Sadeq Khab
In an open letter to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, New York-based Human Rights Watch has demanded that Bangladesh authorities should establish an independent body to investigate evidence indicating the paramilitary Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) of responsibility for extrajudicial executions, disappearances, torture, and other serious abuses.
The letter noted that following the abduction and apparent contract killings of seven people by members of RAB and other security forces in Narayanganj district in central Bangladesh on May 2, 2014, the state minister for home affairs, Asaduzzaman Khan, announced that the prime minister had ordered law enforcement agencies to ensure that all those responsible are found and punished, regardless of their positions.
The High Court, acting on its own motion, directed that any investigation into the killings be conducted by a specially constituted body independent of the security forces, and issued an arrest warrant against three RAB officers to be tried before civilian courts.
Govt.’s change of course
Brad Adams, Asia director Human Rights Watch stated in the open letter:
“After years of refusing to investigate RAB, the government has changed course and reacted quickly to the Narayanganj murders. This is welcome and hopefully marks a shift away from years of impunity for RAB and other security forces. The prime minister must now broaden the probe and create an independent process to ensure accountability for all cases, not just Narayanganj.
Human Rights Watch has long documented RAB responsibility for extrajudicial killings and torture. Most recently, Human Rights Watch documented the deaths of 11 opposition activists before, during, and after the January 5 national elections. The Bangladesh media reported several more. In six of the cases documented by Human Rights Watch, the authorities admitted security forces had initially detained the victims, and that the victims had been shot dead while in custody.
Human Rights Watch reiterated its longstanding call that RAB be disbanded, and replaced with a fully accountable civilian law enforcement agency dedicated to fighting crime and terrorism. Disbanding RAB is now being openly discussed in Bangladesh. The leader of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, Begum Khaleda Zia, who established RAB while in government, has now called for the force to be disbanded.
This is a good opportunity for Bangladesh to deliver on its longstanding promise of zero-tolerance for human rights violations by security forces. RAB should be disbanded and replaced with a fully civilian force that operates under the rule of law and has external oversight. Death squads have no place in a democracy.”
Graft and criminality
Indeed this is an opportunity for Bangladesh to decisively opt out of ‘cross-fire’ culture introduced in our internal security system as an easy way to eliminate crafty armed criminals and violent mafia leaders, whose rent-seeking rackets have now penetrated beyond urban covers deep into our rural milieu. It is also high time to realise the hideousness of banana republic culture that we have stooped to, and the immense harm that politicisation as well as cronyism and elitist impunity are doing to our state institutions.
Contamination of graft and criminality has already deeply shaken the faith and trust of citizens on our civil bureaucracy, on our judiciary, many of our professionals, doctors and engineers, on food-supply, on private and public educational institutions, and on law-enforcement agencies of all kinds. It is high time some initiatives are taken to restore that faith and trust and for the recovery of health of the nation-state.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, while visiting the Directorate General of Defence Intelligence (DGFI) on May 14 is reported to have said that her government has no intention to use DGFI for political purposes. It is a welcome statement. She blamed previous governments for political abuse of DGFI. Opposition politicians say they themselves experienced DGFI “stick and carrot persuasions as well as coercions” under Hasina regime designed to break the 19-party opposition alliance before and after the January 5 election and to break the will of political parties boycotting that election.
Nevertheless, we welcome this statement of the Prime Minister, and we do hope that the ruling coterie will, for the sake of the nation-state, desist from politicising any section of the defence forces, which will inevitably result in tempting criminalisation of rogue elements in the services of the state, as has allegedly happened in case of
RAB-11.
Source: Weekly Holiday
