Deployed military troops will act as final resort, only when other law enforcement agencies fail to take control of deteriorated situation, an election commissioner confirms.
During a press briefing at the Election Commission Secretariat in Dhaka’s Agargaon on Thursday, Commissioner Shahadat Hossain Chowdhury said troops will act under Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) 127-132; which states --armed forces will act only when police, RAB and BGB fails, said an Election Commission official.
Commissioner Shahadat was briefing the media after opening the commission’s control room to monitor the election situation in capital's Agargaon area.
Shahadat said: "More than 5,00,000 police, RAB [Rapid Action battalion], and BGB [Border Guards Bangladesh] have been deployed to maintain the law and order. If they somehow fail to prevent any untoward incident, military troops will act to bring the situation under control."
Regarding the attacks on opposition parties, Shahadat said: "We did not find any hard evidence at the grassroots level of all allegations. We did find some facts and we are going to take action based on them.”
The 122 electoral enquiry committees will handle the cases, he said.
“The overall voting environment is stable,” Shahadat commented.
The election commissioner also said that the electoral environment of the 300 constituencies will be monitored from the control room, which has been set up recently at the commission.
"If any unwanted incidents surface, directives will be issued from the control room," he said.
"EVMs [electronic voting machines] have already been sent to the constituencies. Now mock voting process is underway,” he added.
Regarding the writ against 22 BNP candidates, he said: "We have to follow the order of the court. We will act as per that order."
