Police interrogated the arrested VIPs (Very Important People) to know about those, who provided money, advice, and statements against the students' movement, Dhaka Metropolitan Police Commissioner Md Mainul Hasan said today.

He came up with the remark in reply to a reporter's query at the "Commissioner's Meet the Press" at the media centre in the capital's Minto Road .

This was his first briefing since taking the office on August 7.

Mainul provided updates on the investigation against several high-profile arrestees, including former ministers, a state minister, and an advisor from the previous government. These individuals are being interrogated to determine if they provided financial support, advice, or made statements against the students' movement, he said.

Mainul emphasised that the police are focused on uncovering any involvement in undermining the protests.

The commissioner also addressed the issue of unprofessional behaviour of law enforcers, which he attributed to a loss of public trust.

The unprofessional officials still remain in the posts, he said adding, "How the trust can be brought back by keeping these officials in the chair."

"This is an ongoing process. It may take some time. But you [addressing journalist] will see clean policing. Those [unprofessional officials] will not be in posts, who create a crisis on trust," he added.

"The legal system is an ongoing process. It may take comparative time. The issue of departmental action is ongoing," he said.

"We want to create a well-disciplined police force… where all policemen will work professionally," he said.

Asked about the unprofessional officers who might be evading accountability, the commissioner noted that their whereabouts are currently unknown but efforts are being made to address these issues.

He also refuted claims that favouritism based on district affiliations influences police appointments, asserting that professionalism should be the sole criterion for police roles.

Regarding "corruption" within the police force, Mainul pledged to form a professional police service devoid of corruption, irregularities, and injustice. He acknowledged the challenge of rebuilding trust and called for public support in overcoming the current crisis.

During the movement, the leaders and activists of Chhatra League, Jubo League, and Awami League's front organisations opened fire with weapons.

In this regard, Mainul said that along with many licenced weapons, illegal weapons were also used.

Asked how long it would take to overcome the trust and crisis, the commissioner said, "It cannot be said with certainty. We are trying, we want everyone's support in this regard. Police cannot recover from trauma without everyone's support."

The United States Secret Service, a federal law enforcement agency headquartered in Washington DC, will train the officials of six agencies of Bangladesh to increase their capacity to tackle money laundering and terror financing.

Around 60 officials of the Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU), four units of Bangladesh Police, including the Criminal Investigation Department, the National Board of Revenue (NBR), the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), the Department of Narcotics Control and Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission (BSEC) will receive the trainings in two phases.

Twenty officials of the BFIU will take part in the training, an official of the intelligence unit told The Daily Star.

A delegation of the American secret service will come to Bangladesh to conduct the training.

In the first phase, a five-day training programme will begin at the Police Staff College Bangladesh in the capital on November 10, followed by another five-day training session from November 17.

Another two sets of the follow-up trainings of the second phase will begin respectively on February 2 and February 9.

All agencies responsible for tackling money laundering have become active after the fall of the Sheikh Hasina-led government on August 5 this year.

The BFIU, ACC, NBR, BSEC, and other regulatory bodies have initiated investigations into business tycoons who have allegedly siphoned money abroad.

The interim-government has already formed a task force headed by the Bangladesh Bank governor to bring back the laundered money.

In a recent interview with the Financial Times, BB Governor Ahsan H Mansur accused tycoons linked to the toppled Sheikh Hasina regime of working with members of the country's powerful military intelligence agency to siphon $17 billion (around Tk 2 trillion) out of Bangladesh's banking sector during her rule.

Over 80,000 members of the police force, which comprises around 2 lakh personnel, were recruited over the past 15 years based on their political affiliations, said Dhaka Metropolitan Police Commissioner SM Sazzat Ali yesterday.

"In the last 15 years, different types of scrutiny have been done before appointments to know the political affiliation of candidates, their fathers, grandfathers, and even their predecessors," he said replying to a query at his maiden "meet the press" at the DMP media centre.

"Approximately 80,000-90,000 members were recruited through the process. We cannot tell 80 to 90 thousand police personnel to go home," he said.

The commissioner, however, said many of those who committed actions outside their professional duties have fled, and police are taking steps against many of them.

He expressed regret over the unprofessional behaviour of police members during the July uprising.

The CMP chief emphasised that Dhaka dwellers are doing well compared to many other major cities around the world in terms of crime situation.

Sharing his experience of a recent visit to the New Market area, the DMP chief said the hawkers have grabbed a part of the roads alongside the footpath.

"I called the New Market zone's assistant commissioner and officer-in-charge and talked to them but I could not order them to evict the hawkers. I have to act humane," he said.

"These people have been maintaining their families with their daily income of Tk 300-500. I can't tell them to 'get out' overnight," he said.

"I asked them [officers] to tell the hawkers to set up their shops on the footpath, not on the roads," he said.

"If they are evicted, the unemployment rate will increase and so will the incidents of mugging. There are many problems in a poor country and those are linked to each other," he added.

The DMP chief said they want to be a service provider in the city.

Now, the police will respond within one or two hours of filing a general diary, instead of 48 or 72 hours as seen in the past, he said.

He urged the city residents not to pay extortion.

"If society doesn't protest against extortion, it won't be possible to eliminate it. Do not pay extortion money. We will look into how the extortionists are collecting it," he said adding, "Extortion is driving up the prices of daily essentials."

Highlighting Dhaka's traffic system, the commissioner said, the system is in a state of disorder.

However, measures have already been taken to bring back order in the traffic sector, he added.

He urged city dwellers to rent homes near the institutions of their children or near their offices to reduce the use of private vehicles.

The 1970 Pakistan election was considered the "fairest and cleanest" election in Pakistan's history, which paved the way for Bangladesh's independence from Pakistan. However, Bangladesh has failed to institutionalise a sound electoral process in the 53 years since independence. Even though all elections held under caretaker governments (CG) were termed as mostly free and fair, elections held under political governments lacked credibility; some were even considered farcical. The key reason is political interference into the workings of election administration by successive political governments since 1972. To stay in power, the ruling class in most cases conducts purely decorative and ritualalistic elections denying independence to the Bangladesh Election Commission (BEC) and politicising other institutions with electoral responsibilities such as law enforcement agencies, local administration, judiciary, etc. aiming to manipulate election results.

The democracy-loving people of Bangladesh, where elections are festivals, are waiting to exercise their franchise in the 13th parliamentary elections. However, to ensure requisite institutional conditions for holding the next elections, the interim government needs ample time to rebuild Bangladesh's electoral institutions. The interim government and the new election commission, which is expected to be formed soon, must address the following key immediate issues not only to guide Bangladesh towards conducting genuine democratic elections but also to render the commission a professional citizens' organisation.

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The AL cannot validate this farce of an election with intimidation

First, the country needs an independent election commission (EC) free from political intervention. The first and foremost step towards an independent EC is the recruitment of credible and non-partisan authorities with a demonstrated commitment to democracy and accountability to citizens. However, the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners Appointment Act, 2022 is incomplete, as it lacks recruitment criteria for commissioners, excludes citizen scrutiny, and does not ensure transparency. Moreover, the loopholes around this law allow the ruling class to easily recruit loyal people as election commissioners. Therefore, the interim government should engage an expert pool to review and propose amendments to the law to ensure it is comprehensive, adheres to international best practices, and ensures the recruitment of commissioners capable of neutrally performing their functions.

Second, no EC around the world can conduct credible elections alone. They need support from various institutions, including the police and civil service. During elections, the EC should emerge as the de facto government authority on election administration, assuming total control over police and bureaucracy, and cutting its link with the political government completely. Political neutrality of electoral institutions is paramount. However, due to blatant politicisation of state institutions, some police personnel in particular played a blatant role in ensuring victory of ruling party candidates, including widespread ballot stuffing in multiple elections held under a political government. In order to neutralise temporary poll officials, including police, the IG should amend the Election Officers (Special Regulations) Act, 1991 so that no temporary poll officials, including returning officers and police, can play a biased role in any future elections.

Third, the EC should become a citizens' organisation. In genuine democratic elections, citizens are "the ultimate controlling power." Therefore, EC-decision making must be based on citizens' voices to make the EC "of the people, by the people and for the people." The new EC should conduct its work transparently, including adopting a transparency guideline so that Bangladesh can benefit from an EC that is fully accountable to citizens.

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Bangladesh's election formality is over. What’s next?

Fourth, an election cannot be termed as credible if opposition parties do not participate and if there is a lack of qualified candidates running for office. The UN declared that "political contestants (parties, candidates and supporters of positions on referenda) have vested interests in the electoral process through their rights to be elected and to participate directly in government." In Bangladesh, there are allegations that some qualified political parties were denied registration with the EC, while parties that did not meet the registration criteria were enlisted. Lack of participation of all qualified political parties raises questions about the credibility of elections. Therefore, both the IG and the EC, before the next election should create equal opportunity for all political parties to participate in elections. 

Fifth, election observation in Bangladesh has never been professionalised due to official and unofficial political intervention of the ruling party and EC restrictions. While election observers are a key electoral stakeholder, the EC never established professional relationships with observer organisations. Instead, many credible observers were labelled as "politically biased" when they published credible election observation reports. 

There are many examples of political, election-time governments thwarting effective election monitoring by pressuring election observers in multiple ways. Practices that negatively impacted past observations efforts include NGO Affairs Bureau cancelling previously approved funds for observing organisations to prevent them from carrying out their mandates; intelligence agencies subjecting election observers to intense scrutiny, which discouraged observers from conducting election monitoring; BEC issuing credentials during the night preceding election day, preventing observers from traveling to their desired constituency, and restricting observers' movement.

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How do we describe the upcoming election?

Due to such barriers, most credible organisations stopped observing elections in Bangladesh. The IG and the BEC should develop a strategy not only to professionalise election observation but also to build a culture of accrediting credible election observation organisations as an integral part of elections. 

Elections are of paramount importance to a country's quality of democratic governance. They are the means through which people voice their preferences and choose their representatives. I strongly believe the presence of an interim government creates an opportunity to bring elections back to the citizens of Bangladesh, including establishing a sustainable electoral mechanism which no longer change the rules of the game to engineer electoral outcomes.

Dr Md Abdul Alim is an elections specialist, currently working as principal director with Democracy International, and previously served as director of the Election Working Group.

Views expressed in this article are the author's own.

Follow The Daily Star Opinion on Facebook for the latest opinions, commentaries and analyses by experts and professionals. To contribute your article or letter to The Daily Star Opinion, see our guidelines for submission.

The recent image of a Jubo League leader carrying a ballot unit panel of an electronic voting machine (EVM) after snatching it during a by-poll in Chattogram's Boalkhali upazila is the latest addition to a growing list of examples as to why EVMs may not be suitable for conducting a free and fair election in Bangladesh. Neither the assistant presiding officer nor the on-duty members of the law enforcement agencies were able to prevent the mighty Jubo League's union level leader Nirmalendu Dey Sumon from taking the EVM ballot unit panel away.

They were unable to recover it either; Awami League's union President Ratan Chowdhury recovered the panel and returned it to the polling centre.

This incident occurred only a few days after Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Kazi Habibul Awal said no one had yet made a sound and objective complaint about the use of EVMs, and the commission had taken a stand in favour of EVMs after conducting several tests. Would the CEC now, at the least, agree that his several tests didn't include robbing of ballot-equivalent parts of their very expensive toy? Clearly he has been oblivious to the arguments made by most of the political parties, except the ruling Awami League and its allies. There's even stronger opposition to the idea of using EVMs among the citizenry and civil society organisations. Have the polling officers not blamed these machines' inefficiency for slowing down the voting process, which left many voters frustrated and contributed to lower turnout?

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Two by-polls, 29 years apart – yet so similar?

While speaking at a workshop in Cox's Bazar on March 11, the CEC, perhaps unwittingly, revealed the Election Commission's obsession with EVMs when he said, "The Election Commission is always in favour of conducting elections using EVMs. We are also working to find innovative modern technology for future elections." His comment that "so far, there has been no objective complaint about rigged elections using EVMs" suggests that he has conveniently forgotten that these EVMs do not have any option for verifying voting records, owing to a design fault of not including the voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) system.

Even though it has abandoned the ambitious plan to hold 50 percent of the next parliamentary election through EVMs due to the country's ongoing financial crisis, the EC still appears to be aiming at using EVMs in quite a significant number of parliamentary seats. On March 15, the commission decided to ask the finance ministry for allocating Tk 1,260 crore (equivalent to more than $1 billion) for repairing 110,000 EVMs. This means each EVM unit will cost Tk 115,000, which is nearly half the purchase price.

It was reported in this daily that each EVM was bought for Tk 235,000, a price 11 times costlier than neighbouring India. When better EVMs (including VVPAT) cost much less, then why does the EC want to repair discredited junk?

Earlier, it was reported in the media that about 40,000 EVMs were beyond repair. When these EVMs were introduced, the EC bought 150,000 EVMs, which means there's none, or very few, usable EVMs available now. Even then, the commission is insistent on having some EVMs in the upcoming parliamentary election.

According to Election Commissioner Anisur Rahman, the Election Commission just wants a pledge that its request would be approved. He told the media, "If we are assured of the required funds, we will go for the work immediately. We can even make half payment to the Machine Tools Factory in this fiscal year and the rest in the next fiscal year." This shows the EC's resolve to go the extra mile to have as many EVMs being used in the next election as possible.

It was reported in this daily that each EVM was bought for Tk 235,000, a price 11 times costlier than neighbouring India. When better EVMs (including VVPAT) cost much less, then why does the EC want to repair discredited junks?

Such an extraordinary emphasis on having elections in some constituencies make us wonder whether there's more to this than meets the eye. It may sound cynical, but questions can be raised whether the intention is to allow the workers of the ruling party to cover their unlawful act of pressing voting buttons for their candidates in the name of assisting the voters. Besides, allowing election officials up to one percent of the voters in a polling booth to cast votes through EVMs in the event of fingerprint mismatch also increases risks of manipulation.

The amount of money that the Election Commission is seeking to repair faulty EVMs is almost double the money allocated for the last parliamentary election – which was also a record in our electoral history. Available data shows that the allocation for the last national assembly election was Tk 700 crore, when the voter number was 104 million. The EC's original plan was to have voting in 150 constituencies through EVMs, and for that it sought Tk 8,711 crore, which would have cost us 14 times more than the previous election. In a way, the ongoing economic predicament has saved us from an exorbitant waste.

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Political dialogues: The long road to nowhere

Under these circumstances, it would be sensible to abandon such a wasteful wish, and concentrate on other crucial preparatory work for the coming election instead. CEC Habibul Awal, in his public statements, has acknowledged that there is a crisis. The reason for the crisis is evident in his words, "We still do not see a consensus among parties regarding the upcoming general election, which is essential. We do not want any political crisis before or during the elections."

It's well understood that the CEC doesn't want to take the role of a mediator, but getting an agreement from the contending parties on the rules of the game beforehand is not someone else's responsibility. 

Kamal Ahmed is an independent journalist. His Twitter handle is @ahmedka1