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Tainted face of polls

Star Report
It was ll:00arn. Around 300 women were queuing up outside the boundary of Agardari Aminia Kamil Madrasa polling centre in Satkhira. The centre looked deserted even three hours after the voting began.
Then a most strange thing happened when three police officers arrived there.
"Did you vote in the January 5 parliamentary elections?" a police officer asked the women.
"No," replied someone from the crowd, and the officers took no time to swing into action. Whistling, they drove the voters away.
Among those driven out were Khadiza Khatun, Sabiha Khatun, Suraiya Khatun, Gangarani Singha and Karunarani Singha, all voters of Agardari area. They vented their frustrations to journalists later over such action by police officials.
"How did the policemen know who we
would vote for?" said one of them, adding she had a right to vote.
The officer-in-charge of Sadar Police Station, Inamul Haque, who along with two other police officers drove out the voters, had his answer ready to "justify" his action.
"Why didn't they vote in the January 5 election? They didn't accept the government. So, what is the need for voting now," Inamul Haque told journalists.
The two other cops are OC of Kaliganj Police Station Golam Rahman and OC of Jessore Salikha Police Station Biplob Kumar Nath.
In the January 5 national polls boycotted by the BNP-Jamaat alliance, not a single vote was cast in this polling station at Agardari, considered a Jamaat stronghold.
Like the voters in Satkhira, voters at Badshala Government Primary School in Kasha upazila of Brahmanbaria were prevented from entering the centre.
A number of voters, preferring anonymity, said the ruling Awami League men were stamping ballots inside the booths.
Presiding Officer Abdullah Al-Mahmud said unidentified youths snatched 2,500 ballots from the centre.
"Some 2,736 votes have been cast so far [of which 2,500 ballots were snatched)," he said around 11:45am.
This means, 12 votes were cast there every'minute.
The Majlishpur Government Primary School centre of the upazila witnessed similar incidents. In the first three hours of polling, 2,000 of the 2,400 votes were cast, which means 11 people voted every minute.
Presiding Officer Abdur Rauf Molla confirmed the casting of 2,000 votes between 8:00am and 11:00am. Asked how that was possible, he said, "People are coming and voting."
Supporters of the AL-backed aspirant forced out the polling agents of the BNP-sponsored candidate and stuffed ballot boxes at the centre.
While visiting the centre around 11:00am, The Daily Star correspondent found none other than the AL-backed candidate's supporters there.
At Al-Amin Model Academy centre in Rupganj upazila of Narayanganj, AL men offered money to The Daily Star
correspondent, requesting him not to report on their stuffing of ballot boxes.
"Please take the money and keep quiet," said Khalilur Rahman, a local Jubo League leader.
Asked about the rigging, Presiding Officer Abdul Mannan said, "I am helpless."
In Barguna's Amtoli upazila, ruling party men stormed different polling stations even before the voting began and started stuffing ballots.
The incidents forced Assistant Returning Officer Md Abdullah to suspend polling at 12 centres of the upazila.
"We had initially suspended voting at 12 polling stations following allegations of various irregularities. After examining those, we started voting at
four centres," he said.
Conditions in three other upazilas -- Barguna Sadar, Bamna and Patharghata - were no different.
At least 30 candidates for chairmen and vice-chairmen posts in the four upazilas, including AL rebels and BNP contenders, boycotted the elections over vote rigging by AL men.
At a joint press conference at the sitting chairman's house, they claimed that supporters of the AL-backed candidates had captured 32 of the 59 polling stations and stuffed ballot boxes with the help of some administration officials.
In some areas, unruly AL-men stopped stuffing ballot boxes and ran away when journalists entered the polling stations.
In Feni, for example, supporters of Mesbaul Haider, an AL-backed chairman candidate, were marking ballots randomly at Pathannagar Government Primary School centre in Chhagalnaiya around 8:30am.
But they fled when journalists entered the booth. As they ran away, they exploded cocktails to create panic.
At Ballabhpur High School centre in the same upazila, Mesbaul's supporters took away all the ballot papers, marked them in neighbouring houses and then put them in ballot boxes.
When the magistrate found all the
ballot papers marked, he asked the presiding officer to take action. But he was seen leaving the centre after receiving a phone call.
Presiding Officer Abdul Jalil
Bhuiyan said he felt helpless.
At Gopal Government Primary School, a polling official was seen marking ballot papers and put them in the boxes around 12noon. He was silent
when asked why he had done so.
(The report was prepared based on the information sent by our district correspondents who visited all the polling centres mentioned in the story.)