Law enforcers have identified 337 voting centres of 425 in Gazipur as risky. Which means, 79.25 percent voting centres are unsafe with only 88 centres deemed safe.
Decision has been taken to deploy police and ansar at the centres that are risky. Administration feels that all centres, falling under the wards of AL candidate, Advocate Jahangir Alam, and BNP candidate, Hassan Uddin Sarkar, may be insecure. Gazipur police super made a list of these and sent them to returning officers.
BNP plus the voters requested army deployment but the chief election commissioner, K M Nurul Huda, has rebuffed the request.
It’s believed that in Gazipur, the number of risky centres has increased; in 2013, sixty percent centres were marker volatile and, this time, another nineteen per cent has been added to the previous number.
The current list was made taking into consideration earlier records of violence, intelligence reports of areas and condition of communication.
The Election Commission, EC, has decided to deploy 24 members of police and ansar at each centre, termed to be perilous. Of the 24, half will have weapons while the other half will carry sticks.
Gazipur police super, Mohammad Harun ur Rashid, says: “based on several factors, we have made a list and will deploy additional contingent for security.”
DC of Gazipur, Dr. Mohammad Humayun Kabir, says: “we will ensure level playing field; and, as part of that, there will be an executive magistrate present with a mobile court at all the 57 centres.”
There will be 19 judicial magistrates, 19 assistant returning officers working as observers, he said.
Seven thousand ansar members, six thousand police, six hundred RAB and seven hundred BGB members will be deployed.
“We shall try our best to hold a smooth election.”