In a blatant display of electoral farce, five youths were caught red-handed on a CCTV camera brazenly stuffing a ballot box with fake votes in Bangladesh’s Mymensingh-11 (Bhaluka) constituency during the February 12, 2026, parliamentary electionโa poll already marred by widespread doubts over its credibility.
Around 2:30pm, a group of young men stormed the Lohaboi Baradi Government Primary School polling centre in Meduari Union. Five of them entered a voting booth unchallenged and began stamping blank ballot papers en masse.
CCTV footage, now viral on social media (a 1-minute-33-second clip), clearly shows two individuals furiously stamping ballots while three others fold the papers and cram them into the ballot box. At least three more accomplices are visible in the frame.
Shockingly, no presiding officer, assistant presiding officer, or any polling staff was present inside the booth to stop the fraud. This was not a subtle rigging attemptโit was an open, shameless hijacking of the democratic process in full view of surveillance cameras.
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The incident was spotted live in the Upazila Parishad control room via CCTV. Police and a magistrate rushed to the scene. Polling was halted for about 30 minutes before resuming under new supervision. The presiding officer, Mohammad Hafiz Uddin, was immediately suspended for “weakness” in oversight and replaced by assistant presiding officer Abu Hena.
Bhaluka Upazila Nirbahi Officer (UNO) and Assistant Returning Officer Firoz Hossain downplayed the scale, claiming the fraudsters “may have stamped a maximum of 50-100 ballots.” He insisted invalid ballots (lacking the assistant presiding officer’s seal and signature) would not be counted, per electoral law, and voters were quickly brought back.
But this minimisation rings hollow: How could five outsiders enter a booth, occupy it, and forge votes undetected for any length of time? The absence of staff points to either gross negligence or complicity. Suspending one officer does nothing to erase the rigged ballots already inserted or restore public trust.
Senior journalist Probir Kumar Sarker said that this is no isolated blunder. Reports from Bhaluka and other areas highlight similar chaos: officials were withdrawn for allowing open voting and expelling rival agents, youths were posing as agents without ID, and there were allegations of “fake vote festivals” in the final hours. This CCTV-captured mockery exposes the fragility and farce of the 2026 polls. When ballot stuffing happens in broad daylight under cameras, and officials merely shrug it off as a minor “maximum 50-100” glitch, the entire exercise loses any pretense of legitimacy. Voters deserve far better than this charade.
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