The government has decided to engage local representatives, including union parishad (UP) chairmen, to combat violence before and after the upcoming parliamentary elections, a source said.
A cabinet committee on law and order, headed by Land and Disaster Management Minister Amir Hossain Amu, took the decision at a meeting at the home ministry yesterday.
However, the media was not briefed as usual following the cabinet committee meeting yesterday.
“No briefing,” Amu told waiting reporters after the three hour-long meeting.
Preferring not to be named, a senior bureaucrat who attended the meeting said local UP chairmen, ward members and Ansar-VDP forces across the country would be compelled to prevent violence, and they would be held responsible for any violent incidents in their respective areas.
To ensure law and order ahead of the January-5 polls and during the post-election period, the government would use local representatives alongside law-enforcing agencies to check violence, the official added.
The official also said all kinds of logistics would be provided to gear up the activities of the local government, he said.
Moreover, the official claimed that the media was publishing “negative news”, creating panic among the people.
The information ministry would take steps so such news items were not published, the official said.
The committee took the decisions following an unleashing of violence that led to scores of deaths and destruction of properties during the recent spate of hartals and blockades by the BNP-led opposition alliance.
“We have decided to take all sorts of steps to face an anarchic situation,” Kamrul Islam, state minister for law and a committee member, told the Dhaka Tribune over phone later. However, he did not elaborate what steps would be taken.
Meanwhile, Water Resources Minister Anisul Islam Mahmud, who is also a Jatiya Party leader, attended yesterday’s meeting, despite his resignation earlier from the polls-time cabinet.
Talking to reporters, Anisul Islam said his resignation was not accepted by the prime minister.
Jute minister Abdul Latif Siddique, Labour Minister Khandker Mosharraf Hossain, Telecommunication Minister Rashed Khan Menon, Information Minister Hasanul Huq Inu and chiefs of different law-enforcement agencies were also present.