Prompt of movement inside strong room creates tension; candidates, agents rush to NATRiP

Today afternoon, alert of movement inside the strong room flashed at one of the monitors. That alert caused tension among the contesting candidates and they rushed to NATRiP to check the footage.

The camera was monitoring polled EVMs of Sonai Legislative Assembly constituency. Candidates Mukesh Pandey and Kamakhya Prasad Mala of Congress and AK Azad Laskar election agent of AIUDF candidate Karim Uddin Barbhuiya visited the monitoring room to check further details.

They were accompanied by ADC Sumit Sattavan and other senior officials from the Cachar district administration. The footage between 10:00 am to 11:00 am was requested for review by the candidates. As per the request the footage was extracted and played on large screens at the centre.

In the footage, a cobweb strand is visible moving from one side of the frame to the other. It is possible that the sensors sensed that movement and flashed an alert on the monitor. ADC, after inspection confirmed that it was a spider moving inside.

Election agent of AIUDF, AK Azad Laskar said that the administration cooperated with the request of the candidates. “We saw the footage and whatever we could gather, it does not look like a human movement. However, we are yet to get the full footage and only after thoroughly inspecting that, we will be assured,” said Laskar.

Additional Superintendent of Police, Jagadish Das also rushed to the spot. It is worth mentioning here that NATRiP is heavily guarded by central paramilitary forces and have a strong presence of Assam Police. All candidates have their representatives too at the centre with permission to monitor round the clock.