers were looking for him.

Until polls day, local AL men used the tea-shop as the election office of Awami League candidate Omor Faruk Chowdhury.

“Two days after the election ended, some local AL workers damaged what was left of the shop, including the earthen room, tin-roof, furniture, television, and everything else inside.”

Locals told this correspondent that they heard the AL men would build a party office in that place.

When contacted, Reaz Uddin, president of AL unit at Pachondor ward-2, said, “We are yet to decide on building our office there. If not an office, we may construct a passengers' shed that will come to the use of many.”

He said the land was 'khas' and Mofiz had been illegally occupying it.

On the identity of the attackers, he said, “Nobody knows them. They were wearing helmets and came to the village on motorcycles.”

He denied that it was local AL men who had damaged the shop after the election.

“It was Mofiz's brother, nephew and son who damaged the shop,” he said. On why Mofiz's own relatives would damage the shop, Reaz did not have an explanation.

When contacted, Rajshahi Superintendent of Police Md Shahidullah said they had not heard about the incident.

“We will investigate all allegations of post-election violence,” said the SP, adding that police circulated a message in the district so that no one would spread fear among others over feuds during the election.

Upon losing his source of income, Mofiz began work as day labourer on the potato fields to make ends meet, earning a mere Tk 300 a day.

“I am living in fear. I could not even go see the condition of my shop, the one I so dearly built from scratch,” he said.