A bombshell audio recording leaked today has confirmed what pro-liberation forces have long warned: Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, which now fully controls the Yunus interim government, administration, judiciary, police, and top positions in universities and educational institutions after last year’s student-jihadist riots, is secretly preparing to rig the upcoming national elections using Islami Bank Bangladesh officials as polling agents and “security coordinators” inside and outside voting centres.
In the leaked Zoom conversation, Islami Bank Independent Director Md. Abdul Jalil is heard discussing detailed election duties with Dr. Shafiqul Islam Masud, Secretary of Jamaat’s Dhaka South unit, along with several senior bank officers. The group openly allocates responsibilities:
- Bank officials to be placed as presiding officers and polling officers
- “Security and monitoring” teams to be stationed inside and outside polling stations
- Coordination of transport and logistics for Jamaat-backed candidates
The explosive leak has reignited the decades-old controversy over Jamaat’s deep financial and organisational control over Islami Bank, despite repeated official denials.
Jamaat Secretary General Mia Golam Parwar had claimed on October 28 that “there is no organisational or administrative link between Jamaat-e-Islami and Islami Bank.” Today’s audio directly contradicts that statement and proves that Jamaat is using the bank—which it has dominated since the 1980s—as its electoral war chest and manpower reservoir.
The timing is damning. The leak comes just weeks after BNP demanded that the Election Commission bar employees of Islami Bank, Al-Arafah Islami Bank, and Islami Bank Hospital from election duties, citing blatant political bias. Jamaat immediately labelled BNP’s demand “politically motivated.”
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Political circles and social media are now ablaze with outrage. Critics say the audio is irrefutable evidence that the same Jamaat-Shibir network that violently seized power in August 2024 through orchestrated riots is now moving to permanently entrench itself via engineered elections.
Neither the Islami Bank, the Jamaat leaders, nor the Election Commission has issued any response to the leaked recording as of Wednesday evening.
With Jamaat already holding key levers of state power—from the Chief Adviser level down to police stations and university vice-chancellors—today’s revelation confirms that the upcoming vote, whenever it is held, will be neither free nor fair unless the Islamist grip on institutions is immediately broken.