Police harassed and chased off supporters of Mirza Abbas, the BNP-backed mayoral candidate for Dhaka South city, as they were electioneering in Kamrangirchar area on Friday, in the name of search for a councillor candidate who has been in hiding.
Scared by frequent police search in different lanes in Kamrangirchar area, supporters of Mirza Abbas found it difficult to campaign.
On Friday morning, Mirza Abbas’s wife Afroza Abbas conducted electioneering on behalf of her husband in Kamrangirchar, a predominantly low-income group area on the fringe of the capital.
The campaign rallies drew hundreds of curious locals but police appeared at regular intervals looking for someone forcing the campaigners to scatter.
At one point, sub-inspector Khairul talked to Afroza Abbas and wanted to know the whereabouts of councillor candidate Md Shahidul Haque who was on the run.
During campaign in east Rasulpur area, Afroza alleged that law enforcers had attacked them and threatened the activists.
Branding the government autocrat, she said it was ruling the country by abduction and killing and making
opposition activists victims of enforced disappearance.
Afroza called on the voters to give the ‘autocrat’ government an apt answer through ballot.
‘We hoped on Thursday that a new bench would grant Mirza Abbas bail soon but the government is delaying the matter…,’ she said.
Afroza urged the authorities to allow Mirza Abbas to join the election campaign.
She distributed leaflets in Abu Sayed Bazar, Munshi Hat, Nayagao, Chokorhati, Baragram, Rasulpur, Ali Nagar, Khalifa Ghat, Islam Nagar, Muslimghat, Battery Ghat. Afroza wrapped up the campaign for the day by visiting the house of ward 56 councillor candidate Mohammad Noeem.
In the evening, she visited Bangshal area, and went to the house of Sayeed Khokon, her husband’s principal rival for South City mayor, where she offered Maghrib prayer and sought vote for Mirza Abbas. Khokon was not at home at that time.
There are 37 cases filed against Mirza Abbas. As he is in hiding to avoid arrest, his wife Afroza Abbas is conducting the election campaign on his behalf.
On April 15, the High Court gave a split verdict in the bail petition of MIrza Abbas in two criminal cases.
Absent from his publicity campaign ahead of the April 28 mayoral polls, Mirza Abbas appeared in the court for hearing on that day.
Justice Quamrul Islam Siddique granted Abbas a three-week anticipatory bail while Justice Gobinda Chandra Tagore rejected the bail pleas.
Bail hearing of the two cases filed by Paltan and Motijheel police was moved to chief justice Surendra Kumar Sinha.
The chief justice will now forward bail hearings to a new bench.
Source: New Age