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Three leaders sentenced to death elected as Members of Parliament : A mockery of democracy in Bangladesh !

  • Convicted of terrorism or genocide

  • Anti-India mindset
(From the left) Lutfozzaman Babar, Abdus Salam Pintu, and ATM Azharul Islam

Dhaka (Bangladesh) – In Bangladesh’s general elections, former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party regained power by securing a majority. However, some individuals who had previously been sentenced to death have now been elected to Parliament. The list includes Bangladesh Nationalist Party leaders Lutfozzaman Babar, Abdus Salam Pintu, and ATM Azharul Islam. All three won by margins of at least 100,000 votes.

1. Lutfozzaman Babar

He won from the Netrokona-4 constituency by more than 160,000 votes. He served as State Minister for Home Affairs in Khaleda Zia’s government from 2001 to 2006. In 2014, he was sentenced to death for his alleged involvement in the 2004 grenade attack in Dhaka, which targeted Sheikh Hasina. Twenty-three people were killed in the attack. (When a person holding the position of State Home Minister is involved in such an attack on the Leader of the Opposition, it shows how deteriorated Bangladesh’s democracy had already become 20 years ago. – Editor)

Later, in 2018, he was given another death sentence in the Chittagong arms smuggling case. He had allegedly arranged 10 truckloads of weapons for insurgents in Northeast India. However, in January 2025, the High Court acquitted him. (First awarding a death sentence and later acquitting — what greater irony could there be regarding the judicial system? – Editor)

2. Abdus Salam Pintu

Another influential Bangladesh Nationalist Party leader, Abdus Salam Pintu, won from the Tangail-2 constituency by approximately 200,000 votes. He was sentenced to death in 2016 for involvement in the 2004 grenade attack. Abdus was also known to support the Pakistan-based terrorist organization Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami. The same organization has been accused of carrying out bomb blasts at the Varanasi court in 2006, Ajmer Sharif Dargah in 2007, and in Delhi in 2011.

He was released from prison in December 2025.

3. ATM Azharul Islam

He won from the Rangpur-2 constituency by 139,000 votes. During the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War, he was accused of killing 1,256 people and committing atrocities against 13 women. In 2014, the International Crimes Tribunal sentenced him to death for these war crimes.

Editorial Perspectives

  • Bangladesh may become even more geopolitically challenging for India in the future. India needs to formulate a strategy to ensure that anti-India networks in Bangladesh do not become active again due to such leaders.
  • The victory of Bangladeshi political leaders with an anti-India mindset by such large margins indicates that the Bangladeshi public itself may also be anti-India.

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