High-level meet reviews law, order situation

Staff Reporter:
A high-level meeting was held yesterday to review the overall preparations for the upcoming na-tional election, with a particular focus on both administrative and security-related arrangements.
Chief Adviser Professor Muhammad Yunus chaired the meeting at his office in the city’s Tejgaon area, which reviewed the election preparations in a very comprehensive and in-depth manner.
Home Affairs Adviser Lt Gen (retd) Md Jahangir Alam Chowdhury, Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Adviser Fouzul Kabir Khan, Special Assistant to the Chief Adviser on Defence and Na-tional Solidarity Development Lt Gen (retd) Abdul Hafiz, National Security Adviser Dr Khalilur Rahman, Special Assistant to the Chief Adviser for Posts, Telecommunications and Information Technology Faiz Ahmad Taiyeb, Cabinet Secretary Dr Sheikh Abdur Rashid, Chief of Army Staff General Waker-Uz-Zaman, Chief of Naval Staff Admiral M Nazmul Hassan, Chief of Air Staff Air Chief Marshal Hasan Mahmood Khan, Chief Adviser’s Principal Secretary M Siraz Uddin Miah, Home Affairs Secretary Nasimul Ghani, EC’s Senior Secretary Akhtar Ahmed, Inspector General of Police (IGP) Baharul Alam and chiefs of Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), Bangladesh Ansar and VDP, Coast Guard and Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) and representatives from different intel-ligence agencies were present at the meeting.
Later, Chief Adviser’s Press Secretary Shafiqul Alam briefed the media about the meeting at the Foreign Service Academy this afternoon. Deputy Press Secretary Mohammad Abul Kalam Azad Majumder and Senior Assistant Press Secretary Foyez Ahammad were present at the briefing.
According to the Election Commission, the press secretary said elections will be held simultane-ously in 300 constituencies on February 12 as delimitation issues regarding a few constituencies have been resolved.
Noting that Wednesday (Yesterday) was scheduled for allocation of electoral symbols, Shafiqul Alam said the EC secretary informed the meeting that the printing of posters and ballots will begin from midnight tonight and the process will start in full swing from today morning.
According to the EC officials, a total of 69 Returning Officers (ROs) will perform duties in this election while for the first time Regional Election Officers have been appointed for Dhaka, Chatto-gram and Khulna as ROs.
Deputy Commissioners (DCs) will serve as Returning Officers in 64 districts, while two Divisional Commissioners will also act as Returning Officers.
A total of 598 Assistant Returning Officers (AROs), including 495 Upazila Nirbahi Officers (UN-Os), 68 Upazila or Thana Election Officers, 11 Regional Executive Officers, five Additional Deputy Commissioners from district administrations, four Cantonment Executive Officers, and four Addi-tional Deputy Commissioners (Revenue) will perform duties in the election.
Regarding nomination paper submission, the EC officials informed the meeting that a total of 2,568 nomination papers were submitted. Of them, 2,087 candidates represented political parties, while 481 were independent candidates.
A total of 726 nomination papers were rejected. The number of validly nominated candidates stands at 1,842. A total of 51 political parties are participating in the election.
Referring to the EC, Shafiqul Alam said that the elections will be held at 247,499 voting booths of 42,779 polling centres in the all 300 constituencies. The total number of voters is 127,711,793. Of them, 64,825,361are male, 62,885,200 female while 1232 are transgender.
About the law and order, the press secretary said district and upazila-level law and order commit-tees have been formed ahead of the polls.
At the district level, the Deputy Commissioners (District Magistrates) will serve as chair, while at the upazila level, the Upazila Nirbahi Officer will serve as chair.
Judicial inquiry and adjudication committees have been formed in all 300 constituencies.
To ensure speedy trial of election-related offences, a proposal has been made to appoint 657 Judi-cial Magistrates across the 300 constituencies from 8 February to 14 February, Shafiqul Alam said, adding that there will be 1,047 Executive Magistrates in the polls.
Minimum 15 members of law enforcement personnel will be deployed at each polling centre, he said, adding, however, the number may increase in the vulnerable polling centres.
For the first time, this year, armed Ansar members will be stationed inside polling centres to en-sure the security of Presiding Officers, said Shafiqul Alam.
Noting that 25,500 body-worn cameras will be used by police personnel at risky and highly risky polling centres, the press secretary said all cameras have already been supplied and are ready for use.
During the meeting, he said, a live trial was conducted by connecting the Chief Adviser directly with a police officer at a polling centre at Hathazari in Chattogram.
The meeting was informed that more than 100,000 members of the Bangladesh Army will be de-ployed during the election, Shafiqul Alam said.
In addition, over 5,000 members of the Bangladesh Navy, more than 3,730 members of the Bang-ladesh Air Force, around 150,000 police personnel, 576,000 members of Bangladesh Ansar and Vil-lage Defence Party, approximately 38,000 members of Border Guard Bangladesh, more than 3,500 members of Bangladesh Coast Guard, around 8,000 RAB members, and 13,390 personnel from Fire Service and Civil Defence will be deployed.
Additionally, around 15,000 members of Bangladesh National Cadet Corps are expected to be en-gaged.
For the first time, the Fire Service has been involved to ensure rapid response to any emergency incidents.
The press secretary said that the meeting was also informed that approximately 500 drones will be deployed for election monitoring, along with 50 dog squads while drone operations will be fully managed by government security forces, and restrictions will be imposed so that civilians cannot fly drones.
A committee will be formed soon to coordinate drone operations, he added.
A special feature of this election is the Election Security Application, which will be used by mem-bers of all law enforcement agencies at polling centres.
Besides, armed forces, police, BGB, Coast Guard, RAB, Ansar, DGFI, NSI, and Assistant Return-ing Officers will act as responders using the application.