Staff Reporter :
Bangladesh police are deliberately shooting members and supporters of opposition parties in the leg, said a report released by Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Thursday.
HRW, a New York-based international non-governmental organisation, in its report said victims explained that police shot them in custody and then falsely claimed that they were shot in self-defense, in crossfire with armed criminals, or during violent protests.
Brad Adams, Asia Director of HRW, said security forces in Bangladesh have long killed detainees in fake ‘crossfire killings,’ pretending the victim was killed when the authorities took him back to the scene of the crime and were attacked by one of his accomplices.
“Now they’re adopting tactics similar to those once used by the Irish Republican Army and engaging in ‘kneecappings’ of people they have arrested, apparently because they belong to or support an opposition party,” he said.
The 45-page report, “‘No Right to Live’: ‘Kneecapping’
and Maiming of Detainees by Bangladesh Security Forces,” urged the Bangladesh authorities to order prompt, impartial and independent investigations into all alleged “kneecappings” and other deliberate infliction of serious injuries by members of the security forces.
The government should also invite the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and UN special rapporteur on torture and extrajudicial executions to investigate “kneecappings” and other alleged acts of torture and make appropriate recommendations to ensure justice, accountability, and security force reform.
The report includes evidence from 25 individuals, mostly members and supporters of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Jamaat-e-Islami, who said that police shot them in the leg without provocation.
Several of the victims are permanently disabled, including some who had their legs amputated after being shot. Many described being beaten before being shot.
Most of the victims were unwilling to be identified, fearing arbitrary arrest, disappearance, torture, or extrajudicial killing – abuses that are all too common in Bangladesh, particularly against opposition party members.
Others fear legal retribution, as almost all are facing criminal cases. In two cases involving members of the media, the victims were willing to be identified in the report.
Mahbub Kabir, who worked in the Marketing Department of the pro-Jamaat daily Naya Diganta, was captured and shot in front of witnesses, but the police later filed criminal cases against him.
According to Mahbub Kabir, the officer who shot him later threatened him, saying, “I have shot in your leg. If you speak out, then next time I will shoot in your eyes.”
Akram (pseudonym), a 32-year-old farmer, said that a police officer deliberately shot him in the leg after a raid in Chittagong: “After beating me for a few minutes, the police tied me to a tree.
Then [a police officer] shot me above the knee in my left leg.” The officer, while denying the allegation, told a Bangladesh Human Rights organization that a dangerous criminal like Akram had “no right to live.”
Admitting that he shot another criminal suspect in Chittagong a few months later during an alleged armed exchange, he acknowledged the culture of extrajudicial killings in Bangladesh, saying: “[The suspect] is still alive because he was arrested by the police.
If the Rapid Action Battalion or any other law enforcement agencies caught him, he would have been dead.”
Bangladesh police are deliberately shooting members and supporters of opposition parties in the leg, said a report released by Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Thursday.
HRW, a New York-based international non-governmental organisation, in its report said victims explained that police shot them in custody and then falsely claimed that they were shot in self-defense, in crossfire with armed criminals, or during violent protests.
Brad Adams, Asia Director of HRW, said security forces in Bangladesh have long killed detainees in fake ‘crossfire killings,’ pretending the victim was killed when the authorities took him back to the scene of the crime and were attacked by one of his accomplices.
“Now they’re adopting tactics similar to those once used by the Irish Republican Army and engaging in ‘kneecappings’ of people they have arrested, apparently because they belong to or support an opposition party,” he said.
The 45-page report, “‘No Right to Live’: ‘Kneecapping’
and Maiming of Detainees by Bangladesh Security Forces,” urged the Bangladesh authorities to order prompt, impartial and independent investigations into all alleged “kneecappings” and other deliberate infliction of serious injuries by members of the security forces.
The government should also invite the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and UN special rapporteur on torture and extrajudicial executions to investigate “kneecappings” and other alleged acts of torture and make appropriate recommendations to ensure justice, accountability, and security force reform.
The report includes evidence from 25 individuals, mostly members and supporters of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Jamaat-e-Islami, who said that police shot them in the leg without provocation.
Several of the victims are permanently disabled, including some who had their legs amputated after being shot. Many described being beaten before being shot.
Most of the victims were unwilling to be identified, fearing arbitrary arrest, disappearance, torture, or extrajudicial killing – abuses that are all too common in Bangladesh, particularly against opposition party members.
Others fear legal retribution, as almost all are facing criminal cases. In two cases involving members of the media, the victims were willing to be identified in the report.
Mahbub Kabir, who worked in the Marketing Department of the pro-Jamaat daily Naya Diganta, was captured and shot in front of witnesses, but the police later filed criminal cases against him.
According to Mahbub Kabir, the officer who shot him later threatened him, saying, “I have shot in your leg. If you speak out, then next time I will shoot in your eyes.”
Akram (pseudonym), a 32-year-old farmer, said that a police officer deliberately shot him in the leg after a raid in Chittagong: “After beating me for a few minutes, the police tied me to a tree.
Then [a police officer] shot me above the knee in my left leg.” The officer, while denying the allegation, told a Bangladesh Human Rights organization that a dangerous criminal like Akram had “no right to live.”
Admitting that he shot another criminal suspect in Chittagong a few months later during an alleged armed exchange, he acknowledged the culture of extrajudicial killings in Bangladesh, saying: “[The suspect] is still alive because he was arrested by the police.
If the Rapid Action Battalion or any other law enforcement agencies caught him, he would have been dead.”
