BNP to bring vote 'snatchers' to book

BNP will form a tribunal to punish those "who are snatching people's voting rights", President of Chittagong city unit of the party Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury said yesterday.

"A list of the persons including police officials, presiding officers who snatched people's voting rights and stuffed ballot boxes is being prepared. No one would be spared. One after one, they would be put on trial," he told a party rally in Kazir Dewri area of the city.

BNP leaders and activists from different thanas and wards assembled for the programme.    

Khasru said the Awami League (AL) had a plan to set a new trend in election, in which people would be kept away from polling stations.

A section of bureaucrats and police, Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) and Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) officials is implementing the plan with the election commissioner as head, he added.  Terming the incumbent government autocratic, he said snatching voting rights, the government was doing injustice one after another for holding on to power.

BNP's city unit General Secretary Dr Shahadat Hossain said democracy, rule of law, and freedom of the judiciary were all gone from the country.