Noted human rights activists on Wednesday said that they found that the government applied excessive force to prevent the agitation of unarmed students that started with the demand for reform in the quota system in government jobs.
In seven-day deadly clashes between protesters, mostly students, and the police along with ruling party activists, at least 163 people were killed as of Wednesday and several thousand were injured.
Rights activists are saying that such brutality is unprecedented in the country’s history as such massive casualties from the action to prevent any single movement have never happened earlier.
National Human Rights Commission chairman Kamal Uddin Ahmed, meanwhile, told New Age that they were monitoring the development and hoped that the government would make public all the facts and figures in this regard.
‘I am visiting the spots where massive vandalism took place. I have already visited the office of Bangladesh Television and would visit Setu Bhaban to see the damage in my own eyes,’ he said.
When asked whether he visited any hospital or family of the victims he said, ‘Not yet, but we are monitoring the whole thing.’
Noted human rights activist Nur Khan Liton told New Age that he had never seen such brutality in his life as he had seen in the last few days during the student protest.
‘We have seen the excessive use of security forces on a massive level to prevent agitations of unarmed people violating all norms of human rights,’ he said, adding that such brutality could not be justified by anything as the government was now trying to cover it up shifting the blame on political opponents.
‘When I interviewed Rohingya people in 2017 after they came to Bangladesh displaced from their country, they shared such incidents of using helicopters in residential areas to force them to leave the country,’ he said.
He said that the use of force and committing brutal killings could be compared with ‘genocide’.
The government should release the actual figures of deaths and injured, he said, adding that no damage was bigger than the loss of life.
Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust executive director Sara Hossain said that she could not find any such incidents of killing of such huge number of people within a very short time in the history of Bangladesh.
‘We just witnessed that how the government used excessive force and the law enforcers fired unarmed people,’ she said, adding that the people involved in such human rights violation should be brought to account through trial.
He said that the government should launch an independent, impartial, prompt and effective investigation to identify the people involved in such brutal killings and the real number of deaths and inured persons should be released.
Ain o Salish Kendra executive director Faruq Faisel said that the government as well as the law enforcement agencies violated all norms of local and international human rights related laws.
‘Now ignoring the loss of lives, the government is busy in showing other damages to create panic among peoples that massive vandalism was perpetrated. We also want proper investigation about the vandalism, but in any perspectives, killing of human beings must be a priority,’ he said.
‘Why the law enforcers failed to ensure security of such important establishments and why the intelligence failed should also be investigated,’ he said.
He said that the United Nations should react on the incidents as helicopters and armoured personnel carriers with the UN logo were seen used in confronting the protest of the unarmed people during this time.
He asked the government to publish a white paper immediately about the number of deaths, use of law enforcers and other damages.
New Age
