Tight security, peaceful voting

Law enforcers and poll officials were extra vigilant during yesterday's Gazipur by-polls, as it was the maiden election under the present Election Commission constituted in February this year.
Visits to some 16 polling centres revealed that election officials were discharging their duties with utmost sincerity and dutifulness.
A sub-inspector at a polling centre was seen asking a polling agent to hand him her cell phone though it was switched off during voting time.
“Give me your mobile phone. You are not allowed to carry it inside the polling centre,” said SI Sumon Kumar Aditya to Sharmin, a polling agent of ruling Awami League-backed candidate Simeen Hussain Rimi.
The SI, who was in-charge of Kapasia Model Government Primary School vote centre, took the mobile phone and passed it on to an assistant presiding officer at the centre.
The SI of Kosba Police Station did the same to two other polling agents of Rimi and her arch-rival Afsaruddin Ahmad.
He asked all the three polling agents to collect their phones from the three assistant presiding officers after voting ended at 4:00pm.
Except for some stray incidents and some irregularities in and outside a few polling centres, some 3,500 members of different law enforcement agencies did their best, like SI Suman Aditya, to maintain a congenial election atmosphere.
The voters expressed their satisfaction after casting votes at the polling centres.
After visiting two polling centres in Kapasia sadar areas at 10:00am, Returning Officer Mihir Sarwar Morshed commented that voter turnout in the two centres had been very low.
“Our main task is to hold the polls in a free, fair and peaceful manner. And the voters' main task is to cast their votes in time,” he said during his visit to Kapasia Model Government Primary School centre.
While declaring the polls schedule in Gazipur-4, the EC Chief Kazi Rakibuddin had said the election body would take this election as a test to prove its neutrality and sincerity.