Staff Reporter :
Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) KM Nurul Huda said on Thursday that those who boycotted the election might have link to the Baghaichhari incident.
He passed it when he was talking with the reporters in his office at Nirbachan Bhaban in the capital’s Agargaon.
In the press briefing, Election Commission Secretary Helal Uddin Ahmed and Joint Secretary (Public Relation) SM Asaduzzaman were present.
“The perpetrators are yet to be identified. An investigation is underway. The picture will be clear after the investigation is over. However, several regional outfits contested the election and some of them boycotted it. We suspect them to be behind the attack.”
He said, each family of the victims will be provided Tk 5.50 lakh, while the injured person to be given Tk one lakh or Tk 50,000 for facilitating the treatment on the basis of their health conditions.
Nurul Huda said they would try to employ the family members of the deceased at the election commission if they get any scope.
On Monday unidentified gunmen shot dead seven persons including election officials and Ansar members at the end of the second phase of the Upazila election boycotted by an organisation of Chattogram Hill Tracts people.
At least 14 others were injured when the gunmen carried out the attack in Noi Mile area on Baghaichhari-Dighinala road.
In a case started on Wednesday, police accused 50 unidentified men having link in the ambush.
The government formed a seven-strong panels to find the reasons of the killing and to suggest how to prevent violence in the hill tracts, and the panel members visited the scene on Thursday.
CEC Nurul Huda told reporters that they were in touch with the administration over the incident.
Responding to a query, he claimed that the security measures taken for the polls in the hill tracts were adequate “However, an ambush and that too, in a remote hilly region, is hard to anticipate.”
According to him, the premeditated attack lasted for only one to one and half minute.
“It was impossible for the BGB team in the convoy to retaliate within such a short time. But we do not think there was any negligence on their part. They started a search raid soon after the attack,” said Huda.
