The police have arrested four people over the attack on independent MP candidate Ashraful Hossen alias Hero Alom in the capital during the Dhaka-17 by-poll on Monday.
Additional deputy commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police’s (DMP) public relation wing, KN Roy Niyoti confirmed their arrest to Prothom Alo at night.
The police official said they were arrested right after the incident in front of the Banani Bidyaniketan School and College in the capital. The members of the Detective Branch (DB) of police in Gulshan zone arrested the four after analysing video footage of the incident.
Voting to the Dhaka-17 by-poll started from 8:00 am Monday. Mohammad Ali Arafat has competed in the polls with the nomination from ruling Awami League. There was no strong candidate against the AL-nominated candidate in this election. Hero Alom was the lone well-known person among the other candidates.
Hero Alom, who came into the limelight through his music videos on YouTube, also took part in the by-poll to Bogura-4 constituency. Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal candidate AKM Rezaul Karim Tansen defeated him by only 834 votes that time.
Hero Alom was visiting a women's polling centre at the Banani Bidyaniketan School and College at around 3:00 pm. At the time, people wearing boat symbol badges started hurling abuse at him and ordered him to leave the centre.
As the situation worsened, the on-duty police escorted him towards the main gate and the agitated AL activists followed. However, there was no police outside the gate. Seeing that, Hero Alom tried to leave the place quickly, but the people wearing boat symbol badges shoved him from behind and started beating him up.
Hero Alam's associates rescued him and tried taking him to a safer place. However, the ruling party activists chased him until reaching Road 23 of Banani ‘A’ block.
The agitated ruling party activists were calling out, “He (Hero Alom) is a ‘TikToker’, a clown. Why does he want to be the MP of Dhaka-17 constituency? Does he know the meaning of a MP?”
Some of the attackers were saying, “Just chase him. There is no need to beat him.”
The DMP says the incident occurred outside the polling centre and it didn’t hamper the voting inside. The police arrested four of the attackers within the quickest possible time with utmost professionalism, sincerity and competence. Drives are on to arrest others involved in the attack.