Recent Appearances...

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Recent Appearances...

Bangladesh

'Lips sewn without anesthetic,’ other shockers from Bangladesh report on Hasina-linked disappearances

2024-12-25

[BenarNews] Macabre killings, casual torture, misdirection and snooping were part of "the anatomy of enforced disappearances" linked to deposed Bangladesh Prime Minister ~~the loathesome~~ Sheikh Hasina
...Bangla dynastic politician and now exiled former Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She was President of the Bangla Awami League since the Lower Paleolithic. She is the eldest of five children of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangla. Her party defeated the BNP-led Four-Party Alliance in the 2008 parliamentary elections. She once before held the office, from 1996 to 2001, when she was defeated in a landslide. She and the head of the BNP, Khaleda Zia showed such blind animosity toward each other that they are known as the Battling Begums. That is probably because Khaleda's late husband was the Pak tool who had Mujib assassinated...
, an inquiry commission said in its first report.

The five-member commission learned about how forced disappearances were carried out based on accounts from surviving victims of such incidents — that is, those who resurfaced.

The commission, led by a retired Supreme Court judge, presented its report last weekend to Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel laureate who became Bangladesh’s interim leader days after Hasina fled to India on Aug. 5.

Officers from the military and various security forces including the Rapid Action Battalion

(RAB) were interviewed by commission members. The United States, which sanctioned RAB in December 2021, accused it of more than 600 forced disappearances over 12 years.

The commission has recommended RAB be disbanded.

A longtime human rights
...which are usually open to widely divergent definitions...
activist, Jyotirmoy Barua, said any claims by Hasina or her supporters that the commission’s members were politically motivated would not hold water.

"The members of the commission are not directly or visibly politically connected — none have a political background," he told BenarNews.

A Bangladeshi human rights lawyer, Sara Hossain, concurred.

The commission head was known for his impartiality, and the other four members had long investigated human rights violations under governments led by both major political parties, she told BenarNews.

Here are 10 shocking revelations from the commission’s report, which is based on its scrutiny of 758 forced disappearance cases:

1. The number of forced disappearance cases likely exceeds 3,500, the commission said. It received 1,678 registered complaints. Of the 758 people’s cases it has scrutinized so far, 204 people, or 27% of alleged victims, are still missing. "[T]he massive scale at which it was unleashed on the population during Sheikh Hasina’s regime is a novel phenomenon," its report said.

2. Forced disappearances were not carried out by a few bad apples, the commission reported. The finesse with which each of the steps involved in a disappearance were carried out and the responsibilities divided across agencies — all over a span of 15 years — did not happen by accident, the report said. "[T]hese systems reflect a deliberate design orchestrated by a central command structure," the report added.

3. With so many involved, how did the network remain undetected for a decade-and-a-half? That, too, was no accident, the commission found. "[S]security forces would ... falsely attribute their actions to other agencies. ... The forces would also exchange victims amongst themselves, with one force abducting, another incarcerating, the third one killing or releasing the victims," the commission learned.

4. Even as they stayed undetected, the perpetrators could be brazen. The report said one victim of forced disappearance who was returned was even told that Hasina was giving him "a second chance," but with conditions. "You must refrain from politics, leave the country, and return only when the situation improves," he was told, the commission’s report said.

5. Abducting people without anyone around them noticing — known as "silent pick-ups" — was a vital part of forced disappearance operatives staying undetected. That was entirely impossible without electronic surveillance, which was widespread, according to the commission’s interviews with RAB and military officers.

6. Victims were detained for varying periods, ranging from 48-60 hours to several weeks or months, and in some cases, up to eight years, the report said. Some of the kidnapped were mixed in with legal detainees and some were stashed in secret cells. The commission said it had identified more than eight secret detention facilities where victims were held across the country. Many other such centers had been destroyed, it said.

7. The remarkable consistency in forced disappearance practices across the country included congruence in torture rituals, which were also "profoundly brutal and disturbingly methodical," the commission report said. One victim described RAB sewing his lips shut without anesthetic — "akin to stitching cowhide." Another recounted, RAB again, electrocuting his ears and genitals.

8. A forced disappearance case ended in one of two ways, the commission learned. The victim was killed or turned loose into the criminal justice system. For those the operatives decided to kill, they wanted to ensure the body would be difficult to identify. But RAB and other forces couldn’t resist making a sport of it. One survivor said a police officer pushed him onto a highway in front of a vehicle, which swerved away from him. The officer didn’t try again.

9. A victim who was let go may have had his or her life spared, but the perpetrators made sure they, perversely, destroyed that life. The captors would file a slew of cases against the victim in an attempt to justify the forced disappearance. This perpetuates "the sufferings of victims, who are forced to navigate a deeply flawed and punitive legal system for years afterwards," the commission report said.

10. India’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government has since 2014, when it came to power, been Hasina’s steadfast supporter. Before that, India’s Congress government too favored a Hasina administration. Did this closeness also involve prisoner exchanges, including of Bangladeshi forced disappearance victims? The commission said it did, basing its assessment on two cases and interviews with soldiers deputed to RAB Intelligence.

Link

Bangladesh

Case filed with International Crimes Tribunal against six RAB officers

2024-09-23

[NEWAGEBD.NET] A case was filed with the International Crimes Tribunal against six Rapid Action Battalion

officers on charge of crimes against humanity for reported abduction, enforced disappearance and torture of a physician in 2021.

Not the RAB! Nooooooooo!!!

In the first-ever case filed with the tribunal for reported abduction and enforced disappearance, the complainant, physician Israt Rafique Eshita, alleged that the officers kidnapped her from her house at Kafrul in the capital on July 28, 2021.

The accused officers include the then Squadron Leader Ali Ashraf, IT expert Rakib, and additional superintendent of police Md Akhteruzzaman.

According to Israt's complaint, she became a victim of enforced disappearance after the battalion officers kidnapped her and held her in an undisclosed location, where she was subjected to torture. She was produced before the media by the battalion five days later, on August 1, 2021.

On the following day, August 2, 2021, Israt was publicly presented as a 'fake physician' and implicated in three narcotics-related cases, which she claimed, were fabricated.

Her case took to 30 the number of cases filed with the tribunal, mostly targeting deposed prime minister ~~the loathesome~~ Sheikh Hasina
...Bangla dynastic politician and now exiled former Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She was President of the Bangla Awami League since the Lower Paleolithic. She is the eldest of five children of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangla. Her party defeated the BNP-led Four-Party Alliance in the 2008 parliamentary elections. She once before held the office, from 1996 to 2001, when she was defeated in a landslide. She and the head of the BNP, Khaleda Zia showed such blind animosity toward each other that they are known as the Battling Begums. That is probably because Khaleda's late husband was the Pak tool who had Mujib assassinated...
, since her resignation and fleeing to India on August 5.

In a related development, the International Crimes Tribunal-1 has received two more complaints against Sheikh Hasina, involving allegations of crimes against humanity in connection with the deaths of Dr Sajib Sarkar and Sheikh Ashabul Yamin, both of whom were killed in police firing during the student-people uprising on July 18.

Halim Sarkar, the father of Dr Sajib Sarkar, filed a complaint accusing 71 individuals, including police members, of killing his son.

Sajib, who completed his MBBS from Taherunnesa Medical College in 2020, was rubbed out by police at Azampur of Uttara in the capital during peaceful protests.

'They killed my innocent son, and I want justice,' Halim Sarkar told the media after filing the case.

In another complaint, Yamin's uncle, Md Abdullah Al Mun Kadir, accused 78 individuals, including Sheikh Hasina, Awami League leaders Obaidul Quader, Zunaid Ahmed Palak, and Mohammad A Arafat, of genocide and crimes against humanity under the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act of 1973.

Yamin was reportedly detained by police during the student-people uprising in Savar and shot at point-blank range. Disturbing footage of the police dragging Yamin's body to an armoured vehicle, dropping it on the street, and brutally discarding it on a road divider went viral and shocked the nation. Yamin was rushed to Savar Enam Medical College Hospital, where doctors pronounced him dead
He's dead, Jim!
The allegations against the accused are being pursued under sections 3(2), 4(1), and 4(2) of the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act, as calls for justice intensify following the tragic events of July 18.

Link

Bangladesh

Bangladesh Police undergoes major shakeup

2024-08-14

[Dhaka Tribune]

There have been significant changes in senior positions within the Bangladesh Police, with numerous officers being reassigned to new roles while others have been removed and attached to the Police headquarters and Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP).

The home ministry and Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) issued separate notifications and orders on Tuesday regarding these changes.

Additional IGP and special branch of police chief Md Monirul Islam and new DMP Commissioner Habibur Rahman have been sent into forced retirement.

Earlier, Monirul Islam was attached to the police headquarters.

Rangpur Metropolitan Police Commissioner Md Moniruzzaman and Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of Rangpur Range Md Abdul Baten have been retired.

Yes, yes — no doubt it’s needed. But what has happened to the legendary Rapid Action Battalions [RAB)???

Link

Bangladesh

Bangladesh extrajudicial killings fell dramatically in 2022, US report finds

2023-03-22

[BenarNews] Extrajudicial killings in Bangladesh fell to 25 or fewer in 2022 from as many as 80 the previous year, the U.S. State Department said Monday as it released its annual report on human rights
...which are usually entirely different from personal liberty...
across the globe.

The drop followed the U.S. Treasury Department imposing financial sanctions on Bangladesh’s elite Rapid Action Battalion

along with six current and former officers in December 2021 over what it identified as serious human rights abuses including extrajudicial killings.

The 2022 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices cited Bangladesh NGO Ain o Salish Kendra (ASK) in reporting that 19 people died from extrajudicial shootings or while in jug — including four from "so-called crossfires with law enforcement agencies and eight due to physical torture."

Another domestic human rights agency, which was not named, listed a higher number of alleged extrajudicial killings— 25 — during a period from January to September 2022.

By comparison, the 2021 State Department report stated that between 70 and 80 people were victims of alleged extrajudicial killings that year, citing ASK and another domestic rights group, Odhikar.

"Extrajudicial killings dramatically decreased from the previous year," the 2022 State Department report said.

ASK had previously alleged more than 600 such killings took place between May 2018 and June 2021.

The Bangladesh government in June 2022 refused to renew Odhikar’s license to operate, stating that it had "tarnished the image of the state to the world" and published "misleading" information on alleged extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances.

Odhikar was among local organizations documenting alleged human rights abuses by RAB members.

A March 2022 analysis by a Bangladeshi think tank, the Centre for Governance Studies, found that the Detective Branch of the Bangladesh police was involved in more than half of all extrajudicial killings between 2019 and 2021, far more than RAB.

The analysis also found that extrajudicial killings were far higher in Cox’s Bazar, in southeastern Bangladesh, than in the rest of the country, according to the State Department report.

US SANCTIONS
The U.S. government took action against RAB in December 2021.

"Widespread allegations of serious human rights abuse in Bangladesh by the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) ... threaten U.S. national security interests by undermining the rule of law and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, and the economic prosperity of the people of Bangladesh," the U.S. Treasury Department said in a statement.

Those sanctions, which have yet to be lifted, bar U.S. citizens from conducting business with or making contributions to the sanctioned individuals and block access to any property they hold in the United States.

While visiting Washington in June 2022, Md. Shahriar Alam, Bangladesh’s state minister for foreign affairs, spoke positively about the elite police unit.

"RAB has never been used to suppress the opposition. There is no record of any big shot or member of BNP or Jamaat being harassed by RAB or from being killed," he said at the time, referring to the opposition Bangladesh National Party and the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami
... a Pakistani catspaw remaining active in Bangla politix, loosely affiliated with the Pak religious party of the same name and closely affiliated with most of the terror organizations in Bangla. A member of the BNP's four party governing coalition....
, a faith-based political party.

Link

Bangladesh

US: Bangladesh’s RAB has made ‘tremendous progress’ in reducing extrajudicial killings

2023-01-18

[BenarNews] A senior U.S. official highlighted "tremendous progress" made by Bangladesh in reducing alleged extrajudicial killings by its elite RAB security force, which Washington had sanctioned in December 2021 over gross human rights
...which are often intentionally defined so widely as to be meaningless...
abuses.

Donald Lu, the United States assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian Affairs, noted the progress as he wrapped a weekend visit to Bangladesh. Bilateral tensions arose in the wake of the U.S. sanctions on the Rapid Action Battalion

(RAB) and comments by the Biden administration, the same old faces in slightly different places, the same old ideas, the same old graft

Link

Bangladesh

In Bandarban operation, Bangladesh targets Muslim militant-hill tribe rebel link

2022-10-30

[BenarNews] Bangladeshi security forces have launched a crackdown on a nascent armed tribal group that, officials allege, helped train a budding Moslem Death Eater group in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, a restive southeastern region near the borders with Myanmar and India. The joint campaign by the Rapid Action Battalion

(RAB), an elite police unit, and the army has led to the arrests so far of at least 10 suspected members of the groups, since the operation began on Oct. 10 in one of the remotest areas in Bandarban, a district in the Hill Tracts region, authorities said.

The Kuki-Chin National Front (KNF), an armed hill tribe group, made headlines recently as they demanded an autonomous region for the indigenous Kuki people, many of whom now follow Christianity, in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT). The group’s members posed with weapons for social media posts and YouTube videos.

Officials say they have uncovered a strong link between the national front and what they assert is a newly formed Moslem Death Eater group, Jama’atul Ansar Fil Hindal Sharqiya (JAFHS).

Link

Bangladesh

New Bangladesh police chief is US-sanctioned former head of RAB

2022-10-01

[BenarNews] Bangladesh’s new police chief is a U.S.-sanctioned former head of the elite security unit Rapid Action Battalion

, which Washington also sanctioned last December saying it was responsible for serious human rights
...not to be confused with individual rights, mind you...
abuses.

Inspector General of Police Chowdhury Abdullah al-Mamun, took over the position on Friday, and was promoted by the government after serving as director general of the Rapid Action Battalion, or RAB.
So he's already trained
He was one of seven then-current or former RAB officials who were placed under American sanctions along with the unit in December 2021 by the U.S. Treasury Department for alleged human rights violations, including enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, cases of torture and other abuses.

Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal defended Abdullah when BenarNews asked him about the wisdom of appointing a U.S.-sanctioned officer as national police chief.

"Sanctioning Chowdhury Abdullah al-Mamun is not a fair decision," the minister told BenarNews.

"He has been facing sanctions only for holding the office of director general of RAB.

He has been an honest, industrious and a man of principle. He is the senior most police official, and retires in four months," he added.

The U.S. Treasury Department sanctions bar U.S. citizens from conducting business with or making contributions to the sanctioned individuals and block access to any property they hold in the United States.

Abdullah’s immediate predecessor as police chief, Benazir Ahmed, was also sanctioned by Washington last year because of his association with RAB. He was a former RAB director general.

The United States accused RAB of more than 600 enforced disappearances in the past 12 years, a similar number of extrajudicial killings, and the use of torture.

"Widespread allegations of serious human rights abuse in Bangladesh by the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) ... threaten U.S. national security interests by undermining the rule of law and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, and the economic prosperity of the people of Bangladesh," the U.S. Treasury Department said in a statement when it announced the sanctions.

RAB was founded in 2004, and charged with internal security, intelligence gathering related to criminal activities, and government-directed investigations, according to the U.S. treasury.

Link

Bangladesh

Bangladesh official challenges US sanctions against elite police unit

2022-06-05

[BenarNews] Bangladesh’s elite police force, the Rapid Action Battalion

, has operated effectively despite U.S. sanctions in December 2021 over alleged human rights
One man's rights are another man's existential threat.
violations, Dhaka’s state minister for foreign affairs told BenarNews in an interview in Washington.

Md. Shahriar Alam was in the U.S. capital this week as part of a delegation meeting with American officials for the Second High-Level Economic Consultation between the two nations.

Link

Bangladesh

Suspended Juba League leader Samrat freed on bail

2022-05-12

[NEWAGEBD] The jail authorities on Wednesday freed suspended Juba League leader Ismail Hossain Chowdhury Samrat on bail as he was granted bails in all four cases filed against him.

Samrat is facing charges relating to money laundering, illegal casino business, illegal bars, and possession of illegal arms, after the Rapid Action Battalion

arrested him on October 6, 2019 during the drive against illegal casino business and illegal bars.

’After receiving a copy of his bail order granted by a Dhaka court on Wednesday morning in the corruption case, we have withdrawn jail’s wardens from the Coronary Care Unit of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University Hospital at 4:30pm where Samrat was undergoing treatment,’ Dhaka Central Jail’s senior superintendent Suvas Ghosh told New Age.

BSMMU director (hospital) Brigadier General Nazrul Islam Khan, however, told New Age that the medical board, which was monitoring Samrat’s health, would take decision today whether he should be released from the hospital.

’His health condition is not good,’ he added.

Link

Bangladesh

Bangladesh PM criticizes US sanctions on elite police unit

2022-03-29

For your viewing pleasure, dear Reader, the last (earliest) of the Related keyword RAB articles at the bottom of the post is a proper Crossfire. Enjoy!

[BenarNews] In her first public comment on the issue, Bangladesh’s prime minister lashed out Monday at the U.S. for "abominable" sanctions against the Rapid Action Battalion

force over alleged human rights
...which are usually entirely different from personal liberty...
abuses, saying Washington imposed them without "any fault or cause."

~~the loathesome~~ Sheikh Hasina

Link

Bangladesh

Rights Groups Urge UN Ban on Peacekeeping by Bangladesh’s ‘Abusive’ RAB Unit

2022-01-23

Because the RAB was mentioned the other day.

[BenarNews] A dozen international human rights
One man's rights are another man's existential threat.
groups, in a letter made public Thursday, called on the United Nations
...a formerly good idea gone bad...
to ban Bangladesh’s Rapid Action Battalion

from U.N. peacekeeping operations, citing allegations that it commits torture, enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings.

Link

Bangladesh

United States Sanctions Bangladesh’s RAB for ‘Serious Human Rights Abuse’

2021-12-12

Oh dear. It looks like someone has been reading Tales From The Crossfire Gazette, and missed the point completely.

[BenarNews] The United States on Friday imposed financial sanctions on the notorious Bangladeshi police unit RAB and six of its current and former officers, saying they were responsible for serious human rights
...which are often intentionally defined so widely as to be meaningless...
abuses.

In addition, Benazir Ahmed, a former director general of the force, was barred from entering the United States "due to his involvement in gross violations of human rights."

Washington announced the move on International Human Rights Day, unveiling sanctions against "15 individuals and 10 entities" around the globe.

"Widespread allegations of serious human rights abuse in Bangladesh by the Rapid Action Battalion

(RAB) ... threaten U.S. national security interests by undermining the rule of law and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, and the economic prosperity of the people of Bangladesh," the U.S. Treasury Department said in a statement.

The force, which comprises members of the police, army, navy, air force, and border guard, is accused of more than 600 enforced disappearances in the past 12 years, a similar number of extrajudicial killings, and use of torture, the statement noted.

RAB was founded in 2004, and charged with internal security, intelligence gathering related to criminal activities, and government-directed investigations, according to the U.S. treasury.

In Dhaka, prior to the announcement, about 100 relatives of disappeared people marked International Human Rights Day with a protest outside the National Press Club with tears and chants of "Give them back!"

On Thursday, Human Rights Watch had lodged its strongest call yet for action against RAB, saying that U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres should immediately ban RAB officers from participating in United Nations
...an organization conceived in the belief that we're just one big happy world, with the sort of results you'd expect from such nonsense...
peacekeeping missions. HRW also called on the world body to ramp up screening of those officers deployed under its blue-and-white flag to ensure that its human rights screening policy was being effectively applied in Bangladesh.

"Nobody believes the Bangladesh government’s lies about enforced disappearances by its security forces," said Brad Adams. Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "The question now is what donors and the U.N. are going to do about it."

The six officers named by the Treasury Department are Chowdhury Abdullah al-Mamun, the current director general of RAB; Benazir Ahmed, its former director general; Khan Mohammad Azad, an additional director general of the force; and Tofayel Mustafa Sorwar, Mohammad Jahangir Alam, and Mohammad Anwar Latif Khan, all former additional director generals at RAB.

The U.S. Treasury Department sanctions bar U.S. citizens from conducting business with or making contributions to the sanctioned individuals and block access to any property they hold in the United States.

PANTHEON
Meanwhile,
...back at the buffalo wallow, Standing Buffalo watched the circling Commanches and asked himself What would Geronimo do?...
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken named two Bangladeshis on a list of 12 foreign government officials barred from entering the United States.

He cited a 2021 U.S. law enabling the move against individuals and their immediate family members when "there is credible information that officials of foreign governments have been involved in a gross violation of human rights or significant corruption."

The statement named Benazir Ahmed — the former RAB director-general who is currently Bangladesh’s police chief — and Miftah Uddin Ahmed, a current lieutenant colonel and former commanding officer of RAB Unit 7, for the May 2018 killing of Teknaf City Municipal Councilor Ekramul Haque in Cox’s Bazar, in southeastern Bangladesh.

"We are determined to put human rights at the center of our foreign policy, and we reaffirm this commitment by using appropriate tools and authorities to draw attention to and promote accountability for human rights violations and abuses, no matter where they occur," Blinken said.

The U.S. moves placed RAB in a pantheon of the worst rights abusers in the world, including those involved in the racial profiling and mass detention of ethnic Uyghurs in China, the slaughter of civilians in post-coup Myanmar, and the exploitation of North Korea

...hereditary Communist monarchy distinguished by its truculence and periodic acts of violence. Distinguishing features include Songun (Army First) policy, which involves feeding the army before anyone but the Dear Leadership, and Juche, which is Kim Jong Il's personal interpretation of Marxism-Leninism, which he told everybody was brilliant. In 1950 the industrialized North invaded agrarian South Korea. Twenty-one countries of the United Nations eventually contributed to the UN force opposing the invasion, with the United States providing around 90% of the military personnel. Seventy years later the economic results are in and it doesn't look good for Juche...
n workers abroad.

BenarNews tried to contact RAB authorities for a response to the U.S. sanctions, but phone calls and messages were not answered.

Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal rejected the U.S. sanctions, saying they were "in no way justified."

"The basis on which the action has been taken does not reflect the ground reality," Khan told BenarNews Friday night.

"Ours is a country of 170 million people. Policing here is not as easy as in other countries. The police officials in Bangladesh discharge their duties with much patience," he said.

"While discharging their duties, they must confront many security situations; sometimes they are forced to fire for self-defense. They are entitled to defend themselves," Khan said, referring to allegations of extrajudicial killings.

"In case any members of the law enforcement agencies are found to have violated laws, we punish them accordingly," he added.

In August, while responding to a Human Rights Watch report on enforced disappearances, Foreign Minister A.K. Abdul Momen said they were "fabricated."

"Some people dissociate themselves from their families and then they come back home after some days," he told BenarNews. He said incidents of killings and disappearances happened everywhere.

"When people were killed in America by law enforcement agencies they called it in the line of duty, but when it happens in our cyopeople[journalists] call it extrajudicial killing," he said. "This mentality has to be changed."

’NATIONAL SHAME’
Activist Sanjida Islam, whose group "Mother is Calling" (Mayer Daak) represents relatives of disappeared people, welcomed news of the U.S. sanctions.

Her brother, Sajedul Islam Sumon — a leader of the opposition Bangladesh National Party (BNP) — went missing in December 2013 after RAB officers whisked him away from a residential neighborhood in Dhaka, she said. He has not been seen since.

"We are glad. This is the first time the state law enforcement agency RAB comes under question from anyone. No domestic institution could [raise] any question about their unlawful activities in Bangladesh," Islam told BenarNews.

"The family members of the victims of enforced disappearances have gone to every institution of Bangladesh to get their sons or brothers back, but in vain," she said.

Nur Khan Liton, a human rights activist and former executive director of the rights advocacy NGO Ain o Salish Kendra, said the U.S. action against RAB was correct.

"We, the human rights activists in Bangladesh, have been clamoring for years that the law enforcement agencies such as RAB have been carrying out extrajudicial killings in the pretext of ’crossfire’ and are responsible for enforced disappearances," he told BenarNews.

"But the state did not heed our concerns. They did not attach importance to our observations. The state repeatedly shrugged off the responsibility for the gross human rights violations," he said.

"I think this is a matter of national shame when we see a foreign country adopts a resolution of sanction on a state agency of Bangladesh for the violation of human rights," Khan said.

"The sanction would not have come had they taken our concerns and observations seriously."

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