- By Shibra Arshad
- Sat, 14 Feb 2026 12:02 PM (IST)
- Source:JND
Bangladesh Election Results: Bangladesh concluded its 13th parliamentary election on Thursday, with Tarique Rahman-led Bangladesh Nationalist Party coming out as the largest, securing a landslide victory. Three of the candidates who secured victory in the latest poll are facing serious charges and were sentenced to the death penalty, before Muhammad Yunus returned from the US, following Hasina's departure for India to live in exile. Yunus then cleared their names of all charges.
Two of the three leaders are from BNP, while the third one is from Jamaat. The two BNP leaders are Lutfozzaman Babar and Abdus Salam Pintu, and ATM Azharul Islam from the Jamaat-e-Islami. Leaders who were convicted in two cases linked to a grenade attack on August 21, 2004, that targeted Sheikh Hasina, are headed to the Parliament of the neighbouring country.
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In December 2024, a Bangladeshi high court acquitted Tarique Rahman, Lutfozzaman Babar and others.
BNP’s Lutfozzaman Babar won the election with a huge margin of 1.6 lakh votes from his nearest rival. Another BNP leader, Abdus Salam Pintu, also received relief when the charges against him were cleared.
Pintu is considered more problematic from India’s perspective as he had been accused of backing Pakistan's terror group Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (Huji) that was behind attacks in India, including the blasts on a court premises in Uttar Pradesh's Varanasi in 2006, Ajmer Sharif Dargah in 2007, and Delhi in 2011.
Abdus Salam Pintu secured the victory with a margin of over 2 lakh votes.
The third leader who has been convicted and is now looking forward to perform a job of a lawmaker is a longtime Jamaat leader, ATM Azharul Islam. He has been trying his luck in politics since 1998, even serving as the organisation's secretary general till 2012.
Islam is allegedly responsible for the death of over 1,200 people in the 1971 Liberation War. He is also accused of 13 rape cases. Islam was sentenced death penalty in 2014 for all these charges, and Mohammad Yunus forgave and acquitted him of all the charges.