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The Election Commission has adopted a zero-tolerance policy against the inclusion of Rohingyas in the national voter list, announcing that any person to be identified as Rohingya will be removed immediately.

‘If anyone is identified as a Rohingya in the voter list, they will be excluded without delay. This is now a standing decision,’ Election Commissioner Abul Fazal Md Sanaullah told reporters after a meeting of the commission on Wednesday.

He referred to a recent case where a petition was filed concerning a Rohingya being allegedly included in the voter list during a Union Parishad election in Cox’s Bazar in the past year.

The petitioner had sought to halt the election, but the court instead directed authorities to investigate the matter.

‘We regularly update voter lists, especially in sensitive areas like the Cox’s Bazar region to prevent Rohingya infiltration,’ Sanaullah said.

The commissioner said, ‘However, if anyone manages to get in through fraudulent means, we now have a policy to remove them immediately.’

Acknowledging citizen frustration with the delay in correcting information in the National Identity Card (NID) the commissioner said the commission has made a plan for simplifying the process.

‘If an application is made without dishonest intent, we will resolve it easily and quickly.’ he said.

Commenting on the issue of duplicate or fraudulent NIDs, he said, ‘In cases of multiple NIDs, the first one will remain valid and the second one will be cancelled.

‘We’re also discouraging age fraud for job applications and will take strict action against anyone trying to change their identity entirely,’ he said.

Sanaullah said the NID database currently has about 209,000 cases flagged for biometric duplication-roughly 0.16% of the entire database.

‘In many cases, this happens because fingerprints are unclear, especially among workers or elderly persons. We have decided to speed up how we handle these false matches,’ he added.

He emphasized that transparency and national security remain key priorities for the commission. ‘We are making the system easier, but not at the cost of accountability,’ he said.

Replying to a quarry on declaring Ishraque Hossain as the mayor of Dhaka South City Corporation without seeking further opinions from the law ministry, he said, ‘We were under a legal obligation to dispose of the matter within 10 days. We acted accordingly. We requested opinions as quickly as possible. April 25 marked the 10th day, but it was a Friday.’

‘We extended the time for two days and waited until Sunday. Since we did not receive any response, we proceeded to implement the verdict in order to avoid violating the court order,’ he said.