Extrajudicial killing, torture and forced disappearance have been issues of frequent discussions almost throughout the tenure of the incumbent Awami League-led alliance government since it assumed power in January 2009.
Parliament Thursday passed the long-pending demand for prevention of custodial deaths and torture and prosecution of law enforcers responsible for extrajudicial killing, torturing and violating human rights.
Many of the hundreds such incidents committed allegedly by the law enforcement agencies, including Rapid Action Battalion (Rab), drew huge criticism at home and abroad.
The “secret” killing of labour activist Aminul Islam in April last year and the brutal torture of teenage student Limon Hossain in 2011 were just two of the few widely criticised incidents.
The Awami League had made an electoral promise and kept reiterating after assuming power that it would stop extrajudicial killings. So when such incidents started happening one after another, it disappointed people, especially the human rights bodies at home and abroad.
Aminul’s killing was criticised internationally as he had been involved with an NGO in Dhaka which is affiliated with a US labour rights organisation.
During her visit to Dhaka last year, former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton expressed concern over the killing. That not only embarrassed stakeholders but also challenged the government to unearth the mystery behind the killing.
Investigation into the incident is still pending. It was alleged that an intelligence official was involved in the killing.
Limon was a 16-year-old student when he was brutally tortured by the members of Rab in 2011. The Rab men shot him in the left leg in his village in Jhalakathi when he was taking his cattle to the fields.
Doctors had to amputate his leg from the thigh.
But Rab kept treating him badly. Rab filed two cases against him, including an arms case. At the same time, when Limon’s mother wanted to file a case against six Rab members for the incident, the Jhalakathi police refused to record it. Rajapur police lodged it only when Limon’s mother Henoara Begum approached a court.
Human rights organisations in the country protested against Rab, but the elite force kept itself busy to prove Limon a criminal.
In the face of pressure from the rights bodies and civil society, the government on July 10 decided to withdraw the charges against him. Charges in one of the cases were withdrawn on July 30 while the hearing in the other is pending at a Jhalakathi court.
But his and his family’s demand for justice still remains unfulfilled as police in their final report in the case filed by Henoara said they had not found any witness against the accused Rab members. A no-confidence petition against the report was rejected by court while a review petition is still pending for hearing.
There was another much-talked-about incident of police brutality in 2011.
A Dhaka University student named Abdul Kader was tortured by the law enforces of Khilgaon police station. Police filed three false cases against him, alleging his involvement with robbery and carjacking. Later, however, a police probe found Kader innocent and that police had severely tortured him.
A minor boy named Milon was beaten to death by mob in Companiganj, Noakhali in 2011. Milon was in a police van, but the policemen handed him over to the mob and asked them to kill him.
The incident was widely reported in the media along with a video footage, but like all the other incidents, no policeman has so far been prosecuted for this.
The disappearance of BNP leader Elias Ali along with his driver has also remained unresolved although there was an allegation of law enforcement agency’s involvement in this.
There are plenty of examples of law enforcers’ brutality in the past 57 months.
According to human rights watchdog Ain O Salish Kendra (ASK), more than 850 people died, either in crossfire or in custody, since 2009 in the hands of Rab, police and other law enforcement agencies.
UK-based Amnesty International reported in 2011 that Rab had been involved in the killing of at least 700 people since its inception in 2004.
It said: “Any investigations that have been carried out into those killed have either been handled by Rab or by a government-appointed judicial body but the details of their methodology or findings have remained secret.
“They have never resulted in judicial prosecution. Rab has consistently denied responsibility for unlawful killings and the authorities have accepted the claims.”
National Human Rights Commission Chairman Prof Mizanur Rahman told the Dhaka Tribune last night over phone: “It is good that the government has enacted the law.”
He said it would strengthen the NHRC as well as other civil society organisations in combating custodial torture and death and help the people in human rights movements and the human rights defenders.
Rights activist and legal professional Sara Hossain told the Dhaka Tribune that the move of passing the bill, which was placed in 2009, at the end of the government’s tenure was “very cynical.”
“We are relieved now” but people could have got the law’s benefits throughout this period had the government passed it when it was placed in parliament, she said.
“Throughout its tenure, the government kept talking about its zero tolerance to extrajudicial killings but we did not see any effective steps in this regard,” Sara said.
