<div style="text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 1rem;">The UN in Bangladesh has expressed concern over the attack on independent MP candidate Ashraful Alam (Hero Alam) during yesterday’s Dhaka-17 by-polls.</span><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“The fundamental human right of everyone to participate in elections without violence should be guaranteed and protected,” UN Resident Coordinator in Dhaka, Gwyn Lewis, tweeted today.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The United States has also encouraged the government of Bangladesh to investigate any report of violence thoroughly, transparently, and impartially, and to hold the perpetrators of violence to account.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Mohammad Ali Arafat, who won the Dhaka-17 by-polls, said what happened “just 20 minutes before the end of the election is uncalled for.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“I strongly condemn it. The involved parties could not be Awami League’s well-wishers. It was done with the intention of maligning the election,” he said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The culprits should be arrested and brought to justice, Arafat said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ashraful Alam, better known as “Hero Alam”, an independent candidate contesting the Dhaka-17 by-election, was physically assaulted while leaving a polling centre in Banani area on July 17.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Hero Alam was attacked by some miscreants in the afternoon while he was leaving the Banani Bidyaniketan School polling centre. He returned home after receiving treatment at a hospital. UNB</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">bndb24/kh</div>