Arrest fear grips Sylhet BNP ahead of city polls

Sylhet BNP leaders and activists are passing their day amid fear of arrest before the city elections despite the announcement of the party not to participate in the elections, slated for 21 June.

BNP leaders claimed that the police arrested at least 17 leaders and activists of the party in the last four days. Besides, they raided the houses of many other leaders every night.

Especially since the BNP Central Committee member and incumbent mayor Ariful Haque Chowdhury gave hints to participate in the city elections on 1 May, police started arresting and harassing party leaders and activists and raiding BNP leaders' houses, the BNP has alleged.

Sylhet city unit BNP, in a press release issued on Friday, demanded that police "unnecessarily" detained former Publicity Secretary of city BNP Shamim Majumder, Ward level BNP leaders Nazrul Islam, MA Lahin, and Badrul Islam, Juba Dal leader Alibur Rahman Ali, Chhatra Dal leaders Emon and Mirza Habib and showed them arrested after a few hours.

During the raids on houses, police harassed many party men, including ward BNP leaders Nazim Uddin, Lokmanuzzaman, and Farhad Ahmad, they added.

Sylhet City Mayor Ariful Haque Chowdhury said, "I convened a rally on 20 May at the registrar ground. From that meeting, I will clear my stance on the election. To prevent a crowd at that rally, police started mass arrests of BNP - Chhatra Dal men."

Besides, the government suddenly reshuffled local administration ahead of the elections, he added.

Sylhet Metropolitan BNP President Nasim Hossain said ahead of the city elections, the police are arresting BNP leaders and workers in previous cases.

Refuting the allegations, Sylhet Metropolitan Police (SMP) Commissioner Md Elias Sharif said on Saturday that there is no authenticity in the allegations of BNP. Police are not arresting anyone unnecessarily. Arresting the accused is our routine work. Moreover, it's quite natural that there will be cases and arrests if the police are attacked.

EC starts removing banners-posters in Sylhet

The Election Commission (EC) started removing all kinds of poll campaign materials, including banners, posters, and billboards installed by the mayoral and councillor aspirants in the Sylhet City Corporation polls.

Divided into four teams, EC's Sylhet regional office began its cleaning drives from the Mehendibagh area of the city at Saturday noon.

Prior to that, the election office on 26 April issued an instruction asking the mayoral and councillor aspirants to remove those on their own but they did not pay heed to it.

Sylhet regional election officer Foisal Quader led the cleaning operation. Moulvibazar, Sunamganj, and Habiganj election officers joined the drive.

The voting in the Sylhet city polls will be held on 21 June. As per the poll schedule, the deadline for nomination paper submission is 23 May. The nomination papers will be scrutinised on 25 May and candidates will get poll symbols on 1 June after the withdrawal of the nominations.

As per electoral rules, after getting symbols, the candidates can start campaigning, which will continue until a day before polling.

However, the aspirants have already started campaigning in Sylhet violating the electoral code of conduct and covered the city with posters, banners, festoons, and billboards.

Additional Regional Election Officer of Sylhet Regional Election Office Tarek Ahmad said, "Our drive will continue. If anyone violates the code of conduct, he/she will be fined and jailed. However, if someone violates the law, then his nomination will be cancelled."

Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) will be used for voting in the Sylhet city polls.

According to the returning officer's office, three mayoral, 40 for the posts of reserved councillor and 131 for the posts of general councillor have collected their nomination papers till Friday.