With just a couple of days to go before the polls in the four city corporations, intelligence wings of law enforcement agencies have warned that Jamaat-Shibir and Hefazat men, and coastal belt criminals might give rise to unrest.
In a meeting held on Wednesday at the Election Commission (EC) Secretariat, they also advised the EC to be especially careful about the post-election phase, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmad told reporters after the meeting.
They warned that miscreants might try to destabilise those areas in particular where the candidates they supported would lose, the CEC said.
The EC sat with the members of three law-enforcing agencies to discuss pre and post-election security arrangements and issues.
Sources in the meeting said the Detective Branch (DB) of Police had recommended the EC to take special security measures for checking the activities of Jamaat-Shibir and Hefazat men and the coastal hooligans in Khulna and Barisal.
DB has also reportedly informed the EC that Jamaat-Shibir men in Rajshahi had already been circulating leaflets labelling certain candidates as “atheists” and the ones they backed as “theists”.
At the post-meeting press briefing, the CEC also said the commission had taken special measures to prevent pre and post-election violence in the four cities.
He also said that no victory procession would be allowed after the results of the polls were declared that law enforcers had been running combing operations to recover as many illegal arms as possible and arrest the criminals in the four city corporation areas.
The CEC, however, said the current situation was not grave enough to deploy army in the city polls. “It [deploying army] is an emergency matter,” he affirmed, adding that the EC was satisfied with the overall security arrangements.
Elections to the Rajshahi, Khulna, Barisal and Sylhet city corporations are scheduled to be held on June 15.
The EC is using Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) in one of the wards in each of the four city corporations on a pilot basis.
The candidates will not be able to do any kind of publicity or campaign from midnight.
An EC circular has said that members of law enforcement agencies including Police, Rab, Ansar, Armed Police Battalion, Coast Guard and Border Guard Bangladesh would start maintaining law and order in the polling areas from this afternoon.
As per the EC decision, four election commissioners, each of whom would he assisted by one first class employee of the EC secretariat, would monitor the polls in the four city corporations.
According to the EC, votes would be taken in 137 polling centres in Rajshahi, 288 centres in Khulna, 100 in Barisal and 127 in Sylhet.
The last elections in these four cities were held on August 4, 2008.
