Police allegedly drove out a good number voters, mainly women, from a polling centre in Satkhira Sadar during yesterday’s fifth phase of the upazila parishad elections.
Many female voters claimed that police personnel chased them out of the polling centres after learning that they did not go to cast their votes during the January 5 national election.
“I and 200-250 other voters were waiting in line at the Agardari Aminia Kamil Madrassa polling centre in the morning. Suddenly, a group of 15-16 constables, led by the OCs of three local police stations, came to the centre on pickup vans. They came to us and inquired whether we casted vote in the January 5 election,” said Gangarani Singha from Palpara of Agardari village.
“When we replied in the negative, the constables chased us out of the centre with sticks,” she continued.
The policemen also allegedly barred the journalists and the photojournalists from collecting photo and story of the incident and the “voter-less” polling centre.
A group of female voters, who were allegedly driven out of the centre, said they had not casted votes in the national poll out of fear of retaliation by Jamaat men.
On the other hand, Enamul Haque, OC of the Satkhira Sadar police station, claimed that the female voters started running to and fro after seeing their pickup van.
“Why on earth would police not allow them to cast their votes?” – was his rhetoric question.
Enamul told the Dhaka Tribune: “Most voters in this area support Jamaat. That was why they have raised such a baseless complaint. All they want is to tarnish police’s image.”
He also said Jamaat leaders from the Aminia Kamil Madrassah led the violence on February 28 last year after the International Crimes Tribunal pronounced death sentence against war criminal Delawar Hossain Sayedee.
Interestingly, not a single vote was casted at the Aminia madrassa polling centre in the January 5 national poll. Like many other areas in the district, the Agaradari village is also known as a Jamaat stronghold.