Jamaat-e-Islami lawmaker Shahjahan Chowdhury has criticized the sound system and headphones used in Bangladesh’s National Parliament, alleging that the equipment was part of a scheme for financial misuse. Speaking during an unscheduled discussion on Sunday, he displayed the large headphones and said they were unnecessarily heavy and uncomfortable for members to wear for long periods. He claimed that the procurement might have been designed to benefit certain groups financially.

The session, chaired by Speaker Major (Retd.) Hafiz Uddin Ahmed, followed earlier complaints about technical faults in the sound system during the first sitting of the new parliament on Thursday. That day, the Speaker had to use a handheld microphone after a malfunction forced a 20-minute recess. Several MPs had drawn attention to the issue, including Jamaat MP Barrister Mir Ahmad Bin Kasem, who wrote on Facebook that the headphones caused pain and had poor sound quality.

Members urged modernization of the sound system and replacement of the current heavy headphones with simpler, more comfortable alternatives.