Police accused of shooting at activists and leaders of growing street protests against Sheikh Hasina’s draconian government
t was a warm afternoon in May 2020 when Ahmed Kabir Kishore, dozing lazily, awoke to 20 men breaking down the door of his apartment in Dhaka,. With guns waved in his face, he was dragged to a van outside. “Move away, we have arrested a terrorist,” he heard them shout at the crowds.
When the blindfold was removed, Kishore understood with dread that he was in the hands of the Rapid Action Battalion , the elite anti-terrorism unit of the Bangladesh police, which has become notorious as a “death squad” and has been sanctioned internationally for its involvement in extrajudicial abductions, abuses and killings.
After attempts were made to detain him again, Kishore fled to Nepal and on to Sweden, where he has lived in exile ever since. “I still cannot walk properly due to my injuries and I have lost hearing in the right ear,” he said. In the past they carried out extrajudicial killings in gunfights at night. Now they do it in broad daylightCritics of Hasina and her Awami League government fear that elections due at the end of the year will be neither free nor fair – polls in 2014 and. They are demanding she resign and make way for a caretaker government. The BNP says it won’t take part in another election under Hasina.
“In the past, they used to carry out extrajudicial killings in staged gunfights at night; now they are killing in broad daylight. No one can hope for a free and fair election in this situation, under this government,” said AKM Wahiduzzaman, a BNP leader.During Hasina’s 13 years in power, Bangladesh has thrived as one of the fastest-growing economies in Asia, becoming the main supplier of garments to the west.
Despite the US sanctions a year ago, human rights groups say the RAB is still involved in such abuses, and at least 16 people were forcibly disappeared in Bangladesh. “The human rights situation in Bangladesh is appalling,” said Ali Riaz, professor of political science at Illinois State University. “The number of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances are blatant testimony to this.”
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