Their duty is to maintain law and order, but yesterday, many law enforcers took over the duty of election officers at several polling centres around the capital.
This reporter saw that police and Ansar personnel, stationed for election duty at the Government Homeopathic Medical College in Mipur under Dhaka north, were replying to mediamen’s queries instead of the presiding officers who were very much present there.
In some other polling centres in the Mirpur area, journalists had to go through rigourous questioning to convince the policemen on duty before they could talk to the election officials.
As per election observation rules, observers and media personnel should be able to talk to a presiding officer or his deputy without any obstacle.
Meer Moazzem Hossain, presiding officer of the Nahar Academy High School polling centre in Pallabi of Mirpur, was asked how things were going on there.
But a sub-inspector (SI) of police did not let Moazzem talk. Instead, he took over the duty of talking to the media.
“Actually, women will start coming to the polling centre in greater numbers in the later part of the day, after finishing their household work,” was the policeman’s reply.
Interestingly, the SI did not have any nameplate on his uniform. When asked whether talking to the media was part of his job description, the police officer said: “Look brother! I have just given you the real picture. Sir [the presiding officer] would have said the exact same thing.”
This reporter saw similar activities of law enforcers in several centres in the Mirpur, Pallabi and Kafrul areas.
