The US hopes that Bangladesh will examine the allegations brought against Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) in a documentary aired and an article published by the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW).
"I'm not going to preview any actions from up here. But we will examine the allegations in this article and video very carefully, and we hope the Bangladesh government will do the same," said Vedant Patel, principal deputy spokesperson for the US Department of State.
The perpetrators of human rights violations should be held accountable, the US Embassy in Dhaka quoted Patel as saying.
Meanwhile, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Seheli Sabrin on Thursday said RAB keeps working for the interest of the country's security and it is not being used for any political purpose.
"For years, the United States and other Western countries played an important role in training and equipping the force – despite allegations of widespread human rights violations. It would take until 2018 for the US to stop funding RAB, followed by sanctions in late 2021," DW wrote in the video description of its documentary "How the elite police force RAB terrorizes the people of Bangladesh" published on YouTube on April 3.
"Now, for the first time ever, two insiders of Bangladesh's elite force claim how RAB systematically and with explicit backing from the highest political level has been committing murder, torture, and abductions."
The DW article "Death Squad: Inside Bangladesh's Rapid Action Battalion" published the same day said: "Bangladesh's elite counterterrorism force is committing extrajudicial killings, DW and Netra News reveal in a new investigation."
"Each operation is carefully planned, sometimes for months, the target's every move analysed and monitored by one of 15 units inside Bangladesh's Rapid Action Battalion (RAB). Victims are usually picked up late at night and whisked away to the special police force's facilities."
DW documentary: Ekram murder and others
The DW documentary mainly focused on the details of the death of Teknaf Municipality Ward 3 councillor and Upazila Jubo League president Md Ekramul Haque on May 26, 2018, in an alleged gunfight with RAB during an anti-drug drive. It also claimed that RAB stages “crossfire drama” after systematically killing their targets and RAB members get points for each killing.
The video shows interviews of two former commanders of RAB, who reportedly took part in operations, and Sanjida Islam, whose brother was picked up allegedly by RAB members 10 years ago. Sanjida runs a group named “Mayer Daak” with family members of those who were allegedly abducted by RAB.
The 28.42-minute documentary also contains Ekram's wife at her home and excerpts from four audio clips leaked at the time, one of which had the conversations of RAB members during the gunfight.
After the murder, RAB 7 Cox's Bazar Company Commander Major Md Ruhul Amin said: “A group of drug traders opened fire at a RAB team when they went to the Mithapani area to conduct a drive around 1am. In retaliation, the elite force members fired back, which triggered a gunfight. Later, RAB recovered Ekramul's body from the spot.”
Two firearms and 10,000 pieces of yaba tablets were also recovered from the spot, Major Ruhul said. RAB later handed over the body to Teknaf police station.
RAB and Teknaf police claimed that Ekram was a yaba trader listed by the Home Ministry.
Six days after Ekram's death, his wife Ayesha Begum held a press conference in Cox's Bazar, where she claimed that her husband was killed in cold blood, not in a gunfight as the security forces claimed.
“On the night of May 26, an official of a security force took him by force from our home. My daughter and I talked to him over the phone after he left us. When we talked to him last, he was panicking. The phone call continued and gunshots and shouts were heard. It was then I realized that my husband was killed in cold blood,” she said.
Probe
Just after Ekram's death, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal told the media that a magistrate would be tasked with investigating the killing and those responsible for his death would be brought to book if there were any wrongdoing.
National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) Chairman Kazi Reazul Hoque, and Awami League General Secretary Obaidul Quader also promised a fair investigation and speedy trial.
The matter came to the fore again after the US State Department slapped a ban on RAB and some of its former and current officials, including then RAB chief Benazir Ahmed, over alleged human rights abuses.
Speaking to the media on the last day of his office as the inspector general of police on September 29 last year, Benazir said that several investigations, including a magisterial inquiry, had been conducted in connection with the death of Ekram.
“I also ordered an internal inquiry before leaving the force. It did not happen in my personal capacity. It happened in the course of performing official duties... The incident happened while my field-level people were performing their duties. But there is no personal dispute with the gentleman who was killed after the incident (gunfight),” he said at the briefing.
“It's not a personal matter. Many of us try to identify it as a personal thing. Many of those who went to perform their duties did not even know him. As a result, the approach of taking it as a personal matter is not the right approach. Those who perform our duties, they perform government duties. It is our responsibility to see if any of our colleagues have gone beyond the mandate, whether they overstepped the mandate or not. Legal action will be taken if anyone has overstepped…that is the point,” Benazir added.