Before the Odododiodio bye-election came to a close yesterday, seven persons including the editor of The Lens, an NDC propaganda sheet, were arrested and detained at the James Town police station for involvement in electoral violence. Nearly all the suspects are alleged to come from the Northern region.

Our reporters could not however ascertain whether the suspects were supporters of the NDC, NPP, CPP or DPP. As at press time, DSP David Eklu, Director of the Police Public Relations Department was negotiating for the possible release of the Editor Kobby L. Fiagbe. The police was trying to get the particulars of the editor in order to confirm whether he is an accredited journalist as he claimed. Mr. Fiagbe denied that he did something untoward since he was doing his duty as a journalist in reporting the by-election. Our reporters could not identify the location where the arrest was made.

Meanwhile security was beefed up during the polls due to the occurrence of a fisticuff between E.T. Mensah, NDC MP for Ningo/Prampram and an unnamed NPP parliamentarian in an incident in which Baba Jamal, deputy NDC Secretary General was slapped by a policeman. A team of 300 fully armed military officers were later detailed to assist the 1,000 contingent of policemen who were deployed to keep the peace in the constituency during the polls.