The Election Commission of Bangladesh (EC) said on Wednesday that it has “locked” the national identity card of the deployed Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, so that she will no longer be able to vote in the general elections to be held in February next year.
Election Commission secretary Akhtar Ahmed told reporters at his office located at the election building here, “Anyone who has been locked the National Ident Card (NID) cannot vote from abroad.”
He said, “His (Hasina’s) NID has been locked.”
Although Ahmed did not mention any other name, the UNB news agency and the Dhaka Tribune newspaper quoted the anonymous Election Commission officials as saying that Hasina’s younger sister Sheikh Rehana, son Sajib Vajed Joy and daughter Simma Vajd Putul’s NID has also been “locked” or “blocked”.
Rehana’s children Tulip Rizwana Siddiq, Ajmina Siddiqu and nephew Radwan Mujib Siddi Bobby, her brother -in -law and former Hasina’s former security advisor retired Major General Tariq Ahmed Siddiqui, his wife Shaheen Siddiqui and his daughter Bushra Siddiqui have also been stopped from allegedly voting.
However, Ahmed said that those who have fled abroad for “to avoid justice” or other reasons can still vote, provided their NID cards are active.
On 5 August 2024, Hasina’s Awami League government was demolished when he was forced to flee India due to a violent student movement.
Subsequently, Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus took charge as the Chief Advisor of the Interim Government and suspended the Awami League activities until Hasina and other senior Awami leaders were prosecuted against humanity in other charges including crime against humanity.
Hasina is currently being prosecuted in her absence in Bangladesh’s International Crime Tribunal, where prosecutors have demanded death penalty for alleged atrocities during the July 2024 rebellion.
Most of the senior leaders of Awami League are under underground or exile, as the mob set and vandalized their properties, including Bangladesh founder and Hasina’s father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s 32 Dhanmandi residence.