HRCBM-DFW

Many from minorities missing on voter roll
They may not be included due to form shortage
Staff Correspondent

Several thousand members of the minority communities in Dinajpur town who were not included in the updated voter list may not be enrolled this time also due to acute shortage of voter registration forms.

Besides, the names of many under aged students of a madrasa in the capital's Mohammadpur area, registered as voters earlier, were not deleted from the list till yesterday while correction of it ends on Friday.

Filed level Election Commission (EC) staffs continue to show negligence to list people who were not enrolled earlier. Severe shortage of voter registration forms is one of the main reasons for this.

These anomalies were detected during spot visits by a team of The Daily Star correspondents in the capital and different parts of the country yesterday.

Our Dinajpur correspondent visited 10 minority families in the district town's Maldahpatti, Fakirpara and Bara Bandar areas only to find that all members of seven families out of the 10 were not included in the voter list updated in August.

Of the remaining three families with four eligible voters on an average, only one or two members of each were listed in the updated voter roll.

According to Dinajpur chapter of the Human Rights Congress for Bangladesh Minorities, members of the minority communities in the town total 2.25 lakh, and 1.5 lakh of them are eligible voters. But around 70 thousand of them were not listed.

Many people were visiting the EC offices voluntarily to get enrolled as voters since the EC field staffs were unable to cope with listing such a huge number of voters through door to door visits. But many of them had to return frustrated due to acute shortage of voter registration forms. Local EC staff fared they might not be able to list many of the minority people as voters due to lack of forms.

MOHAMMADPUR, MIRPUR IN DHAKA
Following allegations of wholesale registration of madrasa students in the voter roll, The Daily Star correspondents visited Jamia Rahmania Arabia Madrasa at Mohammadpur and found that a student of class VII was included in the updated list.

A teacher of the madrasa, Nazrul Islam, said more than 800 of the 1,500 students and teachers are on the updated list.

Until yesterday afternoon, no EC staff visited the madrasa for correcting the list.

Some students said many of the fellow students aged under 18 were registered as voters. One such under aged student, Ismail Hossain, said he was enrolled during the previous voter list upating.

At Mirpur, staffs of Shakkyamuni Buddhist Monastery and indigenous community-run Bonoful Adivasi Green Heart School and College, said enumerators had earlier listed only four out of the 30 staffs as voters.

"It is only yesterday (Monday) that the EC staffs gave us the forms to be filled up," said Real Dewan, assistant director of the monastery.

Many of the EC staffs however said they are deleting the names of the voters who moved to other houses in the same areas or to other localities recently. But they could not say if those people were now getting listed as voters at their new addresses.

PALLABI
A number of residents of different areas of Pallabi in the capital, not yet listed as voters, yesterday said EC staffs are yet to visit their houses.

"The EC staff are showing utter negligence to listing new voters," alleged Shahabuddin Khokon of DCC Ward No 5. He said he had requested an EC staff to visit a six-storey house with 12 flats where only five women out of at least 12 were enrolled as voters.

But EC staff Wahabul Islam refuted the allegation.

However, a number of enumerators said they are often facing humiliation, as they cannot list new voters due to a dearth of forms.

The locals alleged two teachers of Baunia Bandh D Block Alia Madrasa, assigned to correct the voter list, are yet to start work. The teachers were not in the madrasa while this correspondent went there for their comments.

NILPHAMARI
Our Nilphamari correspondent also reported severe forms crisis, for which an EC staff could not register 12 voters of three families in ward no.1 of the town.

Meanwhile, 14-party alliance activists manhandled Azmal Hossain, a Jamaat activist, as he allegedly excluded the names of a few AL supporters from the list.

Around 22,000 stranded Pakistanis out of 62,000 were enrolled as voters earlier at Saidpur upazila of Nilphamari, sources said.

BOGRA
A large number of stranded Pakistanis have been listed as voters in several camps of Rajshahi division including Bogra.

Bogra district election officer admitted that the names of around 1,500 out of 6,000 stranded Pakistanis were entered as voters in Bogra in the previous voter list.

CHITTAGONG
The field level officials faced resistances from the AL-led 14-party supporters during the correction work in different areas of the city.

City AL Joint General Secretary Afsarul Amin alleged though the enumerators are entitled to correct the updated list as per the EC circular, they are working with the voter list of 2000.

He also alleged the BNP and Jamaat activists are assisting the field level officials in correcting the voter list.

NETRAKONA
In Netrakona, the BNP and Jamaat men are threatening the EC officials so that they could neither include the names of AL supporters nor delete the fake names.

"The BNP-Jamaat leaders and activists are visiting the houses of EC staffs at night and threatening them not to include the names of AL supporters and delete fake names," said an assistant registration officer of Khaliajuri upazila seeking anonymity.

KHULNA
The district election officer Monday withdrew five assistant officers, allegedly aligned to the BNP and Jamaat, for not performing duties properly. The officials are Oliullah, Asma Jamila Shima, Shahabuddin, Sonia Akhter and Shamsunnahar Munni.