UNB, Dhaka :Some 500 magistrates will be appointed to curb election violence and breaches to the polls code during the first phase balloting of the Union Parishad (UP) election.Five magistrates will conduct mobile court to punish polling irregularities for four days in each of 102 Upazilas, where 736 UPs are going to polls, slated for March 22.Four executive magistrates and a judicial magistrate will be fielded in each Upazila for the four days (two days before the balloting, the balloting day, and the following day after voting), said Senior Assistant Secretary of the Election Commission Secretariat Antora Ghosh.The Election Commission has recently sent letters to the Public Administration Ministry and the Law Ministry seeking the executive magistrates and judiciary magistrates respectively to be deployed for the first phase election, she told UNB.Now an executive magistrate remains deployed in each Upazila since March 2, the last date for withdrawal of candidature.The remaining three executive magistrates and a judiciary magistrate will be posted in each Upazila from March 20 to March 23.Alongside the magistrates, a total of six teams of Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) and two teams of Bangladesh Border Guard (BGB) will work as mobile and striking forces in each Upazila to maintain electoral environment for the four days.According to a recent decision of the EC, two teams of Rab will perform election duty remaining as mobile force, while another team will be kept as striking force. In case of BGB, two teams (two platoons) will act as mobile force, while another team (one platoon) as striking force.For each coastal upazila, two teams (two platoons) of Coast Guard will remain as mobile force, while one platoon of the agency will be kept as striking force.Besides, a mobile team comprising police, APBN and Battalion Ansar members will ensure security in each UP remaining as mobile force, while another team consisting of members of the same law enforcement agencies will be kept as striking force for each three UPs.Meanwhile, a 19-member security team comprising five policemen, two Battalion Ansar men with arms and 12 embedded Ansar/VDP members will protect each vulnerable polling centre on the balloting day.In case of each ‘normal’ polling station, the number of the team members will be 17 due to lower chance of violence, with two less policemen.On February 11 last, the EC announced the election schedule for the first phase election as part of its plan to arrange elections in more than 4200 out of the country’s 4546 UPs in six phases by June Next.
