64 district SPs finalised for national election duty through lottery

The government has finalised the appointment of Superintendents of Police (SPs) for all 64 districts through a manual lottery for the upcoming 13th National Parliamentary Election.

The lottery was conducted at the Chief Adviser’s residence, ‘Jamuna’, on Monday (November 24), in the presence of senior officials from the Home Ministry, Police Headquarters, the Chief Adviser’s Office, and Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP).

According to relevant sources, this is the first time a manual lottery has been used to ensure transparency and neutrality in assigning election-period responsibilities. Before the lottery, several rounds of scrutiny were carried out.

Officers who previously served as district SPs were excluded, and a ‘fit list’ was prepared with officers from the 25th, 26th, and 27th batches of the police cadre. From this list, 64 officers were selected through the lottery.

Home Ministry sources said that among the current 64 district SPs, 15 will be removed and replaced with newly appointed officers, while the remaining 49 will be transferred to different districts. Both newly appointed and existing officers were included in the lottery process.

Earlier, on Saturday, a meeting of the Law and Order Committee was held at the Home Ministry to discuss the election-period SP appointments in detail. The meeting was attended by Committee Chairman and Home Adviser Lt. Gen. Md. Jahangir Alam Chowdhury, Law Adviser Asif Nazrul, Youth and Sports Adviser Asif Mahmud Sajib Bhuiyan, Chief Adviser’s Special Assistant Md. Khuda Baksh Chowdhury, Senior Secretary Nasimul Gani, and Inspector General of Police (IGP) Baharul Alam.

For election-management purposes, all 64 districts have been categorised into three groups—

Category A: 27 districts
Category B: 28 districts
Category C: Remaining districts

Separate lotteries were held for each category.

The Home Ministry and Police Headquarters stated that the selected SPs will be posted to their respective districts soon. They will be responsible for maintaining law and order at the field level during the 13th National Parliamentary Election.