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Published : 01 Jul 2025, 07:03 PM
Former chief election commissioner (CEC) KM Nurul Huda has been sent back to jail after recording a confessional statement before a Dhaka court in a case that accuses him of conducting general election “without the people’s mandate”.
The investigating officer, the Police Bureau of Investigation (PBI) Inspector Syed Sajedur Rahman, produced him in court on Tuesday following two rounds of questioning over eight days.
Sub‑Inspector Rafiqul Islam of the prosecution division at Sher‑e‑Bangla Nagar Police Station said the former CEC expressed his willingness to confess, prompting the officer to submit a plea to have the statement officially recorded.
Dhaka Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Ziadur Rahman began recording the statement at noon and concluded the session by evening.
He was arrested on Jun 22, the day the case was filed.
The next day, the court granted police four days to question him.
On Jun 28, he was placed on another four‑day round of interrogation.
Another former CEC, Kazi Habibul Awal, was arrested in Moghbazar on Jun 25.
He was grilled for three days and later sent to jail on Sunday.
BNP National Executive Committee member Salahuddin Khan lodged the case at Sher-e-Bangla Nagar Police Station.
The case accuses three former CECs -- Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmad (2014), Huda (2018), and Awal (2024) -- along with election commissioners who served during their respective terms.
Also named are ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina, and former inspectors general of police Hassan Mahmud Khandaker, AKM Shahidul Hoque, Javed Patwary, Benazir Ahmed and Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun.
According to the case details, BNP leaders and activists were pushed out of the election process in all three general elections through “mass arrests, intimidation, enforced disappearances, killings and trumped-up charges”.
The complaint says that despite holding constitutional positions, the accused violated the Constitution, breached electoral laws, interfered unlawfully in the voting process as government officials, and falsely declared candidates as elected MPs without securing public votes -- actions considered criminal under the law.
It claims that voters from every polling centre, especially those who were prevented from casting ballots, along with presiding officers, police personnel, and local residents, could serve as witnesses.
The seals and signatures on the ballot papers, if scrutinised, would reveal whether the votes were genuinely cast.
