• Shooting takes place at BNP rally in Chattogram.
• BNP leader calls its attempt to disrupt election.
• Interim leader Yunus orders investigation into shooting.

Gunmen on motorbikes attacked a Bangladesh political rally, killing one person and wounding two others, including a candidate, officials said on Thursday, after parties began campaigning for landmark elections.

Major parties opened their campaigns on Wednesday for the elections slated for February 2026, the first since a deadly uprising last year toppled the autocratic government of former ruler Sheikh Hasina.

Campaigning turned violent almost immediately.

The shooting took place at a rally on Wednesday for the powerful Bangladesh National Party (BNP) attended by hundreds in the port city of Chattogram, police said.

Senior BNP leader Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury said: “It was an attempt to destabilise politics and disrupt the election”.

The BNP are widely seen as the frontrunner in the polls.

Police said the gunmen opened fire quickly on a crowd of hundreds at the rally, but insisted that the BNP candidate was not the target.

“The miscreants… shot their target, and fled in a flash,” senior police officer Hasib Aziz told reporters late on Wednesday.

Candidate Ershad Ullah was shot and wounded, along with a supporter. A third man was killed.

“We would urge candidates to inform the police station at least 24 hours prior to any election campaign, so that more police can be deployed,” Aziz said.

‘Show restraint’

The South Asian nation of about 170 million people has been in political turmoil since Hasina was overthrown by the student-led uprising in August 2024.

Campaigning is technically unofficial because the election commission is not expected to announce the voting day until December.

Interim leader Muhammad Yunus, the 85-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner serving as chief adviser, has repeatedly promised the elections will be held in February.

Yunus has ordered an investigation into the shooting, his media team said in a statement.

The interim government “calls on all political actors and their supporters to uphold calm, show restraint, and ensure that the February general election takes place in an atmosphere of peace, dignity, and fairness”, it said on Thursday.

Bangladesh police offered cash rewards on Wednesday for the surrender of more than 1,300 machine guns, rifles and pistols looted during last year’s uprising.

Lieutenant General Md Mainur Rahman told an army news conference on Wednesday that the military would provide security to ensure peaceful polls and that they would return to barracks after the election.

“We hope stability will be strengthened, law and order will remain normal, and we will return to the cantonment once the election is held,” Rahman said.

Major parties have unveiled their candidate lists, with the BNP saying this week that 80-year-old leader and three-time prime minister Khaleda Zia will run again, as well as her son, Tarique Rahman.

Bangladesh’s largest religious political party, Jamaat-e-Islami, said it had finalised a preliminary candidate list and was “engaging with other parties on the prospect of seat-sharing”, senior leader Abdullah Mohammad Taher told AFP.

New York City’s newly elected mayor, Zohran Mamdani, is wasting no time setting the tone for his administration as the 34-year-old announced an all-women team to transition him into the new office, just a day after his election.

The move, he says, reflects his promise to build a City Hall that truly delivers for New Yorkers.

As per a report published in Times Magazine, the team brings together a diverse mix of women who have shaped city government over the past two decades, with experience in the administrations of Eric Adams, Bill de Blasio, and Michael Bloomberg. It includes former city and federal officials, non-profit leaders, and veterans of City Hall.

Speaking beneath the Unisphere in Queens, Mamdani told reporters, “I and my team will build a City Hall capable of delivering on the promises of this campaign,” pledging to “work every day to honour the trust that I now hold.”

Among those leading his transition is Elana Leopold, a progressive strategist and longtime de Blasio aide, who will serve as executive director. She’ll be joined by co-chairs Maria Torres-Springer, Lina Khan, Grace Bonilla, and Melanie Hartzog — women known for their expertise in public policy, city budgeting, and social impact.

While Mamdani stopped short of naming new top appointments, he reaffirmed his plan to retain Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, originally appointed by Mayor Adams. Tisch has not yet confirmed whether she’ll continue in the role.

The transition team’s job is to ensure a smooth handover before Mamdani’s inauguration in January. Once in office, he’ll oversee nearly 300,000 city employees and a $100 billion budget — a huge task for a first-time mayor.

At his first post-election press conference, Mamdani said his transition marks the beginning of a “commitment to solving old problems with new solutions”. 

Quoting the late Governor Mario M Cuomo, father of his opponent Andrew Cuomo, he added: “The poetry of campaigning may have come to a close last night at nine, but the beautiful prose of governing has only just begun.”

Mamdani’s win over former governor Andrew capped one of the city’s most closely watched elections in years. More than two million New Yorkers voted — the highest turnout in over half a century — giving Mamdani, a lead of around nine percentage points.

• Assault took place on short walk between meetings.
• President files complaint against man who groped her.
• Incident underscores violence women face daily.
  

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said on Wednesday she filed a complaint against a man who groped her and tried to kiss her as she walked between meetings in the capital city, a day after a video of the incident went viral.

“If this happens to the president, where does that leave all the young women in our country?” said Sheinbaum, Mexico’s first female president. “No man has the right to abuse women’s personal space.”

Video of the incident quickly ricocheted across the internet before being taken down by some accounts, underscoring for many in Mexico the insecurity women face in a country steeped in machismo and gender-based violence.

It has also raised questions about Sheinbaum’s security detail. Like her predecessor, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, Sheinbaum travels with minimal security and makes herself widely available to the public, including wading into crowds of people.

She said on Wednesday that she did not plan to change that practice, saying, “we have to be close to the people.”

The incident happened on Tuesday in the capital’s historic centre as Sheinbaum was greeting members of the public while making the short walk from Mexico’s national palace to the Ministry of Education.

The video shows a middle-aged man putting his arm around Sheinbaum, touching her chest and attempting to kiss her. She moves his hands away before a member of her staff steps between them. The president’s security detail did not appear to be near her in the moment.

Sheinbaum said the man appeared to be drunk.

Re-Victimisation

She also blasted Mexican newspaper Reforma for publishing images of the man groping her, saying she considered it a “re-victimisation” and that it crossed an ethical line.

“The use of the image is also a crime,” Sheinbaum said, pointing to legislation against digital violence. “I am waiting for an apology from the newspaper.”

The federal government’s Women’s Ministry, created under Sheinbaum, issued a statement on Tuesday encouraging women to report violence against them, but asking media outlets “not to reproduce content that violates the integrity of women.”

Still, feminist activists have sharply criticised Sheinbaum in the past for not doing enough to address violence against women. Among other things, they point to lacklustre prosecutions and investigations of femicides – the killing of a woman because of her gender.

In 2024, Mexico recorded 821 femicides, according to government data. There have been 501 femicides recorded through September of this year, and many advocates say the numbers are likely far underestimated.

Criminalising harassment 

Ana Yeli Perez of the National Citizen Observatory on Femicide said the groping of Sheinbaum puts the issue of violence against women on the national agenda again.

“It’s reprehensible, it must be denounced, it must be named, because it’s an act of violence, but it’s also a significant event and symbolic of what women experience every day,” she said.

Sheinbaum said sexual harassment should be a “criminal offence, punishable by law,” adding that she has asked Mexico’s Women’s Ministry to conduct a review of the legal codes in each state.

Sexual harassment is a crime in about half of Mexican states, as well as the capital, Mexico City.

Local media identified the man who assaulted Sheinbaum as Uriel Rivera and a state security filing showed he was arrested at 9 pm on Tuesday night.