Brave officer foils BCL bid to capture polling centre

“You can kill me but I can't comply with your illegal demand,” was the response of a presiding officer of a polling centre in Chittagong City Corporation polls when ruling party men stormed the centre and demanded they be allowed to stuff the ballot boxes.

It was 3:20pm, 40 minutes before the voting was to end.

A group of Bangladesh Chhatra League, the pro-Awami League student body, activists entered the room of presiding officer AMM Mujibur Rahman of poling centre-341 at Bakalia Govt High School and asked for 20 minutes to do their “job”.

One of them slammed his fist on the table of the officer, head of a polling centre, but the brave officer refused to comply.

“I have been maintaining a smooth voting until 3:20pm. Don't ask me to do anything which will damage my reputation,” he told the Chhatra League men.

The Daily Star reporter was present at the centre since 8:00am and saw the whole thing up close.

“I can't do it … both legally and morally,” Mujibur told them during the altercation. The Chhatra League kept on mounting pressure on him but the officer would not budge.

At one stage, the Chhatra League went out and called their cohorts who were outside the polling centre. They fired several shots in the air scaring voters. They were wielding firearms and sharp weapons 300-400 meters away from the polling centre.

Policemen later chased them away and called in additional forces.

Three other presiding officers of polling centre-340, -342 and -343 of the school were also able to ward off the ruling party men.

At polling centre-340, a total of 629 votes were cast of 2,525. AL-backed mayor candidate AJM Nasir Uddin got 186 votes while BNP-blessed M Manjur Alam received 376 votes, said Rezwanul Hoque, presiding officer of the polling centre.

Nasir got 393 votes and Manjur got 627 votes at polling centre-343, said presiding officer Prof Arun Bikash Barua, adding that of the 2,423 voters, 1,097 had cast their votes.