Polling in Dhaka South centre cancelled after attack

Voting at a polling station at Bongshal’s Suritola in Dhaka South City Corporation has been cancelled after it was attacked and damaged.

The second centre in the Suritola school building (it has three centres there) came under attack an hour after polling started at 8am on Tuesday.

bdnews24.com photo-journalist Asif Mahmud Ove found two ballot boxes smashed  and lying on ground in the centre.

Ove said polling had been suspended in that centre and he found some people agitating and arguing with police outside the voting centre.

But it was not immediately known who was responsible for the attack on the polling centre and why.
  
Voters had lined up at that centre since 7am in the morning and all seemed well. But trouble erupted suddenly, said locals.

"We have suspended voting at this centre temporarily after the attack, for which outsiders were responsible. Polling will resume once normalcy is restored," Presiding Officer Nitesh Chandra Saha told bdnews24.com. 

But a presiding officer in a centre adjacent to the one attacked said polling was normal in his centre.

"I have not stopped polling. Voters may not come fearing mayhem. But we will allow them (voters) to exercise their franchise when they come," said Lutfur Rahman, presiding officer at a booth near the one attacked.

He said that of the 9,697 voters in his centre, 4 percent had voted before the trouble erupted.

A huge police posse was deployed outside the centre after the attack. A BGB vehicle could also be seen nearby.