Seven mayoral and 250 councilor candidates for the upcoming Dhaka North and South City Corporation polls are facing criminal cases, and police are conducting drives to arrest them.
“Police will arrest them instantly no matter where they are or what they are doing,” said Monirul Islam, chief of the Detective Branch (DB) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP).
The drives began after police had finished preparing the Election Commission-requested list of candidates facing criminal charges.
This announcement from police comes only a day after the EC had allotted symbols to the candidates, and some of the candidates backed by the BNP-led opposition alliance had only started their canvassing.
Monirul said seven out of the 36 mayoral aspirants in Dhaka have not secured bail from courts. He hoped that the councillor candidates who have already secured bail would not violate the conditions of their release.
In reply to a query, the DB boss said at a press conference at the DMP’s Media and Community Centre in the capital yesterday that those facing criminal charges mostly belong to the BNP and its partners from the 20-party alliance.
A BNP delegation has recently met the DMP chief and put forward a request for not harassing any of their candidates and supporters before and during the city polls.
Among the BNP-backed mayoral candidates in Dhaka, Mirza Abbas, who is facing a number of criminal cases and has not taken bail in those, is yet to come out into the open. A couple of days ago, his wife Afroza Abbas had started campaigning for him in Dhaka south.
Just hours after she started the public relation moves for her husband, she alleged that she had been obstructed by ruling party men.
