New Delhi: Sheikh Hasina, living in exile in India since fleeing from Bangladesh last August after a students-led protest topple her government, is wanted in her country by the Muhammad Yunus-headed interim administration in a number of cases.
Now, even the United Nations (UN) has a word of caution for the former Bangladeshi Prime Minister and her government.
The UN believes Bangladesh’s former government was behind systematic attacks and killings of protesters as it sought to hold on to power last year, and such abuses could amount to “crimes against humanity,” reported AFP.
According to a fact-finding inquiry into events in Bangladesh between July 1 and August 15 last year, the UN rights office said it had “reasonable grounds to believe that the crimes against humanity of murder, torture, imprisonment and infliction of other inhumane acts have taken place.”
Her Awami League government oversaw a systematic crackdown on protesters and others, including “hundreds of extrajudicial killings.” the UN said.
The alleged crimes committed by the government, along with violent elements of her Awami League party and Bangladeshi security and intelligence services, were part of “a widespread and systematic attack against protesters and other civilians… in furtherance of the former government’s bid to ensure its continuation in power,” UN report said.
The 77-year-old Hasina has defied an arrest warrant to face trial in Bangladesh for crimes against humanity as she refuses to return to Dhaka.
The UN rights office set out on the fact-finding mission at the request of interim leader, Nobel Laureate Yunus. A team comprising human rights investigators, forensics physician and weapons expert was sent to Bangladesh to conduct the investigation.
Over 230 confidential interviews were conducted in Bangladesh and online with victims, witnesses, protest leaders, rights defenders and others, besides review of medical case files, photos, videos and other documents.
The team concluded that security forces supported Hasina’s government throughout the students’ unrest, which had started as protests against civil service job quotas before escalating into widespread calls for her to stand down.
The inquiry estimated that “as many as 1,400 people may have been killed” during those 45 days and thousands injured.
Majority of those killed “were shot by Bangladesh’s security forces”, the UN rights office said, adding that children made up 12 to 13 percent of those killed.
“The brutal response was a calculated and well-coordinated strategy by the former government to hold onto power in the face of mass opposition,” UN rights chief Volker Turk said in a statement.
“There are reasonable grounds to believe hundreds of extrajudicial killings, extensive arbitrary arrests and detentions, and 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.”
