Bangladesh on edge ahead of polls

One thing is certain. The killers of Osman Hadi are celebrating today. Things could not have worked out better for them.

His killing accomplished three interrelated goals:

The first was the removal from the scene of a charismatic, uncompromising, and incorruptible voice of the July Uprising from the political firmament.

Whether one was a fan of Osman Hadi or not, one could not question his integrity or his commitment or his willingness to speak truth to power, including to his erstwhile comrades.

While so many of the July revolutionaries had become compromised or corrupted in one way or another, and are on the fast track to nowhere but political oblivion, he stood out as the kind of young leader that could have been at the forefront of building a new Bangladesh.

For those who would rather see Bangladesh burn to ashes than see it rise up under any rule but their own, he was a mortal threat. He was exactly the kind of leader that could provide a threat to the old order, and that is why he had to be eliminated.

The second goal of his killing was to show that the enemies of the July Uprising are not dead yet and that there is still plenty of fight left in them.

They have shown very eloquently that their enemies are neither safe nor beyond their reach, and that, even after 18 months, they can still operate with impunity.

The message has been delivered loud and clear. If Hadi can be killed and his killers sequestered beyond the reach of justice, then building a new Bangladesh is going to be a long, hard slog, and we are going to remain under enemy fire every step of the way.

But it is the third goal that is the most salient: the setting on fire of the Daily Star and Prothom Alo offices was exactly the kind of response his killers wanted to elicit.

The burning down of the two newspaper offices sent an entirely different message, one that only served the interest of his killers.

It showed that Bangladesh is a country of mob rule and insecurity, ruled by a government that, when push comes to shove, cannot protect its people and whose writ does not extend to the streets.

It showed that the press is today less free and less safe than it was under the 15 years of Awami League repression.

Indeed, the irony is that these two newspapers were considered Public Enemy Number 1 and Number 2 by Sheikh Hasina who spent 15 years trying to destroy them. No one would be more gratified by the assault on them than her.

Finally, it showed that Bangladesh is a tinderbox, with law and order hanging by a thread, where anything can happen at any time to anyone.

This is precisely what Hadi’s killers hoped to accomplish. For them, it was a bases loaded grand slam (to borrow baseball terminology, because there is no cricket term that quite fits the bill).

The deeper game was to derail the elections in February and to portray Bangladesh as a hotbed of militancy and instability, thereby giving credence to the narrative of the past eighteen months that had been hammered home by Indian media and social media since Hasina was ousted.

From the very day of Hasina’s fleeing, the AL and its allies in the Indian media and social media had tried to paint a picture of Bangladesh descending into a Hobbesian nightmare of chaos and violence that was utterly at odds with the reality on the ground.

After a rocky start due to the fact that the police force has largely disappeared and the nation’s administration lay in shambles, the interim government was able to pick up the reins and quietly bring something resembling normalcy back to the country.

It was far from perfect, with the courts packed with spurious cases against the innocent and the economy still fragile from the decade and a half of looting and cronyism that the AL had bequeathed to them, but the law and order situation, with some notable and glaring exceptions such as the destruction of Road 32, was slowly brought under control.

One week ago, there was no reason to think that we were not on course for elections on February 12 or that the interim government would be unable to deliver them.

Now, everything stands in confusion. And this is exactly what Hadi’s killers wanted.

Hadi wanted elections. He believed in the electoral process. He believed in democracy. He was running for election in Dhaka-8. He believed in the slow, painstaking process of building a new Bangladesh and knew there could be no short-cuts. He talked about this all the time.

If we wish to honor his memory, let us make sure that nothing on Earth comes between us and this election on February 12.

The only people who gain from elections being derailed are the Awami League and the rightist parties and elements in society who know they can never win an election or come to power through democratic means.

If elections are delayed or derailed, then they win. The only way out for Bangladesh, the only way forward, the only way to deliver us from the current instability is to hold the elections as scheduled.

This is what the Bangladeshi people want and this is what the country needs. And now we must all come together to make sure that it happens.

The only people who benefit from elections being delayed are the enemies of the Bangladeshi people.

Elections delayed means more instability, more space for atrocity, and more scope for violence to take hold. We have already reached the very edge of how long we can survive without an elected government in place. Elections delayed beyond February could be the end of us.

Now is the time to bury our differences and join hands, and show that Bangladesh is still the great country that won its Liberation through bitter war in 1971 and overthrew a dictator in a people’s revolution in 2024, and that we stand together, and that together we will forge a future and create a country worthy of our martyrs, of whom Hadi is now one.

Let us honor the memory of our fallen brother by ensuring that his death will not divide us and provide aid and comfort to his killers and their allies.

Let us honor his memory by giving back to the people their long suppressed voice on February 12, 2026.

Zafar Sobhan is the Editor of Counterpoint, where this opinion piece first appeared.