Several hundred additional law enforcers, uniformed and plainclothes, were deployed on the EC secretariat premises after the intelligence report about an organised threat to the security of the CEC and the three other election commissioners, sources in the Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) said.

Security of the residences of the CEC and the election commissioners was also tightened.

In the morning, DMP Commissioner ABM Bazlur Rahman held a two-hour long meeting with CEC MA Aziz and informed him about the intelligence information on 'serious threat to his security' in the wake of growing political crisis centring the demand for his resignation, sources said.

At the meeting, a proposal for restricting the frequent movement of journalists at the EC Secretariat was also discussed so that no miscreant can enter in guise of journalists. If this plan is implemented, the journalists may not be allowed to step into the building where the offices of the CEC and other three election commissioners are situated, sources said.

The meeting even went as far as to discuss another proposal for a temporary ban on the journalists' entering the EC Secretariat premises, the sources added.

At present, a large number of journalists, both from electronic and print media, visit the EC Secretariat regularly to collect information about preparations for holding the next parliamentary election. Leaders of any political parties, however, are yet to visit the EC with any complaints or demands centring the election.

The EC is planning to take actions regarding the proposals, sources said.

Emerging from the meeting, the DMP commissioner left the EC Secretariat declining to reply any queries of the waiting journalists. No electronic media was allowed to shoot the meeting.

The secretary to the EC Secretariat Abdur Rashid Sarkar also did not give any details about the meeting. He just told the reporters that the security was strengthened after consulting both the EC and the government.

The DMP also put up barbed-wire barricades at the entry point of the road leading to the Planning Commission complex and at the entrance of the complex in the morning in a bid to prevent any procession from marching towards the EC Secretariat. Huge policemen were deployed at all the entry-points, around the complex, in adjoining areas and roads leading to the EC Secretariat

The CEC and three election commissioners attended and left their offices yesterday amid tight security.