Fear grips Atrai

There is hardly any campaign activity by candidates of parties other than Awami League (AL) for the Naogaon-6 (Atrai and Raninagar upazilas) constituency seat in the parliamentary elections, giving the impression that there is only one contestant.

Only posters of the AL candidate Israfil Alam were seen on the six kilometre long road that connects Naogaon's Atrai upazila headquarters with Rajshahi's Nawdapara.

A huge number of posters of Alam, who is lawmaker of Naogaon-6 constituency since 2008, were seen crisscrossing over the road and at rural markets.

This correspondent saw posters of Bangladesh Nationalist Party's (BNP) candidate Alamgir Kabir, who won the three consecutive parliamentary elections till 2001, only while crossing the Atrai river.

Around ten posters of Kabir were seen at Sahagola village, which is his wife Nurunnahar Begum's parental home.

 “Party men put up posters all around the upazila at the beginning of the campaign. Most posters vanished in the dark of night,” Mrs Kabir said.

 “We could not set up any election office as two offices were damaged,” she said, adding that only Kabir was able to visit the areas.

“A sense of fear has gripped us,” said Hafizur Rahman, former vice president of Sahagola union BNP. He said recent incident of torture on Atrai upazila BNP joint convenor Taslim Uddin increased the fear.

Taslim is now undergoing treatment at Rajshahi Medical College Hospital.

“His fault was that he was a BNP leader,” she said, quoting the attackers as telling Taslim.

Gulbar Hossain, one of local BNP's election managers, said a total of 17 allegations were filed with the returning officer but none of those received any response.

Atrai Upazila Nirbahi Officer, also Assistant Returning Officer, Sanaul Islam said no one has come to his office with any allegation so far.

“Nothing has occurred to cause worry about the electoral environment,” he said, adding that he thinks the candidates have no problems as none of them have come with any allegation.

In Raninagar, however, the scene was different as campaigning by Alam, Kabir and Shahjahan Ali Pramanik of Islamic Andolon Bangladesh is going on full swing.