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In Bangladesh, a bottom-ranked test-playing cricketing nation, the number of victims of extrajudicial killings reached 105 as of Tuesday morning.
The killings can be credited to law-enforcement agencies since the ruling Awami League came to power in January. The ongoing killings are expected to set a new record in the history of human rights abuse in Bangladesh.
Will Bangladeshis, and in particular the government, celebrate the lawless murders? Will it inspire future generations of Bangladeshis that they are citizens of a murderous nation?
The above questions spring to mind because such killings continue unabated. In the last five days, eight persons were reported killed. The number of extrajudicial killings stood at 31 in the first five months of this year. In the following four months, according to local human rights group Odhikar, it increased to 97, which means the figure doubled in four months time, of which 35 were in September.
Incidents of extrajudicial killings have been increasing following comments by a number of Cabinet ministers.
On Feb. 11, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina told the Parliament, "Criminals must be brought to justice according to the law, so there should be no extrajudicial killing in any circumstance. Legal action will be taken against those guilty of such killings."
Contrary to Hasina’s speech the country's minister for home affairs, Sahara Khatun, a lawyer by profession, told the media on May 16, "Incidents of extrajudicial killing occur only when members of the law enforcing agencies come under attack. The law-enforcers should have the right to save their lives when they come under attack."
If the home minister, who is responsible for controlling law-enforcement agencies, endorses their lawless actions instead of reining them in under the laws of the land, things are clearly out of control. Reportedly, after the home minister’s comment, extrajudicial killings increased rapidly.
Last Saturday, shipping minister Shahjahan Khan suggested that Bangladeshis should understand the real issue. He said, "There are incidents of trials that are not possible under the laws of the land. The government will need to continue with extrajudicial killings, commonly called crossfire, until terrorist activities and extortion are uprooted. Nobody is interested in filing cases against the criminals who carry out one terrorist act after another. Under the circumstances, what other option is left for the government?"
Comments like this provide justification for the police and the Rapid Action Battalion, a so-called elite force, to abuse power. Early Monday morning, the Rapid Action Battalion killed three persons in Dhaka under the pretext of “crossfire.”
Law-enforcers have faked stories to justify the hundreds of extrajudicial killings in the last five years. But their versions are a sharp contrast to those related by human rights defenders and the families of victims.
For example, the mother of Saijuddin Saju – one of the three killed by the Rapid Action Battalion on Monday – told the media that a group of plainclothes members of the RAB came to their home in Dhaka at around 2 a.m. without a warrant and arrested her son.
On the following morning, when Saju’s relatives went to learn about the arrest and demand his release, the director of the RAB allegedly demanded 1 million takas (US$14,500) for releasing him. The relatives were able to pay only 600,000 takas (US$8,700) to the officers, who assured them Saju would be released soon.
However, Saju was killed in the name of crossfire. The family claimed that Saju was a businessman and was also involved in politics with the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, the main opposition party. However, the director of the RAB denied that they had arrested Saju, saying that he was killed in crossfire.
In its election manifesto, titled “Charter for Change,” the Awami League had pledged that "extrajudicial killings will be stopped, rule of law will be established and human rights will be strictly enforced." Ironically, the incidents of extrajudicial killings have not only increased but have even been encouraged by the authorities in public. Not a single case has yet been investigated by any competent body.
The rule of law in Bangladesh seems to be a far-reaching objective, as Cabinet ministers in government directly and publicly endorse their support for the lawless actions of law-enforcement agencies. It appears that "rights" are reserved only for the law-enforcers, who kill people and extort money without any checks and balances that confirm the constitutional obligations imposed upon the rulers in terms of citizens' right to life, liberty and safety.
The civil society of Bangladesh should strongly voice their discontent on the ongoing lawlessness. It is time to conduct extensive research on the prevailing state of lawlessness and the reasons for its failures, including the failure of the judicial system to punish the real criminals.
Why do ministers believe that there is no alternative to extrajudicial killings? Why, when people are killed, are the accounts of what happened as described by law-enforcers and victims’ families so often contradictory?
It is past time to awaken the people to the prevailing situation if Bangladeshis want to establish a justice-based society for the sake of those still alive in this murderous nation. Any further delay will be even more disastrous.
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(Rater Zonaki is the pseudonym of a human rights defender based in Hong Kong, working at the Asian Human Rights Commission. He is a Bangladeshi national who has worked as a journalist and human rights activist in his country for more than a decade, and as editor of publications on human rights and socio-cultural issues.)
