Voting had begun earlier in the day under heightened security following a tense pre-election period marked by arrests, major cash seizures, social media warnings, and scattered violence in several districts.
Long queues formed outside polling stations in the capital, Dhaka, as voters turned out in large numbers across the South Asian nation of 170 million people.
More than 300,000 soldiers and police had been deployed nationwide, after UN experts warned ahead of the vote of “growing intolerance, threats and attacks” and a “tsunami of disinformation”, particularly targeting millions of young first-time voters.
Counting by hand is expected to begin almost immediately, with the first significant results potentially emerging overnight.
