According to a report by the OHCHR, atrocities were part of a planned strategy by the ousted Sheikh Hasina–led government to quell protests during the July uprising.
Regarding human rights violations during the July–August 2024 student protests, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said on Wednesday: “The brutality during the protests was a planned and coordinated strategy by the former government, which sought to cling to power in the face of student opposition.”
He added: “There are reasonable grounds to believe that hundreds of extrajudicial killings, arbitrary mass arrests and detentions, and acts of torture were carried out with the knowledge, coordination, and direction of the political leadership and senior security officials as part of a strategy to suppress the protests.”
The UN Fact-Finding Mission released its investigation report on the protests in Bangladesh on Wednesday, which stated these findings.
Türk further noted: “The evidence we have collected paints a disturbing picture of widespread state violence and targeted killings, which are among the most serious human rights violations and may even constitute international crimes. Accountability and justice are essential for national healing and the future of Bangladesh.”
According to the report, the former government systematically attempted to suppress the protests by employing continuous violent methods in order to remain in power.
Weapons
David Lochhead, the report’s weapons expert, reviewed open-source information gathered by the team before the fact-finding mission was deployed. He examined video and photographic evidence, as well as various reports, to determine the types of weapons used and the individuals who deployed them.
“Of course, we’re examining issues related to the lawful use of force against largely unarmed civilians by various security forces. It is important to understand how these forces perceive their roles, functions, and powers in crowd-control situations,” Lochhead said.
“It is also essential to understand their doctrines, tactics, and the types of weapons they are authorized to use under specific circumstances. By examining the physical evidence, we can identify where certain types of weapons and ammunition were employed and assess the impact they had on people and property.”
Önder Özkalıpcı, the mission’s forensic pathologist, visited hospitals and examined X-rays of the wounded and deceased.
“One key observation was the widespread use of shotguns for crowd control,” he said. “This was confirmed by various hospital directors, who reported that shotguns were used and aimed at targets above the waist, including the chest and head. In Dhaka, the head of the Ophthalmic Institute reported that over several hundred eye injuries had occurred.”
In this deteriorating environment and in response to state-sponsored violence, some protesters resorted to violent acts, according to the Fact-Finding Mission. In most cases, protesters targeted government buildings, transport infrastructure, and police.
On the evening of July 18, the government authorized security forces to use lethal force against protesters. From July 19 until the end of the protests, the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), and police indiscriminately fired on protesters in Dhaka and elsewhere, resulting in numerous extrajudicial killings and injuries—including among journalists covering the events.
In some cases, security forces deliberately shot unarmed protesters at close range.
However, despite the violence, the police and paramilitary forces were unable to quell the growing protests and escalating unrest, according to independent investigators. The former government then imposed a general curfew on July 20 and deployed the army. In some instances, military troops fired on protesters who posed no serious threat, resulting in at least one extrajudicial killing.
Citing eyewitness accounts, the report stated that junior army officers in the field often disobeyed orders to use firearms against civilian protesters. In a large meeting on August 3, some even told the army chief that they did not want to open fire on protesters. Nevertheless, the army played a significant role in providing security support to law enforcement officers who violated human rights, thereby encouraging those officers to use lethal force against protesters without fear of retaliation.
Meanwhile, police and RAB brutally opened fire on protesters to break up blockades on the Dhaka–Chittagong highway on July 20 and 21, killing and injuring scores of people. In late July, the army also participated in a large-scale operation during which police and RAB indiscriminately arrested many individuals, the report stated.
Citing testimony from former senior officials, the report further stated that the army and BGB participated in the government's plan to use the army, BGB, and police against protesters to stop the “March to Dhaka” program on August 5, 2024. According to the plan, police shot and killed many protesters, while army and BGB members largely refrained from intervening.
Direct Involvement of Intelligence Agencies
The report states that Bangladesh’s intelligence agencies—including the Directorate-General of Armed Forces Intelligence (DGFI), National Security Intelligence (NSI), National Telecommunication Monitoring Centre (NTMC), and special branches of the police (the Intelligence Branch, Special Branch, and Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime Unit (CTTC))—were directly involved in human rights violations aimed at suppressing the protests.
These agencies violated the right to privacy by sharing intelligence obtained through surveillance with others, thereby facilitating the widespread arbitrary arrests that occurred in late July. The intelligence branch routinely resorted to arbitrary detention and torture to extract information and confessions from detainees.
Many of those arbitrarily detained, including children, were also held at the CTTC headquarters. The intelligence branch and DGFI collaborated to abduct and arbitrarily detain student leaders in an attempt to force them to abandon their protests.
The report alleged that DGFI, NSI, and other intelligence personnel even obstructed life-saving medical services by interrogating patients in hospitals, arresting injured persons, and intimidating medical staff. In such circumstances, neither prosecutorial authorities nor the judiciary have taken any meaningful steps to halt arbitrary detention and torture or to hold accountable the officials responsible for these acts, the report stated.
The Interim Government provided significant cooperation with the inquiry by granting the requested access and supplying substantial documentation. During the investigation, former senior officials directly involved in handling the protests, along with other insiders, described how the former Prime Minister and other sector officials directed and oversaw a series of large-scale operations in which security and intelligence forces either shot and killed protesters or arbitrarily arrested and tortured them.