Voters wait while AL men stuff ballots

Polling officers and agents sitting idle at a centre in Agailjhara upazila of Barisal around 11:20am yesterday as ruling party men have used all the ballot papers for casting illegal votes. Photo: Arifur Rahman

Though voting was scheduled to start at 8:00am, the voters were barred from entering a polling centre at Terokhada upazila in Khulna, as the ruling Awami League men were busy casting votes for their own candidates.    
This was the scene at Anandanagar Primary School polling centre in Azubora union during the fourth phase of upazila polls yesterday.
The AL men continued with the ballot paper stuffing for nearly two hours, while over 500 voters were standing in queues outside the centre.
“The queues were getting longer and longer, as the voters were not allowed to enter the polling booths,” said Mizanur Rahman, one of the voters there.
In the meantime, he said, they had learnt that the AL men were stuffing ballot papers inside, and informed some local journalists.
Abdullahel Warish, a reporter of Bangla daily Prothom Alo, said, “It was around 9:30am when some local journalists and I entered the centre. We found five to seven Awami League agents in each of the five rooms of the polling centre.”
Warish said he then had gone to the Presiding Officer Mahbubur Rahman's room and asked him why polling agents were in the booths.
“What can I do?” Warish quoted the presiding officer as saying.
Meanwhile, a band of AL activists entered the presiding officer's room, and dragged Warish out of the room and started beating him with bamboo sticks.
The journalist said some of his acquaintances had rescued him from the AL men, and kept him at the presiding officer's room for half an hour.
The army and upazila nirbahi officer showed up there around 11:00am, and Warish finally came out of the polling centre.
Mizanur told The Daily Star that after the incident most of the voters of the polling centre had gone back to their homes without casting votes.
BNP-blessed chairman candidate SM Mezbaul Alam around 12:00noon declared that he had boycotted the polls.
He alleged that AL-blessed chairman candidate Sharfuddin Biswas Bacchu's men had rigged votes, and barred BNP supporters from exercising their franchise.
BNP-blessed chairman candidates Monirul Hasan Bappi of Rupsha, Amir Ejaz Khan of Batiaghata, Abul Khair Khan of Dakope, and Sardar Alauddin Mithu of Phultala also boycotted the polls, bringing same allegations in their respective upazilas.
 They called a day-long hartal in the five upazilas today.