Dhaka, Feb 12 (IANS) Serious allegations of rigging, use of money to influence voters and violent incidents emerged across several parts of Bangladesh on Thursday as the country held its 13th parliamentary elections, local media reported.
Amid rising electoral misconduct, a Jamaat-e-Islami leader, Zainal Abedin, was detained and fined for distributing cash during voting in Ranashal village of Gorai Union of Mirzapur Upazila in Tangail District.
The mobile court magistrate and upazila Assistant Commissioner (AC Land), Tarek Aziz, imposed a fine of 3,000 Bangladeshi Taka while confirming the incident.
Citing locals, Bangladesh’s leading daily, Prothom Alo, reported that Abedin distributed cash in a neighbourhood of Ranashal village in the morning.
Additionally, the Jamaat-led 11-party alliance filed complaints with the Election Commission, citing widespread irregularities at multiple polling centres across several constituencies, including Cumilla-8, Shariatpur-2, and Patuakhali-1, while calling for the immediate suspension of voting at the affected locations.
The alliance delegation met Bangladesh's Chief Election Commissioner AMM Nasir Uddin at the Nirbachan Bhaban in Dhaka and filed a written complaint providing links to more than a hundred video recordings as evidence.
Following the meeting, Jamaat-e-Islami Assistant Secretary General Moazzem Hossain Helal spoke to reporters but did not provide details on how many polling centres were affected by irregularities, Bangladesh’s leading newspaper, The Daily Star, reported.
The Jamaat leader further alleged that "bloody violence" had erupted in the Noakhali-6 constituency on Wednesday night. Additional incidents were recorded in other constituencies, including Jhalakathi and Shariatpur, where Jamaat party workers were reportedly driven away from polling stations.
As tensions escalated, miscreants exploded crude bombs and snatched ballot papers at a polling centre under the Bhola-1 (Sadar) constituency in Sadar upazila of Bhola district on Thursday, forcing authorities to suspend voting for nearly one and a half hours.
According to Omar Faruk, Presiding Officer of Alinagar School and College polling centre in Sadar upazila, a group of people entered the centre on Thursday afternoon following the detonation of crude bombs.
Later, they assaulted polling officials and snatched away 56 ballot papers and fraudulently stamped 76 others, the United News of Bangladesh (UNB) reported.
Reports suggested that police also arrested a Jamaat worker from the scene.
Violence erupted at several polling booths across Bangladesh on Thursday, leading to the death of a political leader as the voting was underway across the nation, local media reported.
Incidents started unfolding after polling began early Thursday morning, reflecting the deteriorating law and order situation and volatile security landscape in Bangladesh.
Bangladesh's high-stakes parliamentary elections ended amid escalating political conflict and violence, with several parties raising concerns over the fairness of the polls.
--IANS
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