The third and final phase of elections of 25 registered graduate representatives to the Dhaka University senate was held at three polling centres on the university campus on Saturday.
About 20,000 registered graduates cast their vote in the elections held between 10:00am and 5:00pm, the university registrar, Syed Rezaur Rahman, said adding that the results would be announced today.
Seventy-two candidates, 25 each from the Awami League-backed Ganatantrik Oikya Parishad and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Jamaat-e-Islam-backed Jatiyatabadi Parishad and others from individual platform Sammilita Parishad, contested in the elections held in three phases — on September 14, 21 across the country and on Saturday in the capital Dhaka.
Activists of the Awami League and its front organisations and the BNP and its front organisations had crowded the polling stations at the Teacher-Student Centre, the Physical Education Centre and the senate building from early morning. People of both the camps had scuffles and altercation between them a number of time.
At least six people were injured in the clashes in the mall and at the TSC during the polling.
The injured were Chhatra Dal Dhanmondi unit leader Azizul Haque Zeon, DU Ekushey Hall student Al-Amin, Anabil Roy of Jagannath Hall, Tarek of Ziaur Rahman Hall, DU Chhatra Dal unit activist Muhibul and former DU history department student Jeba Sharmin.
Witnesses said that the Surya Sen Hall unit Chhatra League’s general secretary SK Arefin Sujon had attacked Azizul and some others in the mall. The hall’s Chhatra League unit leaders and Chhatra Dal’s senior vice-president Akramul Haque and his supporters also had altercations between them over campaigning.
Zeon, Al-Amin, Tareq and Anabil became injured in the attack At one point. The PJ Hartog International hall provost, Lutfur Rahman, also a member of the BNP-backed White Panel, is reported to have been assaulted during the incident.
Earlier in the morning, both Chhatra Dal and Chhatra League activists shouted slogans against and scuffled with each other when the acting BNP secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir went to the Physical Education Centre to cast his vote.
Fakhrul and the law minister, Shafique Ahemd, after casting their vote said that the polling was peaceful.
The proctor, Amzad Ali, said that a few untoward incidents had taken place. ‘But they were not that big as the ones that took place in the past.’
The High Court, meanwhile on Thursday, issued a rule on the university authorities asking them to explain why the elections of registered graduate representatives to the senate held outside Dhaka on September 14 and September 21 should not be declared illegal and cancelled.
-With New Age input
