Special squad and police kill 160 in 6 months
A report by a human rights centre documents the killings, which were described by the media as deaths occurring in "crossfire" or in "encounters" with security forces. But in reality they were executions.
Dhaka (AsiaNews) 160 people have become victims of extra-judicial killings by the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) and police in the last six months in Bangladesh, according to a study by the Ain O Salish Kendra* (ASK). The survey was based on press reports that appeared from January 2006 in the 12 main national dailies.
Of the victims, 85 were killed in "crossfire" or "encounter" with RAB and the rest were killed by police. "These extra-judicial killings have violated human rights on the one hand and marred the country's image and democratic growth," said ASK.
Made up of officers from different police units, the brief of RAB is to execute swift and urgent actions. "Given how such situations frequently end in deaths, it is clear that RAB has a licence to kill," anonymous sources told AsiaNews. Instead of catching criminals to deliver them to justice, RAB officers physically eliminate them following a well-established pattern. Their wanted man is arrested and interrogated and confesses to having a weapon cache. He goes there, his accomplices attack the RAB and the criminal is killed in the crossfire when he tries to escape.
The bloody death toll compiled by ASK includes 64 journalists who fell victim to "ruling party-sponsored persecution", while 80 others were attacked, tortured, harassed and had their life threatened by criminals.
In the last six months, 25 people were killed and 4,030 were injured in 210 incidents of a "political character".
On average, 15,203 people were arrested in each incident of violence during marches, meetings and demonstrations. Since January 353 political activists have been arrested.
The ASK report also recorded recent unrest among workers in the garments sector, which broke out in over 200 factories across the country, leaving two dead and over 400 injured.
In the time under review, the authorities imposed Section 144 of the Penal Code 64 times; this allows the government to ban meetings of more than four people.
*Set up in 1986, and based in Dhaka, ASK is a human rights and legal assistance centre, that aims to create critical awareness about human and civil rights, with a view to creating a democratic society.
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17/11/2022 11:50
