Khulna city polls: Extra police in 226 risky polling centres

The Election Commission will deploy 10 police members to secure perimeters of “very important polling centres” during the upcoming Khulna City Corporation polls, scheduled to be held on May 15. Out of 289 polling centres in the city, 226 have been marked as very important (risk-prone) and the rest were marked as general (less risky). “The very important centres will have 10 police members each while the less important ones will have eight each for maintaining security,” said Khulna Metropolitan Police (Media wing) Assistant Deputy Commissioner Sonali Sen. “Other than that, police patrol teams and plainclothes detectives will also be employed. In total, 5,000 police will be working to uphold security in the poll centres." Along with police forces, members of Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), Border Guards Bangladesh (BGB) and Ansar and VDP, under the supervision of 10 magistrates, will be deployed in maintaining security around the city during the election, confirmed ADC Sonali. She also said members of security forces will be stationed around the poll centres, at nearby intersections, headquarters of political parties and various city gates from May 13. Along with law enforcement agencies, four special citizen vigilance teams, each led by an assistant returning officer, will be monitoring the situation in different polling centres. “The teams [vigilance team] will consist of 8-12 members and their job will only be to report untoward incidents to the returning officer,” said the police official. District Commander of Ansar and VDP Mollah Abu Sayeed said: “Every centre will have 14 Ansar and VDP security members. Two among them will be armed, and the rest of the nine men and five women will have sticks. In total, 4,046 members will be deployed.” Khulna BGB spokesperson Maj Hannan Khan said 16 platoons consisting of 640 members of the paramilitary force will be ready to work as strike forces during the polls. “They will be following directives from the BGB magistrates,” he said. RAB-6 Commander Khandaker Rafiqul Islam confirmed that RAB members will also be deployed as strike forces and patrol teams, and they will be under the Election Commission's supervision.