Noted thinker and poet Farhad Mazhar has called for the disbandment of the elite police force Rapid Action Battalion (RAB).
Farhad made the call in the presence of Home Affairs Adviser Lt Gen (Retd) Md Jahangir Alam Chowdhury as a special guest at a ceremony held to provide assistance to those injured in the recent mass uprising at the Shimanto Convention Centre in Dhaka on Sunday.
Rights advocates have been demanding the disbandment of RAB for a long time, he said.
“When RAB was first formed, I wrote an article saying that RAB would cause the downfall of the BNP, sooner or later. Why did this happen? Because you are bringing a member of the army under the Ministry of Home Affairs and making him do things that soldiers never do.
“The army never carries out extrajudicial killings of unarmed people. A soldier always fights against another armed opponent, never pointing a gun at an unarmed person. This is something we introduced into our culture."
He continued: "The Home Affairs Adviser is present today, and I urge him to disband RAB as soon as possible. I also urge that we quickly establish the BGB (Border Guard Bangladesh) as our first-line defence, because they are soldiers, and they will build our first line of defence."
Farhad said: "As our frontline defence, the BGB will be the first to face the enemy's bullets. Therefore, they must be part of our national defence system. Their role should not be limited to filling the gaps in the police force under the Ministry of Home Affairs. No country in the world uses soldiers in this way, no country abuses its soldiers like this."