Bangladesh elections: Over 50% polling centres considered 'risky', CCTV installed at most stations

Dhaka: More than half the polling centres have been identified as "risk-prone" for the general elections in Bangladesh, as officials said 90 per cent of them will be under CCTV surveillance, with many policemen deployed in the capital, Dhaka, wearing body cameras.

Officials said the Election Commission's security system is based on risk assessment. “Security deployment is being made based on local sensitivity assessments,” Election Commissioner Abul Fazal Mohammad Sanaullah told a media briefing late Tuesday.

EC officials said the elections would witness the largest-ever deployment of law enforcement personnel and the most extensive use of technology in the country's electoral history.

Sanaullah said the poll body expected law enforcement agencies to ensure a peaceful atmosphere for voters during polling and after elections.

He said the EC was largely satisfied with the current law-and-order situation and “compared to any time in the past, we are in a better position now”.

His comments came hours after the police Inspector General Baharul Alam said they found 24,000 out of nearly 43,000 polling centres across the country were “high” or “moderate” risk-prone election stations.

Police said they provided a list of risk-prone polling centres to the EC, which showed that out of 2,131 polling centres in Dhaka, 1,614 were risk-prone. However, the army, in a media briefing earlier, said they have identified two centres in Dhaka city to be "risky".

Officials said policemen would use body-worn cameras for the first time at these specific locations.

EC data showed that first-time voters made up some 3.58 per cent of the total 1,27,700,597 voters.

The polls are being held simultaneously along with a referendum on a complex 84-point reform package. The contest is mainly between the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its once ally, Jamaat-e-Islami.

Chief adviser Muhammad Yunus’ interim government last year disbanded deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League and barred it from contesting the polls.

A series of pre-poll surveys conducted in the past two months by consulting firms, research organisations and think tanks suggest that the BNP was the frontrunner and that its new chairman, Tarique Rahman, is in pole position to be the next prime minister.

Hasina’s Awami League government was ousted in a student-led violent street protest, dubbed the July Uprising, on August 5, 2024.