Please watch this video even if you don’t understand Bangla. From Jamuna TV 8th February 2026.
The broadcast is speaking first and foremost to the Bangladeshi public. Whether intended or not, it tells viewers that the Rohingya sit outside the law, that their movement beyond barbed wire is inherently suspect, and that their presence beyond the camps threatens the order of the election. In this way, they are recast from survivors of military violence in Myanmar into a collective domestic threat in Bangladesh.
At the same time, it reassures the audience that the state is decisive and in command. Soldiers, APBn and police are moving in unison with rifles visible, trucks full, and control unmistakable. In doing so the Rohingya are turned into a visual prop for the performance of state power.
What we see on screen is not a neutral report by any means but a carefully arranged spectacle. A reporter stands in Balukhali with an army truck behind him, packed to the brim with Rohingya men. There are some men carrying children being escorted out of the area, all hemmed in by helmeted troops with automatic rifles. The camera lingers on their bodies in the truck, compressed and motionless, as if they were cargo rather than people who survived mass violence. Yes, that’s right. The Rohingya are not presented as people displaced by mass atrocity. They are presented as leaking bodies (“somehow they get out of the camps”), a security problem in motion and an uncontained population that must be hunted, rounded up, and sorted.
Criminality is implied without ever being proved. Nothing is said about theft, assault or any specific offence, yet the visual grammar makes guilt the default. An armed soldier guards a truck full of Rohingya while the narration speaks of joint force operations beginning at 5 am. The effect is to naturalise the idea that these people must be controlled rather than protected.
Their reasons for leaving the camp, hunger, livelihoods, family, and medical needs, are not mentioned. No Rohingya voice is heard. We are told they are being taken to the camp, checked for cards, men separated from women, and those in rented rooms outside the camp identified and removed. This is presented as routine administration. But in visual terms, it echoes something far darker: sorting, categorising, containment, and confinement under armed guard.
Placed in the context of the election, the message becomes starker still. And we have been seeing it over and over the last few days. Democracy for Bangladesh is framed as requiring the immobilisation of Rohingya bodies. Their camps are sealed, their movements restricted, and any presence outside becomes justification for arrest. The election is presented as a moment of national order, and Rohingya are cast as the disorder that must be suppressed for that order to function.
I repeat, there is no discussion of why people might leave the camps or how long some have lived in nearby areas. There is no acknowledgement that they are being detained without committing a crime. There is no reflection on the ethics of parading people in the back of a military truck.
This video is a reminder that some people must be locked down like criminals so others can pretend their democracy is clean.
Related Reading:
Elections, Violence and the Punishment of the Rohingya
Why is Bangladesh Sealing the Camps for the 2026 Elections
What Bangladesh’s Elections Really Mean for Rohingya Repatriation
How Images Shape Perceptions of the Rohingya
How the Promise of Repatriation Suspends Rohingya Rights
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