Mayoral candidate of the Awami League (AL)-backed Nagorik Committee in the Chittagong City Corporation (CCC) election ABM Mohiuddin Chowdhury, also incumbent mayor, has been threatened with death if he does not quit the polls race and resign as mayor immediately.

The threat came in an anonymous letter to him yesterday.

"Your body will float on the river Karnaphuli if you do not quit (polls race) in support of Mir Mohammad Nasir Uddin (ruling alliance mayoral candidate," said the letter sent by post.

It also asked AL President Sheikh Hasina not to come to Chittagong to avert an incident like the one on August 21 last year (grenade attack on her rally in the capital). ®he ^aSy ^tar

The letter was written in the name of a 'Moulabadi' (fundamentalist), trained in Dhaka and sent by Mohammad Shahabuddin (Chowdhury) of Sohrawardy Hall, Room-212, Chittagong University.

Shahabuddin was a student of journalism department. He died nine months ago, his relatives and friends said.

The letter reads, "Mohiuddin, you have been mayor for long. Now submit your resignation immediately before any action by us. Otherwise, your body will float on the river Karnaphuli on May 7/8."

Written in an official pad of forest department, the letter also contains a slogan for Prime Minister Khaleda Zia.

Provost of the hall S M Shafiqul Islam told The Daily Star that there is no student named Shahabuddin in Room-212.

Obaidul Quader, AL joint secretary and a member of the party's election monitoring cell, gave photo copies of the letter to journalists. "This is all you see in the letter, we know nothing more," he said.

A general diary will be filed with the local police station, he added.

Mir Nasir could not be contacted. But Aminul Islam, his political secretary, said, "It is just a stunt by the opposition party for electoral gagins."