When Ballots Face Bullets

M A Hossain,

Bangladesh’s gravest threat on the road back to democracy is not procedural delay or partisan mistrust. It is something more elemental: the erosion of the state’s monopoly on violence. As the country approaches a long-awaited parliamentary election, the failure to recover looted firearms—and the violence already orbiting that failure—casts a long shadow over law, order, and electoral legitimacy.

During the mass uprising and the period of state instability that followed, police stations, security facilities, and prisons were overrun. Weapons meant to uphold public safety slipped into private hands. Authorities say many have since been recovered. Yet the remaining figures are chilling: more than 1,300 firearms and over 200,000 rounds of ammunition are still missing. These are not abstractions. They include rifles, submachine guns, light machine guns, pistols, and shotguns—lethal tools now circulating outside state control.

That senior Election Commission officials are raising this alarm publicly matters. This is not institutional hand-wringing. It is a constitutional warning from those charged with protecting the vote. In recent weeks, shootings and targeted killings have struck Dhaka, Chattogram, Gazipur, Narsingdi, Jashore, and Shariatpur. Political figures, activists, and businessmen have been attacked in public spaces. Homemade bombs and incendiary devices—some apparently linked to campaign sabotage—have killed young men and destroyed homes. Election offices have been torched. Buses burned. Threats circulate openly, often online. This is not a random crime. It is the return of armed violence as a political instrument.

The police insist the unrecovered weapons will not disrupt the election. As reassurance, it sounds soothing. As an analysis, it is hard to sustain. Since the looting of state arms, robberies, extortion, contract killings, and political intimidation have visibly increased. When criminals possess state-grade weapons, insecurity becomes structural, not episodic.

Elections are as much psychological as procedural. Voters turn out when they feel safe. Candidates campaign when they trust the state to protect them. Today, number of political leaders have requested personal security. One candidate recently addressed supporters wearing a bulletproof vest. That image speaks louder than any official statement.

Raids alone are not enough. Effective recovery demands intelligence-led policing, inter-agency coordination, disruption of arms rental networks, and protection for informants. At present, these efforts appear fragmented, leaving a dangerous uncertainty about where the missing weapons are and how they might be used during the campaign.

The February election is not just a date on the calendar. It is a test of democratic recovery. A vote conducted under fear is a vote already compromised. The remedy is neither radical nor novel: make weapon recovery a national priority, tighten intelligence coordination, secure hotspots and borders, and demand political restraint.

A peaceful election is not a favor to politicians. It is the minimum requirement of a civilized society. And it begins with a simple, difficult truth: the state’s weapons must return to the state’s hands.

M A Hossain, political and defense analyst based in Bangladesh. He can be reached at: writetomahossain@gmail.com

This article published at : 

1. Pakistan Observer, Pak : 15 Jan, 26