2 officials held while carrying sealed ballot papers to polling centres

PBC News:  Two assistant returning officers (AROs) with sealed ballot papers have been detained from in front of a polling centre of Jakiganj in Sylhet.

Police said they were transporting sealed ballot papers on board their car to different polling centres of Kajolshar union.

Just before the ending of voting, Sylhet deputy commissioner (DC) M Kazi Emdadul Islam and police super (SP) Farid Uddin detained the two AROs.

Following their arrest, voting at Kajolshar union was suspended.

The arrested AROs were Ariful Huq and Sadman Sakib.

The SP said ballot casting was going on at nine unions of Jakiganj upazila. Kajolshar union is one of them where voting was taking place at four polling centres. There were allegations that exact number of ballot papers were not sent to the polling centres from the Upazila Election Office.

“As the voters couldn’t cast their ballots due to lack of ballot papers at Moricha Polling Centre of Kajolshar union till early Wednesday afternoon, the matter came to the notice of intelligence agencies there.”

The SP said when contacted with Upazila Agricultural Officer Ariful Huq, who was in charge of Kajolshar union as the Returning Officer, he told the administration officials that he himself was going to the polling centre with the necessary ballot papers.

When Ariful Huq and Sadman Sakib went to Moricha Polling Centre with ballot papers, police seized 400 sealed ballot papers from his car. Then they were arrested and taken to the local police station.

The SP further said the seized ballot papers included seal on ballot papers of the candidate of ‘Boat’ symbol, and two other member candidates.

There were allegations that Ariful and Sadman took more sealed ballot papers to some poliing centres.