Extra Judicial Killing in Bangladesh

Legal Possession of Extra Judicial Killing by RAB
Chapter-1
Introduction:
Extra judicial killing is one kind of crime. Any peaceful man does not expect extra
judicial killing. It cataract to the judiciary and the new National Human Rights
Commission to make sure that human rights are fully imposed, not least with value to
allegations of pain and extrajudicial killings by security forces. If there is no punishment
for such crimes, there is no restriction emanating from the State and such violence
becomes authorized, officially or unofficially. Clearly, it is important to ensure that the
clash against crime and terrorism is conducted successfully, but that can only be ensured
in a constant way by respecting the rule of law. In our country extra judicial killing is
occurred by RAB. That is legalized by our government. But this is not right because
every person have some fundamental rights. One of fundamental right is to get proper
judgment by law.
I have made a study on “Legal Possession of Extra Judicial Killing by RAB (With
special reference to Limon)”. So at first I have to mention that what are judicial killing
and extra judicial killing and human rights. In development of judiciary the Legal
Possession of Extra Judicial Killing by RAB will be create the new system of
judiciary.
Judicial killing:
Judicial killing is that which is legal and given or ordered passed by the courts after
judicial proceeding or trail. For example death penalty under section-302. of Penal
Code-1860
Extra judicial killing:
Extra judicial killing is that which is exercise by the elite judicial force of Bangladesh like
police, RAB, army without any judicial proceedings or trail. For example cross fire.
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Objectives of the Study:

The main objective of this report is to observe the Assessment of Legal Possession of
Extra Judicial Killing by RAB
The other objectives include:
1. To find out that whether extra judicial killing is supported by world wide
and ordinary people of Bangladesh or not.
2. To examine the situation before, after and the period of the extra judicial
killing.
3. To critically analysis that whether extra judicial killing is helpful ? If helpful

to which ground it is and if not helpful then how it is.
4. Present condition of Human right in Bangladesh.
5. What should to do government of Bangladesh.
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Key Recommendations:
1. The Bangladeshi government should take all necessary measures to end RAB’s
involvement in extrajudicial killings, torture, and other human rights violations. It
should ensure that all allegations of human rights violations by RAB are
thoroughly investigated and prosecute all those responsible, regardless of rank or
position.
2. If RAB’s human rights record does not improve dramatically within the next 6
months and abusers are not prosecuted, the Bangladeshi government should
disband RAB and donors such as the US and UK should withdraw all aid and
cooperation. In its place the government should create a new unit within the
police or a new institution with a different operating culture that puts human
rights at its core to lead the fight against crime and terrorism.
3. RAB or its replacement should become an entirely civilian institution. Its officers
and rank and file members should no longer be drawn from the military, which
has a different culture, ethos, and training from the police.
4. In the meantime, the Bangladeshi government should establish an independent

commission to assess RAB’s performance, identify those responsible for serious
violations such as extrajudicial killings, including those at the highest level, and
ensure that those personnel are excluded from a reformed RAB and prosecuted.
The commission should also develop and supervise implementation of an action
plan to transform RAB into an agency that operates within the law and with full
respect for international human rights norms.
5. The Bangladeshi government should ensure that anyone detained by RAB or

police has prompt access to lawyers, medical personnel, and family members. It
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should also allow nongovernmental human rights organizations unfettered

access to all RAB stations and detention cells to ensure that the practice of
torture ends.
6. Foreign governments and international organizations should refuse to work with

RAB in law enforcement or counter-terror operations until the force ceases its
use of torture and extrajudicial executions, promotes transparency, and pursues
accountability for violations of human rights.
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Chapter-2
Extra Judicial Killing in Bangladesh is Violation of
Fundamental Right Provided in Constitution of Bangladesh
Our country’s constitution is a written constitution. It is not easily changeable. If we

want to change our constitution so we must need 2/3 vote of our parliament members.
The constitution proclaims nationalism, democracy, socialism and secularity as the
fundamental principles of the Bangladeshi republic. It is one of the most liberal
constitutions. Our constitution came into effect from December 16, 1972. Many
different laws are written. Laws inconsistent with fundamental rights to be void.
(1) All existing law not consistent with the provisions of this Part shall, to the extent of
such inconsistency, become void on the commencement of this Constitution.
(2) The State shall not make any law conflicting with any provisions of this Part, and any
law so made shall, to the extent of such inconsistency, be void.
(3) Nothing in this article shall apply to any amendment of this Constitution made under
article 142.
Constitution provides all kind of facilities which we need for well living. Extra judicial
killing is not good for any country. Because it destroy our international relation. Foreign
country does not want to help this particular country.
Fundamental Rights
Rights are legal, social or ethical values of freedom or right. Rights are the fundamental
normative rules. Rights are significance in such disciplines as law and principles
especially theories of justice deontology. Rights are often measured fundamental to
civilization.
constitution/part3.htm [Online] // http://www.pmo.gov.bd/

pmolib/constitution/part3.htm.
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The correlation between rights and struggle cannot be overstated—rights are not as
much settled or capable as they are fought for and claimed. Rights have many types like
natural and legal rights, claim and liberty rights, negative and positive rights, individual
group rights. Every right has different uniqueness.
Natural rights versus legal rights

Natural rights are rights which are natural, not man made or artificial. Natural rights are
known as moral rights or analienable rights.
Legal rights, in contrast, are based on a societies customes,laws,status or actions by
legislatures. An example of legal right is the right to vote for citizens. Legal rights are
sometimes called civil rights. Claim rights versus liberty rights A claim right is a right
which entails that another person has a duty to the right holder. Like in jurisdiction
where social welfare services are provided, citizens have legal claim rights to be provided
with those services.
A liberty right or privilege, in contrast, is simply a freedom or permission for the right-
holder to do something, and there are no obligations on other parties to do or not do
anything. Legal rights and claim rights are the inverse of on another. Positive rights
versus negative rights Positive rights are permissions to do things, or entitlements to be
done unto. One example of positive right is the purported “right to welfare”
Negative rights are not to do things, or entitlements to be left alone. It is opposite of
positive rights.
Individual rights versus group rights

Individual rights are rights held by individual people regardless of their group
membership or lack thereof.
Group rights have been argued to exist when a group is seen as more than a mere
composite or assembly of separate individuals but an entity in its own right. Some argue
that when soldiers bond in combat, the becomes like an organism in itself and has rights
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which trump the rights of any individual soldier. Rights and political Rights are often
included in the foundational questions governments and politics have been designed to
deal with. Often the development of these socio political institutions has formed a
dialectical relationship with rights. Accordingly, politics play an important role in
developing or recognizing the above rights, and the discussion about which behavior are
included as “rights” is an ongoing political topic of importance. The concepts of rights
vary with political orientation.
Fundamental Rights in Bangladesh

Bangladeshi people have 23 fundamental rights under the Constitution of Bangladesh.
The Fundamental Rights in Bangladesh under below:
1. Laws inconsistent with fundamental rights to be void (Article-26)
2. Equality be fore law (Article-27)
3. Discrimination on grounds of religion, etc. (Article-28)
4. Equality of opportunity in public employment (Article-29)
5. Prohibition of foreign titles, etc. (Article-30)
6. Right to protection of law (Article-31)
7. Protection of right to life and personal liberty (Article-32)
8. Safeguards as to arrest and detention (Article-33)
9. Prohibition of forced labor (Article-34)
10. Protection in respect of trial and punishment (Article-35)
11. Freedom of movement (Article-36)
12. Freedom of assembly (Article-37)
13. Freedom of association (Article-38)
14. Freedom of thought and conscience, and of speech (Article-39)
15. Freedom of profession or occupation (Article-40)
16. Freedom of religion (Article-41)
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17. Rights of property (Article-42)

18. Protection of home and correspondence (Article-43)
19. Enforcement of fundamental rights (Article-44)
20. Modification of rights in respect of disciplinary law (Article-45)
21. Power to provide indemnity (Article-46)
22. Saving for certain laws (Article-47)
23. Inapplicability of certain articles (Article-47A)
Constitution of Bangladesh
constitution/part3.htm [Online] // http://www.pmo.gov.bd/ pmolib/constitution/part3.htm.
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Extra Judicial Killing

Extra judicial killing is unethical. Because every person have right to get proper
judgment. Although extra judicial killing reduce crime but it is not acceptable.
Because many general people are killed for this type of killing. Another name of
extrajudicial killings is Crossfire. Killings by law enforcement agencies are common in
Bangladesh. In 1972, the paramilitary group Jatiya Rakkhi Bahini came into force and
had become renowned for its extrajudicial executions until it was engaged into the army
in 1975. Now, since the formation of the selected Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) in
March 2004, such killings are again on the rise and are being categorized under a new
terms of “crossfire,” “extrajudicial killings,” “encounters,” etc. The government tries to
justify the killings by using the term “crossfire,” which it refers to as gunfights between
any suspected criminal group or “unsentimental” criminals and the RAB or police. The
term “death in an encounter” is worn in other countries to mean the same thing, but the
term “crossfire” is favored by law enforcement agencies in Bangladesh. The evil
suggestion associated with the word demonstrates the total weakness of the people
facing extrajudicial killings that are taking place in Bangladesh.
Though there is no legal definition of an extrajudicial killing, if a death is caused by a law
enforcement official without following the legal rules or due judicial process, it can be
measured extrajudicial.
“Crossfire” is an extrajudicial execution that is in deliberate defiance of
Bangladesh’s constitution and the international human rights conventions of which the
country is a party. Although some people believe that extrajudicial killing of cynical
criminals helps ease the problem of “terrorism,” in reality, it encourages lack of control
and aggravates “state terrorism.” In different countries across the world, people in
power have created a feeling that killing “terrorists” without bringing them to justice can
help curb “terrorism,” but such extrajudicial killings, in fact, can neither bring peace nor
eradicate “terrorism.”
www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/bangladesh-urged-lift-banextrajudicial-killings-exhibition-
2010-03-23 .
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Laws Being Ignored

In Bangladesh, the law says minimum force should be useful to arrests and every person
has the right to seek a trial. In the cases of “crossfire” and “encounters,” however, we
find that these legal requirements are being totally ignored. Article 31 of the constitution
of Bangladesh states: “To enjoy the protection of law, and to be treated in accordance
with law, is the absolute right of every citizen, wherever he may be, and of every other
person for the time being within Bangladesh, and in particular no action unfavorable to
the life, liberty, body, reputation or property of any person shall be taken except in
accordance with law.”
The constitution’s Article 32 ensures the protection of the right to life and personal
liberty in accordance with the law. Because of the consequences of such dispossession,
the drafters of the constitution made this specific stipulation of safety even though these
rights were already covered by Article 31. What is inherent in Articles 31 and 32 is the
right to access to justice, and it cannot be said that this right has been dealt with in
accordance with the law unless a person has a reasonable opportunity to approach the
court in proof of their right or grumble. Even a deserter is entitled to a legal defense
when the death penalty is involved.
Violation with fundamental right in constitution

The government of Bangladesh has been violating the constitution and Universal
Declaration of Human Rights since 2004. According to Article 35(5) of the constitution
of Bangladesh and Article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, “No one
shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or
punishment.” And according to Article 3 of the constitution of Bangladesh, “Everyone
has the right to life, liberty and security of person.” But, in practice, Bangladesh does not
ensure the right to life and has not complied with the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights and the constitution of Bangladesh.
www.extrajudicialkilling.info
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Bangladesh
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Bangladesh
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A few human rights organizations have long been asking the government to stop the
killings, terming them “extrajudicial”. Moreover, the High Court of Bangladesh, on June
29, 2009, asked the government to clarify why killing people without a trial, in the form
of extrajudicial killings, is not being declared as illegal, and why measures are not being
taken against the perpetrators. After this ruling, we still haven’t seen anything happen.
Both governmental and nongovernmental sources have said that the death toll has
reached 152 from such extrajudicial killings – labeled as “crossfire” killings, “encounter”
killings or “gunfight” killings by the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) and the police – since
January 6, 2009 (from January 6, 2009 to 23 February, 2010) when the Awami League-
led government assumed office. In Bangladesh, we have a so-called democracy, but there
is no rule of law. Every day sees more killings of citizens by the state machinery, killings
which are both well-planned and covered up.
The government of Bangladesh has been violating the constitution and the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights day after day since 2002 (including operation
clean heart).
In 2004, the BNP-Jamaat government made a decision about extrajudicial killings and
formed the RAB. From March 26, 2004 until January 31, 2009, around 1,600 people
(including 58 killed peoples in operation clean heart of 2002) have been killed without
justice.
Bangladesh urged to lift ban on extrajudicial executions exhibition

Amnesty International has urged the Bangladeshi authorities to lift a ban on an
exhibition of photographs raising awareness about alleged extrajudicial executions
carried out by a special police unit.
“Yesterday’s closure of the Drik Picture Library exhibition ‘Crossfire’ in Dhaka is a
blow to the right to freedom of expression,” said Amnesty International’s
Bangladesh Researcher, Abbas Faiz. “The government of Bangladesh must act
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immediately to lift the police ban and protect the right to peaceful expression in words,
images or any other media in accordance with Bangladesh’s constitution and
international law.”
Hours before the “Crossfire” exhibition was due to open at a special ceremony in
Dhaka, police moved in and demanded that the organizers cancel it. When they refused
to shut it down police closed the premises, claiming that the exhibition had no official
permission to open and would “create anarchy”.
Hundreds of people have been killed in Bangladesh since 2004 when the special police
force, the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), was established.
In most cases, victims who die in the custody of RAB and other police personnel are
later announced to have been killed during “crossfire” or police “shoot-outs”. Amnesty
International and other human rights organizations consider these killings to be
extrajudicial executions.
Human rights lawyers in Bangladesh see the closure of the exhibition as unjustified and
with no legal basis. They are seeking a court order to lift the police ban on the
exhibition.
Drik’s Director, Shahidul Alam says he has held hundreds of other exhibitions without
needing official permission, and that “the government invoked a prohibitive clause only
because state repression was being exposed”.
Abbas Faiz said: “By closing the ‘Crossfire’ exhibition, the government of
Bangladesh has effectively reinforced a culture of impunity for human rights violations.
Amnesty International is calling for the government to take action against those who
carry out extrajudicial executions, not those who raise their voices against it.”
The ban is also inconsistent with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s pledges that her
government would take action to end extrajudicial executions.
Amnesty International has urged authorities to allow peaceful protests against the killings
and to bring the perpetrators to justice.
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Chapter-3
Formation of Rapid Action Battalion

The government had formed a special law enforcement group, called Rapid Action
Battalion (RAB), comprising of specially trained members of police and armed forces
with modern weapons, logistics and special power to conduct anti-crime operations.
Dubbed as an elite force, this group has succeeded in apprehending some top criminals.
But in course of its activities, RAB has tortured some people, which ultimately caused
them to die.
The emergence of the Rapid Action Battalion, commonly known as RAB, has given rise
to many interesting debates and deliberations in the past two years. The debate continues
today and possibly will continue in the coming months and years, on the question of
what has gone right and what has gone wrong with RAB. We understand there cannot
be any winner in this debate, therefore, we have simply taken the liberty of taking a close
look at its past and present so that we may come up with our own opinion regarding its
future. RAB was formed under the Armed Police Battalions (Amendment) Act 2003 and
launched formal operations on June 21, 2004. The members were picked from amongst
the competent members already serving in the military, air force, navy, police and BDR;
given special training, uniform, head gear, arms, and a handsome package of
remuneration. The sole aim behind creating such an elite and powerful force, despite
having all the above mentioned law enforcing forces at the government’s disposal, was
to fight criminals and terrorists having dreadful criminal records that included multiple
murders, extortion of monthly toll from shops and business houses, vandalism,
kidnapping for ransom taking, drug trafficking, leading organized groups of killers and
so on. No doubt it was a tall order for the new force.
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The apparent failure of the police personnel in rounding up extortionists and

professional killers created the ground for the emergence of RAB, as many of the policy
makers stressed. The launching of the special force and its subsequent field level
operations in the year 2004 met with both hurrahs and boos. Political leaders belonging
to the opposition camps, civil society members, media, human rights activists, social
researchers and law practitioners began to criticize RAB’s activities as extra judicial. The
criticism began to mount as lifeless bodies of listed terrorists and their sidekicks began to
pile high on the roadside ditches, on a daily basis. Newspapers and electronic channels
made RAB’s nocturnal and bloody sojourns lead stories as they contained both grime
and grit, what their readers and audience perhaps looked for in an otherwise lackluster
society. No matter how much good the force has been accomplishing in its hunt for
criminals and reducing their numbers through adopting the tactics of bumping them off
while on the ‘search for illegal weapons’, human rights activists, media and civil society
watchdogs refused to allow them the ‘extra judicial’ power of killing humans without
providing them with the opportunity of a fair trial in a court of law. No doubt, if a
person is denied fair trial, the onus rests on the legal system of the country. On this
question, the late editor of New Age Enayetullah Khan wrote in the daily in April 2005:
‘The unabated and undeterred ‘crossfire’ killings by RAB, given out as repetitively as in a
broken gramophone disc, are not going down well with the average public opinion after
quite some lapse of time since the RAB’s spectacular and deadly launch in black uniform
and bandana on March 26, 2004. The RAB proceedings till date have been opaque; and,
whenever and wherever out in the open, RAB operations have been grossly cinematic in
its immunity and impunity from law.’ He further wrote, ’Tasting blood is addictive, like
that of a man-eater thirsting for human kill. The man-eater knows no law once human
blood is on the palate. Likewise, it is time to rein in RAB within constitutional and
juridical bounds before it is too late. It is already late, but hopefully better late than
never.
The New Age daily in April 2005
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The liability of collateral damages can always be redeemed with legal instruments,
particularly when the government campaign against armed terror is not likely to be kid-
glove under the current circumstances of armed criminal and outlaw terror, including the
vigilantism of the bigots.
The book "Eradicating Crime or Crimes of the State" was published by legal aids and
human rights body, 'Ain O Salish Kendra' last year amid incidents of frequent deaths of
alleged criminals in the custody of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB).
Since Aug. 2004, as many as 351 people have been killed at the hands of the elite force
after detention, while more than 400 were killed by regular law enforcing agencies in
what they called death in crossfire.
Bangladesh’s elite anti-crime and anti-terrorism security force is responsible for

widespread torture and killing more than 350 suspects in custody, Human Rights Watch
says in a report released Thursday. HRW warns that the former ruling party could use
the abusive force for political purposes prior to elections slated for January 23, 2007.
The 79-page report, “Judge, Jury, and Executioner: Torture and Extrajudicial Killings by
Bangladesh’s Elite Security Force,” describes how the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB),
established in 2004 to stop spiraling crime, has made a practice of killing criminal
suspects in detention. Torture methods used by the force include beatings, boring holes
in suspects with electric drills, and the application of electric shock. According to local
human rights groups, Bangladesh’s security forces are implicated in a spate of
extrajudicial killings since a state of emergency was declared in the country on January
11. The killings have been attributed to members of the army, the police, and the Rapid
Action Battalion (RAB), an elite anti-crime and anti-terrorism force.
Rapid Action Battalion, http://www.rab.gov.bd/index.php#, (accessed April 22, 2011).
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“A state of emergency cannot justify killings by the security forces,” said Brad Adams,
director of Human Rights Watch’s Asia division. “The government should put a quick
stop to these abuses.” Bangladesh is in a period of political uncertainty as the country’s
caretaker government, tasked with running the country until elections, negotiates with
the main political parties over an election date and proposed electoral reform. The
recent upsurge in reported extrajudicial killings by security forces began on January 11,
when the first caretaker government head declared a state of emergency and resigned.
After weeks of violent protests, elections originally set for January 22 were indefinitely
postponed. Eleven days later, on January 22, the Bangladeshi human rights group
Odhikar said that, in the period January 12 to 21, security forces had killed 19 people,
either in custody from torture or in what the security forces attributed to “crossfire”
during arrest. Two people reportedly died while trying to escape arrest. Based on press
accounts and its own investigations, Odhikar attributed eight deaths to RAB, five to the
police, and four to the army. Another Bangladeshi human rights group, Ain o Salish
Kendra (ASK), reported that five people had died in army custody alone since the state
of emergency. The main English-language newspaper Daily Star reported on January 22
that three people had died in army custody hours after their arrests, although it is not
clear if these people are included in the count from human rights groups. The paper also
reported on the two men who died while trying to escape. Killings in custody have
been a persistent problem in Bangladesh. During the last large-scale military deployment
in 2002, at least 50 people died in army custody in unclear circumstances. To date, no
military personnel are known to have been held criminally responsible for any of the
deaths. In December 2006, Human Rights Watch documented killings by RAB in a
detailed report, “Judge, Jury, and Executioner: Torture and Extrajudicial Executions by
Bangladesh’s Elite Security Force.” RAB has been implicated in more than 350 killings in
custody since 2004, the report said.
Human Rights Watch, Judge, Jury, Executioner: Torture and Extrajudicial Killings by Bangladesh’s Elite Security
Force, December 2006, http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2006/12/13/judge-jury-and-executioner.
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Human Rights Watch called for an independent inquiry into allegations of these and
previous extrajudicial killings, and for the government to make the findings public.
“The government’s first step must be to issue a direct order not to kill suspects in
custody,” Adams said. “The government should then aggressively investigate and hold
all those who violated the law accountable, or its reputation inside Bangladesh and
abroad will suffer.” Human Rights Watch pointed out that as of January 1, Bangladesh
was contributing 9,681 military and police to UN peacekeeping operations, second only
to Pakistan. “Extrajudicial killings by Bangladesh’s security forces put the country’s
reputation as a respectable contributor to UN peacekeeping forces at risk,” Adams said.
Since the current caretaker government assumed power with army backing on January
12, the army, police and RAB have conducted what they call an anti-crime and anti-
corruption campaign. On January 13, the police said that security forces had arrested
2,552 people on “various charges.” On January 17, the government asked the army to
stay on the streets for as long as it takes to restore law and order. That day, the home
ministry said that police and RAB had arrested more than 1,700 people. Three days later,
the police said they had arrested 2,265 people during the previous 24 hours.
Rules to guide RAB

As said before, since its inception, RAB has come under close scrutiny of the Human
Rights lawyers and civil society members who questioned the legality of the force and
the manner it performed its responsibilities. According to Bangladesh constitution any
criminal offence has to be tried by an open court of law under a specific law. There is no
provision for extra judicial killing of criminals in our constitution. On the question of the
rules of the elite force Shahiduzzaman of New Age had reported the following in
September 2005: ‘The government framed the Rapid Action Battalion (Court System
and Departmental Proceedings) Rules 2005 on August 16 and the rules came into effect
immediately on that day.
Rapid Action Battalion, http://www.rab.gov.bd/index.php
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According to the rules, RAB personnel from different disciplinary forces will have to
face life imprisonment and punishment of different sorts if found guilty by two kinds of
courts — the Special Court and the Summary Courts — as prescribed in the rules.
Those who are not from the disciplinary forces will be tried under departmental
proceedings, which prescribe termination of jobs, removal, forced retirement, demotion,
withholding of promotion, cuts in salary and allowance, and withholding of increment.
The trial process has been designed following the Armed Police Battalion Ordinance
1979 court system and departmental proceedings. But it apparently resembles a military
trial system, as it provides no scope to go to another court of the country for appeal.
Authorities also claimed that the rules have been framed under Article 45 of the
constitution that said that no fundamental right guaranteed by the constitution would
apply to any provision of a disciplinary law relating to members of disciplinary forces,
being a provision limited to the purpose of ensuring the proper discharge of their duties
or the maintenance of discipline in that force.’ But according to many lawyers of the
country, in case of extortion or rape, the offence has to be tried by an open court of law
under specific and existing law and should not be tried under rules by the courts
prescribed in the rules. The New Age report says that some of the lawyers termed the
rules discriminatory putting up the argument that they provide for life-term
imprisonment as the highest punishment for rape, while the existing criminal law
provides for death penalty for the same offence.’ The RAB rules, however, ‘do not
mention whether the accused will be allowed to appoint a defending officer’
Some police personnel was not happy
Like many citizens of the country, some members of the police department and
intelligence agencies have also expressed their unhappiness over all the attention RAB is
getting from the government.
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They feel that many of their own success stories in apprehending criminals including
Islamist terrorists have gone to the credit of RAB. This obviously has created discontent
in their rank and file, these officials feel. According to media reports quoting the sources,
the frustration began in the early days of formation of RAB in 2004, in which the army
always got preference. These police officials were not happy with their previous
experience of working with the army personnel, especially during the army-led
Operation Clean Heart in 2004. According to them, relations between the police and the
army took a bad turn over the death of 44 persons, allegedly from heart attack during
interrogation. Some of the intelligence officials seem to be equally unhappy. They feel
their achievements were not given due recognition though their efforts led to the capture
of many important miscreants and recovery of a large number of arms and ammunition
but they claim that the information was kept secret and credit was given to RAB. The
RAB has been given authority over the police and intelligence agencies, which is souring
the relationship. According to reports, frustration of the police intensified after the arrest
of JMB’s military head, Ataur Rahman Sunny. Police officials claim that though RAB
played no role in Sunny’s arrest, it was given full credit for it. New Age quoted the
following in its report on Thursday: ‘This constant non-recognition and undermining of
our success is psychologically damaging and belittles our image,’ a police official said.
Role of RAB
The new force, with their black bandanas, uniform and all-weather sunglasses, was
something out of a dystopian reality. All-pervasive, almost omnipresent over the lives of
the citizens, RAB was just another force with a good fashion sense when it was formed
on March 26, 2004 but things charged quickly after that. A crossfire menace began with
the killing of a listed criminal on Aug. 6 and RAB today has an altogether different and
far more sinister image.
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Shah Alam was talking about his younger brother’s death in RAB custody: "When we
received his body, his legs had iron fetters attached to them. They had to be cut off
before we could bury him." Ismail’s case carries its own telltale signs of a clueless family,
lack of judicial processing and the reduction of a human life to mere statistics in the
name of cleansing society of bad elements.
The sanctified position of ‘innocent until proven guilty’ in the eyes of justice seems like a
forgotten mantra. Interestingly enough, the official version of Ismail’s killing reads like
the now all-too-well-rehearsed template: "A dangerous criminal was picked up. Based on
information from him, forces went on a recovery mission. Arriving at the spot (a
secluded location), they came under attack from accomplices of the victim. A fierce gun-
fight ensued, resulting in the death of the victim. Several bullets and illegal arms were
recovered."
The downslide
While not a new phenomenon either in Bangladesh or globally, extra-judicial killings by

law enforcing agencies - be it in the early seventies in the clearing up operations against
ultra-left elements in Bangladesh, or those during the seventies and eighties in Latin
America - have seen a phenomenal rise in Bangladesh over the past five years. Law and
order saw such an alarming downslide that the BNP-led government mobilized 40,000
troops to launch "Operation Clean Heart". Nearly 10,000 people were captured: 45 of
them died of 'heart attack'. What shocked the families of the victims was that after the
operation, the government passed an ordinance giving immunity to prosecution for any
extra-judicial act committed during the period of the operation. The operation failed to
improve the scenario; the government formed the RAB, comprising members from
armed forces and law enforcing agencies.
Rapid Action Battalion, http://www.rab.gov.bd/index.php.
Human Rights Watch
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Killing squad
In the most damning of condemnation of extra-judicial killings till date, the US-based
rights group Human Rights Watch on Dec. 14, 2006, released a 79-page report titled
"Judge, Jury and Executioner – Torture and Extra-judicial Killings by Bangladesh’s Elite
Security Force".
In the report, it specifically points at the RAB as a "government death squad", and also
raises a pointer at the larger picture in the country’s slide into institutionalized extra-
judicial measures of torture and killings. While this comes in the wake of numerous
national and international human rights organizations' repeatedly terming the extra-
judicial killings "state-sponsored terrorism", citizens’ complacency regarding such acts is
probably the biggest crime being committed.
In a civilized society
Article 35 (3) of the Bangladesh constitution states: Every person accused of a criminal
offence shall have the right to a speedy and public trial by an independent and impartial
court or tribunal established by law. Article 35 (5) states: No person shall be subjected to
torture or to cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment or treatment.
Sultan Kamal, an active campaigner against extra-judicial killings, feels that such cases
amount to gross violation of rights of the people of Bangladesh as citizens and also as
human beings. "The manner in which 'crossfire' has taken place, and the shameful
banality with which these have been justified, constitute a fraud on the conscience of the
nation, a scourge on human dignity and an affront to natural justice.
New Age, October 4, 2009
Page | 21
"Nothing could stop the custodial deaths; it even gained new momentum during the
ongoing army-led combing operation across Bangladesh which has already resulted in 19
deaths in the first 10 days of the emergency.
Such deaths are a heavy load on the national conscience, sullying the country’s
reputation abroad and worsening its human rights record.
RAB Office-RAB-4 at Mirpur-1
Page | 22
Chapter-4
The Rapid Action Battalion (RAB)’s Extrajudicial Killings:

The question of ‘extrajudicial killings’ by members of law and order forces in
Bangladesh has figured in several recent human rights reports, including the report
brought out by the Asian Human Rights Commission in April last . Overall, the existing
climate in Bangladesh is one of impunity, where different forces entrusted with the task
of maintaining law and order regularly engage in tortures of persons arrested and are free
to kill people who have been detained. Characteristic for the situation is the role of the
so called ‘Rapid Action Batallion’ (RAB), a force instituted as successor to the campaign
which the army had previously waged in order to bring down the crime rate. Killings by
the RAB are reported as ‘crossfire incidents’, a term which is synonymous with that of
‘encounters’, - which term for years has been in vogue in India to describe extrajudicial
killings of revolutionary activists carried out by the state’s law and order bodies. Like the
latter, the RAB justifies its executions of people arrested in the course of its operations,
by arguing that these have occurred in consequence of an exchange of fire between the
targeted person and members of its force, or between armed supporters of the arrestee
trying to set him free and RAB. Some 80 people were reportedly killed in the RAB’s
‘anti-crime’-operations in 2004.
Claims by Bangladesh’s government denying the occurrence of extrajudicial killings
have been disputed both by domestic human rights bodies in Bangladesh, and in
international human rights’ reports. For instance, the Bangladeshi non-governmental
organization Ain O Shalish Kendra, which undertakes legal actions to counter human
rights’ violations, in July last brought out a book, containing investigative reports on the
issue of RAB killings.
Asian Human Rights Commission in April last .
Page | 23
According to the organization’s director, at least seven cases were uncovered, where
people who presumably had died in ‘crossfire ‘incidents had actually been murdered by
RAB . A specific instance of a RAB victim is that of Summon Ahmed Majumdar.
Statistics of RAB activities
The analysis in this chapter is derived from a database compiled by Human Rights
Watch of 367 RAB killings. It is based on three sources, in order of frequency:
Bangladeshi media reports, Bangladeshi human rights organizations, and Human Rights
Watch interviews. All records included in the database are of killings that have either
wholly or partially been attributed to the RAB and that occurred between the start of
RAB operations in June 2004 and the end of September 2006. For the sake of clarity, all
percentages have been rounded to the nearest whole number.
Limitations of the data
Since its creation, RAB has consistently announced its killings, often in the form of press
statements. Nevertheless, as these data are compiled primarily from newspaper and
human rights reports, it is possible that they do not capture all RAB killings between
June 2004 and September 2006. These data sources may be limited in their ability to
report on all killings because:
1. People who live or were killed in remote areas may have a smaller chance of being
documented by the media and human rights organizations;
2. The reliability of reporting by the different RAB battalions may vary, thereby creating
different probabilities of reporting for a given RAB killing depending on the battalion(s)
involved;
3. The RAB, either by policy or practice, may not be reporting certain types of killings
(for example, shootings of bystanders).
Page | 24
In addition, the dates of reported killings vary slightly, with some media and human
rights groups reporting the day of arrest and others the day of death. In the vast
majority of cases the difference is less than one day, so the one-month intervals
presented in this chapter mostly capture the period in question.
Many killings were reported by more than one source, and sometimes giving slightly
different victim names. But Human Rights Watch took special care to eliminate all
potential double-counts, erring on the side of caution when names were close but not
the same.
Lastly, Human Rights Watch has not investigated all 367 reported killings. The human
rights and press reports on which the database was primarily built strongly suggest that
most of the deaths resulted from torture or execution, and Human Rights Watch’s own
research confirms this trend. But some of the killings may have resulted from a
legitimate use of force. Killings that, based on the available information, resulted from
what appeared to be a legitimate use of force were excluded.
The Daily Star
Page | 25
Magnitude and temporal pattern of reported RAB killings
Figure 1: Reported Killings by RAB, June 2004 – September 2006
Official Description Count Percent
Crossfired 284 77.4
Killed During shootout 42 11.4
Not Reported 26 7.1
Health Problems 9 2.5
Encounter with RAB 4 10.9
Suicide 1 0.3
Torture 1 0.3
Total 367 100.0
Source: Database of RAB Killings Compiled by Human Rights Watch
As shown in Figure 2, reported RAB killings per month in 2004 and 2005 averaged a
similar rate: 11.7 per month in 2004 and 10.3 per month in 2005. For the first nine
months of 2006, the average monthly rate of documented killings jumped to 17.9, a
dramatic increase over the previous two years. This increase may suggest a greater
increase in RAB killings, increased reporting of cases, or both. It may also result from
Page | 26
the growth of RAB’s force from seven battalions with about 5,000 members in 2004 to
twelve battalions with about 8,500 members in 2006.
Figure 2: Monthly Reported Killings by RAB,

June 2004 – September 2006
Temporal Period Count Monthly Rate
June 2004 – December 2004 82 11.7
January 2005 – December 2005 124 10.3
January 2006 – September 2006 161 20.7
Total 367 13.6
Source: Database of RAB Killings Compiled by Human Rights Watch Note: from 2004 to 2006 RAB grew from
about 5,000 members to about 8,500.
The monthly pattern of documented RAB killings does vary a little over time, as shown
in Figure 3, and is centered on a median of 13 killings per month. The high point was in
mid-2006: RAB killed 25 people in May and 37 people in June, the highest for any one
month.
Page | 27
Figure 3: Reported Killings by RAB by Month,

Source: Database of RAB Killings Document by Human Rights Watch
Geographic distribution of reported RAB killings
There are 12 RAB battalions, each with a specific area of responsibility. However,
reported RAB killings are not uniformly distributed throughout all six geographic
divisions of Bangladesh. As seen in Figures 4 and 5, nearly 32 percent (117/367) of
reported RAB killings took place in Dhaka division, followed by Khulna division with 29
percent (107/367).This is not surprising because these divisions are by far the most
populous in Bangladesh. More telling is the number of RAB killings compared to
population, as shown in Figures 6 and 7. This reveals that the division with by far the
most reported RAB killings compared to population is Khulna, with one reported killing
for every 135,223 people, followed by Dhaka division, with one reported killing for every
330,580 people. Khulna is the principal area of responsibility of RAB-6.
Force, December 2006, http://www.hrw.org
Page | 28
Figure 4: Reported RAB Killings by Geographic Division,

Division of Incident Count Percent
Dhaka 117 31.9
Khulna 107 29.1
Rajshahi 59 16.1
Chittagong 57 15.5
Sylhet 16 4.4
Barisal 11 3.0
Total 367 100.0
Page | 29


per Population, June 2004 – September 2006
Division of Killing Count 2001 Population Count per Population
Khulna 107 14,468,819 135,223
Dhaka 117 38,677,876 330,580
Chittagong 57 23,999,345 421,041
Sylhet 16 7,899,816 493,739
Rajshahi 59 29,992,955 508,355
Barisal 11 8,112,435 737,494
TOTAL 367 123,151,246 335,561
Page | 30

per 10,000 People, June 2004 – September 2006
Source: Database of RAB Killings Compiled by Human Rights Watch Note: count per population indicates the
ratio of deaths per population of the division. The figure should be read as individuals killed x 10,000.
Battalion responsibility for reported RAB killings
In some reported incidents, the media or human rights source cited the specific RAB
battalion(s) responsible for the killing. In the majority of cases, however, the sources did
not report the battalion involved. In these cases Human Rights Watch deduced the
battalion based on the respective areas of responsibility (AOR) of the 12 battalions and
where the incident took place. The results may not be fully accurate because, in some
cases, battalions may have operated outside their specific AOR. In addition, RAB grew
from seven to twelve battalions. As Figures 8 and 9 reveal, more than one-quarter of all
RAB killings—25.6 percent—occurred in the current AOR of RAB-6, Khulna.
Page | 31
Figure 8: Reported Killings by RAB Battalions,

RAB Battalion Count Percent
RAB-6 94 25.6
RAB-7 57 15.5
RAB-4 38 10.4
RAB-5 38 10.4
RAB-3 28 7.6
RAB-12 26 7.1
RAB-2 22 6.0
RAB-8 22 6.0
RAB-10 15 4.1
RAB-9 12 3.3
RAB-1 11 3.0
RAB intelligence 6 1.6
RAB-11 4 1.1
Total 373* 101.7*
Source: Database of RAB Killings Compiled by Human Rights Watch * Figures above 367 and 100 percent
because six cases involved two RAB battalions. Note: In addition, in RAB grew since 2004 from seven to twelve
battalions
Page | 32
Figure 9: Reported Killings by RAB Battalions,

Demographic profile of reported RAB victims
Victims of all reported RAB killings through September 2006 were male. As shown in
Figure 10, these victims were overwhelmingly male adults—71 percent (259/367) were
between the ages of 20 and 39. The youngest reported victim was 14, Ashiqul Islam
Raju, killed in September 2006. The oldest was 65, a deed writer named Mohamad Ali,
killed in July 2004
Figure 10: Reported RAB Killings by Victim’s Age and Sex,

Page | 33
Chapter-5
Reports from Asian Human Rights Commission on 2006
Report.1
BANGLADESH: Arbitrary arrest and extra-judicial killing by the Rapid Action Battalion
in Dhaka
27 March 2006
SIAN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION - URGENT APPEALS PROGRAMME
Dear friends,
The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has been informed that a man was killed
by the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB)-4 in the name of ‘crossfire’ on 9 March 2006. The
man was arrested by the RAB at around 11:00am on March 8 while he was walking out
of the Session Judge’s Court of Dhaka after attending an ongoing trial in the court. The
family of the victim alleges that they found several injury marks over the dead body
when it was handed over to them. He was married with a wife and three children.
On 8 March 2006, Md. Masudur Rahman (alias Iman Ali), who was the general secretary
of the Awami Jubo League of Savar upazilla unit and a businessman by profession, left
his village home to attend a trial at the Session Judge’s Court in Dhaka. The case
(Number: 53, date: 31 December 2000, section: 302 Penal Code) was filed against him
and he was bailed by the Court later on. When he came out of the court the intelligence
wing of the RAB arrested him. The following morning (March 9), Iman’s dead body was
found in a field at Khagain village, around one kilometre away from his home.
Page | 34
The Savar police recovered the body for autopsy and handed it over to Iman's family at
around 4pm on the same day. On March 11, Iman’s wife, Mrs. Rabeya Khatun, told the
fact-finding team that the government is responsible for the killing of her husband.
Likewise, Iman’s brother, Mr. Nazrul Islam, told the fact-finder that this was a blatant
killing, not ‘crossfire’. “Two bullets entered into the left side of the chest and exited
from the back while another bullet exited through the right of the back after entering
into the chest; all three bullets hit from the front side of the body.” Nazrul also claims
that his brother had been electrocuted before being killed after seeing burns to his
brother's back and right hand. There was also swelling around the right ear, a bruise on
the right side of the face and a hole in the toe of the right foot. Quoting eyewitnesses,
Mr. Nazrul said that security guards, who were on duty in front of the Panna,Textile
Mills, witnessed the RAB personnel shoot five rounds of blank fire after having already
shot Iman.
Mr. Nazrul also alleges that the RAB personnel stole a gold chain, two gold rings, a
mobile phone and about Taka twenty thousand from Iman during the arrest. He claimed
that his brother was extremely popular and a reputed personality in the locality.
However, he also noted that political opponents lodged 12 cases against Iman of which
he was released from 11. On the day of arrest Iman went to attend the trial of the last
case in which the plaintiff himself urged the court to grant bail to him while Iman’s
name was implicated as a result of conspiracy.
Meanwhile, the RAB authority issued a press release from its headquarters claiming that
Md. Masudur Rahman Iman was a wanted criminal of the Savar police. Following a long
interrogation by the RAB-4 Iman admitted that he had illegal arms in his possession, the
RAB claimed. When the RAB force took Iman to Akrain village under Savar police
station, nearby the Panna Textile Mills to recover the arms, associates of Iman, opened
fire on RAB, according to them. Iman was subsequently killed by ‘crossfire’ during the
‘encounter’ between the RAB and the associates of the deceased. The Savar police have
lodged a case of Unnatural Death with the police station regarding this incident.
The victim’s family informed the fact-finding team that they want to sue the RAB
personnel so long as their security can be ensured.
Page | 35
SUGGESTED ACTION:
Please write letters to the persons listed below asking them to conduct an impartial
investigation into the arbitrary arrest, torture and extra-judicial killing of Masudur
Rahman (alias Iman Ali). Please urge them to establish all the perpetrators involved.
Please highlight that if the alleged perpetrators are found guilty, they must be punished
exemplarily. Please ask the authorities to ensure appropriate protection and security for
the family of Iman. The family should also be afforded appropriate compensation for
the loss they have suffered. Finally, please also urge the Bangladesh government
authority to stop the extra-judicial killings by their law enforcing agents in the name of
'crossfire', 'encounter' and 'line of fire' in the country.
BANGLADESH: Arbitrary arrest and extra-judicial killing of a man by the Rapid Action
Battalion in Dhaka
Name of the victim: Md. Masudur Rahman alias Iman Ali (37), son of the late Mr. Suruz
Mondol, married with three children, living in Akran village under Savar police station in
Dhaka district
Name of the alleged perpetrators: Rapid Action Battalion (RAB)-4 personnel
Date and time of arrest: 8 March 2006 at 11:00am
Place of arrest: Dhaka Judge’s Court premises
Date and time of killing: 9 March 2006 at around 3:30am
I am writing to bring to your attention the alleged extra-judicial killing of a man by

soldiers of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB)- 4 at Savar in Dhaka on 9 March 2006.
Page | 36
According to the information I have received, Md. Masudur Rahman (alias Iman Ali)
went to attend a trial at the Session Judge’s Court in Dhaka on March 8. At around
12pm when Iman came out of the Courtroom the intelligence wing of the Rapid Action
Battalion (RAB) arrested him at the court premises. The following morning (March 9)
villagers found the dead body of Iman in a field at Khagain village under Savar police
station. The police recovered the dead body and a post mortem was conducted in the
Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH). The dead body was handed over to the
family for burial in the afternoon on the same day. I have been informed that the dead
body had burn wounds, swelling around the right ear, a bruise on the right side of the
face and a hole in the toe of the right foot. The family members of the deceased have
alleged that the RAB killed Iman in a preplanned attack; the death was not 'crossfire' or
'encounter', as the law enforcers claim.
In light of this, I request that you ensure a fair and thorough investigation into the
alleged conduct of the RAB personnel. If it is found that the alleged perpetrators
committed crimes against the victim, then they must be held accountable for their
actions and if found guilty, indicted under the prevailing domestic laws of Bangladesh.
The RAB authority must compensate the family of the victim for the loss they have
suffered. During the investigation protection must be afforded to the family of the
victim as well as the witnesses of the incident.
The repeated incidents of so-called 'crossfire', 'encounter' or 'line of fire' in Bangladesh
by the RAB and the police indicates that there is no rule of law and that the government
itself does not have sufficient faith in the existing judicial, prosecution or law enforcing
systems in the country. The situation requires immediate reform to the existing legal
system in order to maintain law and order and rule of law. Without changes to the
system and the attitudes of law enforcing agents, heinous crimes committed by the very
people who are supposed to uphold the rule of law will no doubt continue to occur.
Page | 37
Therefore, I urge you and other government officials in Bangladesh to consider

reforming your current law enforcement system by introducing better training
programmers for the officers of the law enforcing agents and to make them more
accountable for the abuses they have committed against ordinary citizens of Bangladesh.
Report.2
BANGLADESH: Alleged serious intimidation by the Rapid Action Battalion in Rajshahi

against a human rights defender
ASIAN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION - URGENT APPEALS PROGRAMME
5 May 2007
UA-149-2007: BANGLADESH: Alleged serious intimidation by the Rapid Action

Battalion in Rajshahi against a human rights defender
The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information from a reliable
source regarding the alleged serious threats and intimidation against a human rights
defender and journalist Mr. Jahangir Alam Akash for broadcasting news on the
attempted extra-judicial killing of an alleged terrorist on a private television channel.
CASE DETAILS:
On 2 May 2007, a team of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) went to an alleged
criminal’s house in the city of Rajshahi. The RAB team allegedly shot at the person in his
bed room in front of his wife and young daughter. The CSB News, a private television
channel, broadcasted the news of this attempted extra-judicial killing by the RAB team in
the news bulletin at 1:00 am and 2:00 am on May 3. The wife of the bullet injured person
accused the RAB for shooting on her husband before the television camera.
Page | 38
On the evening of May 3, at 9:33 pm, a person called to Mr. Jahangir Alam Akash, the
journalist of the CSB News for the Rajshahi Bureau, who also works for human rights
organizations in Bangladesh, on his cell phone number from another cell phone (number
+8801714049431). The caller introduced himself as Major Rashidul Hassan Rashid, an
official of the RAB-5, that works in Rajshahi region, and asked why Mr. Akash broadcast
the news of the RAB’s operation over the television channel. The RAB officer warned
Mr. Akash that if he (Mr. Akash) failed to give an appropriate answer to his (Major
Rashid’s) question then he must not forget the possible consequences for the job. The
roaring army officer also asked whether Mr. Akash knew a reason why the other
television channels except the CSB News avoided the report on that particular incident.
Major Mr. Rashid also accused that Mr. Akash broadcasted the report intentionally and
threatened that if any person representing the CSB News or Mr. Jahangir Alam Akash
himself makes any further attempt to enter into the area of the RAB’s activities, then the
RAB will take action against him and his colleagues. The army officer termed the news
broadcasting as an “anti-state activities”.
Since the telephone call Mr. Akash and his family is under tremendous fear for the
security of his life. No report has been received yet regarding any positive action relating
to the security or protection for Mr. Akash and his family has been taken by the
authorities in Bangladesh.
ADDITIONAL COMMENTS:
This is not any isolated instance of such threats on journalists or human rights defenders
in Bangladesh. It is a very common phenomenon for the professionals like journalists
and human rights defenders of Bangladesh facing death threats from the law-enforcing
agencies and security forces. Since the state of emergency was imposed in the country
such threats and intimidations have alarmingly increased there (For further details please
see: UA-035-2007; UP-034-2007; UA-079-2007 and UA-147-2007) where none of the
alleged perpetrators have yet been prosecuted for their alleged crimes. It is well-known
that Bangladesh has cultivated one of the best cultures of impunity to alleged
perpetrators of human rights abuses despite the nation’s presence in the UN Human
Rights Council since May 2006. Instead of improving the country’s human rights records
Page | 39
the government of Bangladesh has paved the ways to degrade the rights of the citizens
through various means of violations like torture, ill-treatment, extra-judicial killings and
for last four months massive human rights abuses by the armed forces under a state of
emergency.
The AHRC is also concerned by little action by the UN human rights bodies, including
the Office of the High Commissioner, Human Rights Council and the independent
experts on the current human rights situation in Bangladesh. The Asian Legal Resource
Centre (ALRC), a sister organization of the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC),
published a detailed report titled “Lawless law-enforcement and the parody of judiciary
in Bangladesh” in bimonthly publication article 2 (Vol. 5, No. 4, August 2006) and drew
attention of the international human rights community including the concerned UN
agencies on this matter.
SUGGESTED ACTION:
Please write to the relevant Bangladesh authorities listed below urging them to take
prompt action to investigate the conduct of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) office
Major Rashidul Hassan Rashid regarding the alleged threats and intimidation of human
rights defender Mr. Jahangir Alam Akash. Please also send your letters to the relevant
UN agencies listed below.
BANGLADESH: Alleged serious intimidation by the Rapid Action Battalion in Rajshahi
against a human rights defender who broadcasted the attempted extra-judicial killing
Name of the victim facing threat: Mr. Jahangir Alam Akash, journalist of the CSB News
television and a human rights defender, living in the city of Rajshahi
Alleged perpetrators: Major Mr. Rashidul Hassan Rashid, attached to the Rapid Action
Battalion (RAB)-5 deployed for the Rajshahi region
Date of incident: 3 May 2007
Place of incident: Rajshahi city in Bangladesh
I am writing to express my serious concern into the alleged serious intimidation against
Mr. Jahangir Alam Akash, a journalist of the CSB News television channel. The reason
behind of the intimidation is due to CSB News’ broadcasting on the attempted extra-
judicial killing of one criminal by the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB).
Page | 40
According to the information I have received, on 2 May 2007, a team of the RAB went
to an alleged criminal’s house in the city of Rajshahi. The RAB team shot at an alleged
criminal in his bed room in front of the man’s wife and minor aged daughter in the city
of Rajshahi and the incident was broadcasted on the CSB News news bulletin at 1:00 am
and 2:00 am on May 3. The wife of the bullet injured person accused the RAB for
shooting on her husband before the television camera.
I have been informed that on the evening of May 3, at 9:33 pm, a person, who identified
himself as Major Rashidul Hassan Rashid, an official of the RAB-5 workinb in Rajshahi
region, called to Mr. Jahangir Alam Akash, the journalist of the CSB News for the
Rajshahi Bureau on his cell phone number from another cell phone (number
+8801714049431). The caller then asked why Mr. Akash did broadcast the news of the
RAB’s operation in the television channel. The caller also warned Mr. Akash that if he
(Mr. Akash) fails to give appropriate answer to his (Major Rashid’s) question then he will
face the possible consequences for the job. The caller also threatened Mr. Akash saying
that whether he knew why the other television channels except the CSB News did not
broadcast that particular incident. Major Mr. Rashid accused that Mr. Akash broadcasted
the report intentionally and threatened that if any person representing the CSB News or
Mr. Jahangir Alam Akash himself makes any further attempt to cover the RAB’s
activities, the RAB will take action against him and his colleagues. The army officer
termed the news broadcasting as an “anti-state activities”. Due to this threat, Mr. Akash
and his family members are under tremendous fear for the security of his life, because
arbitrary arrest and prolong detention is very common in Bangladesh now under a state
of emergency.
This is not any isolated instance of such threats on journalists or human rights defenders
in Bangladesh. I have learned that it is a very common phenomenon for the
professionals like journalists and human rights defenders of Bangladesh facing death
threats from the law-enforcing agencies and security forces. I am also very much
concerned that since the state of emergency was imposed in the country such threats and
intimidations by state’s security forces have alarmingly increased there. Yet none of the
alleged perpetrators have yet been prosecuted for their alleged crimes. As a result, the
Page | 41
worst type of culture of impunity is cultivated in Bangladesh, despite the nation’s

presence in the UN Human Rights Council since May 2006. I am also concerned about
the reports of torture, ill-treatment, extra-judicial killings by the armed security forces for
last four months under a state of emergency.
I therefore request you to ensure that the RAB officers involved in this case are
investigated and appropriate action is taken against them if the allegation is proven.
Should the investigation commences, I likewise request your office to impose immediate
sanctions upon these officers to ensure a credible and independent investigation, and to
refrain them from using their authority to possibly further harass the victim further. The
victim and his colleagues must likewise be afforded with appropriate protection and
security to avert any possible violent actions that could be taken against them following
this incident as soon as possible. These are matters that the government should seriously
consider and act urgently.
I also urge the UN human rights bodies, including the Office of the High
Commissioner, Human Rights Council and the independent experts, to take more active
role to improve the deteriorated human rights situation in Bangladesh under a sate of
emergency since January 2007.
Page | 42
Report.3
20 December 2006
BANGLADESH: Alleged public extrajudicial killing of a student league activist by the

Rapid Action Battalion on the pretext of crossfire
BANGLADESH: Extrajudicial killing; violation of the right to life; brutality of security

forces; The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has been informed about the
killing of a student league activist in Rajishahi district by a Rapid Action Battalion (RAB)
team at a public bazaar in front of more than 100 witnesses on 1 December 2006. The
victim, Ahsan Haqbib Babu, was the president of the Gonkoiro Union Unit of the
Bangladesh Student League. The incident occurred at a tea house when an RAB team
arrived that evening, removing the victim from the shop and publicly shooting him. The
RAB has claimed self-defence in name of cross-fire against terrorists as the official
explanation for the extrajudicial killing. The case has not been investigated and the
alleged perpetrators remain at large.
CASE DETAILS:
According to the information we have received, at around 7:00 pm on 1 December
2006, Ahsan Haqbib Babu was chatting in a grocery store over tea with the store’s owner
in the Taherpur bazaar, Rajshahi district. An RAB team suddenly arrived at the shop and
asked the victim's name. When Ahsan Haqbib Babu asked for their identification after
identifying himself, the armed men told him that they were members of the RAB. The
RAB then took him into custody without explaining any reason for his arrest.
Many people in the bazaar witnessed the RAB forces take Ahsan Haqbib Babu away
from the grocery store to the west side of the shop at around 7:30 pm. Shortly after
there was the sound of shooting and several people reportedly witnessed the RAB forces
Page | 43
kill the victim via brush-fire. After Ahsan was killed, the RAB allegedly stole his mobile
phone, gold chain and his ring.
Ahsan Haqbib Babu was a third year student at Rajshahi College and was studying
Islamic History and Culture. He has been actively involved in the activities of the student
union and he was the president of the Bangladesh Student League Gonkoiro Union
Unit. The young man was also an honourable member of the Student League’s Rajshahi
District Unit.
The following day on December 2, there was a demonstration organized by local people
demanding justice for the killing of Ahsan Haqbib Babu held in front of local police
station, the United Nations office and hospital.
While no proper investigation into this case has yet to be conducted, RAB officials claim
that the victim was killed by the team in self-defence during the encounter. The RAB
personnel involved in the victim's killing further claimed that they went to the bazaar to
stop suspected attacks by terrorists based on the information they had received from an
unidentified source. However, they did not provide any detailed information or evidence
about their claim.
The victim's father Mr. Afser Ali Mullah suspects that his son was killed by RAB
personnel because of his involvement with the student union and his family's connection
with the Bangladesh Awami League, a former political party. He said that his son had
come home from college on November 28 to spend time with the family. The victim’s
father now wishes nothing more than seeking justice in his son's death.
The AHRC condemns such a brutal killing on the pretext of "crossfire". The AHRC
calls for the Bangladesh government to ensure that the alleged perpetrators are
immediately arrested and tried in court. Impunity over such atrocious acts should not be
tolerated, particularly for those who are state officers such as the RAB. The Bangladesh
government should also immediately conduct a thorough inquiry into all the allegations
of so-called "crossfire" killings committed by the RAB including this case.
Page | 44
ADDITIONAL COMMENTS:
In fact, Ahsan Haqbib Babu's killing is yet another incident of so-called "crossfire
killing", which is widespread in Bangladesh. The AHRC has reported several cases of
civilians being killed by the RAB forces. In those cases, we pointed out that the RAB
personnel have escaped from being challenged by law despite the murders of hundreds
of innocent civilians in the name of terrorism and so called “crossfire” in the last two
years. Please refer to some of the most recent cases reported by the AHRC regarding the
brutality of the RAB forces are:
UA-404-2006: BANGLADESH: Three persons including twin brothers arbitrarily
arrested and tortured by Rapid Action Battalion and the Keraniganj police in Dhaka
UA-343-2006: BANGLADESH: Alleged extrajudicial killings of two more persons in
the pretext of "crossfire" by the Rapid Action Battalion
UA-268-2006: BANGLADESH: Two persons killed in "crossfire" at Jessore while in the
custody of the Rapid Action Battalion
UA-257-2006: BANGLADESH: Alleged brutal torture and fabrication of charges

towards a man after being arbitrarily arrested by the Rapid Action Battalion in Jessore
If you would like to learn more about the atrocities of the RAB and other law
enforcement officials in Bangladesh, including extra-judicial killings on the pretext of
crossfire, please also refer to a Special report: Lawless law-enforcement and the parody
of judiciary in Bangladesh (Article 2, vol. 5, no. 4, August 2006) published by the Asian
Legal Resource Centre (ALRC), a sister organization of the Asian Human Rights
Commission (AHRC).
SUGGESTED ACTION:
Please send your letters to the relevant authorities listed below and urge them to take
prompt action to investigate the killing of Ahsan Haqbib Babu and the actions of the
Rapid Action Battalion.
Page | 45
Name of victim: Mr. Ahsan Haqbib Babu, a third year student of the Islamic History and
Culture department of Rajshahi College. He was also a president of Bangladesh Student
League Gonkoiro Union Unit and an honourable member of student league Rajshahi
District Unit.
Address of victim: A resident of Gopal Para village, Rajshahi district, Bangladesh
Alleged perpetrators:
1. L. Cornel Shamsuzzaman, commanding officer of the Rapid Action Battalion, Rajshai
Unit (RAB-5)
2. D.A.D. Nurul Hauque, RAB personnel of Rajshai Unit (RAB-5)
3. Mejor Rashidul Hasan, RAB personnel of Rajshai Unit (RAB-5)
4. Mejor Mostofa Kamal, RAB personnel of Rajshai Unit (RAB-5)
5. Kalam, RAB personnel of Rajshai Unit (RAB-5)
6. Other unidentified RAB personnel of Rajshai Unit (RAB-5)
Date of incident: At around 7:30pm on 1 December 2006
Place of incidence: In front of Mahbub grocery shop in Taherpur bazaar on Taherpur-
Durgapur road, Rajshahi district
I am utterly appalled to hear of yet another alleged killing committed by the Rapid
Action Battalion (RAB) on the pretext of "crossfire". Shockingly, this killing took place
in public at a bazaar by RAB forces at Raishai district.
According to the information I have received, at around 7:00 pm on 1 December 2006,
Ahsan Haqbib Babu was chatting in a grocery store over tea with the store’s owner in
the Taherpur bazaar, Rajshahi district. An RAB team suddenly arrived at the shop and
asked the victim's name. When Ahsan Haqbib Babu asked for their identification after
identifying himself, the armed men told him that they were members of the RAB. The
RAB then took him into custody without explaining any reason for his arrest. I was also
informed that no proper investigation into this case has yet to be conducted, RAB
officials claim that the victim was killed by the team in self-defence during the
encounter. The RAB personnel involved in the victim's killing further claimed that they
went to the bazaar to stop suspected attacks by terrorists based on the information they
Page | 46
had received from an unidentified source. However, they did not provide any detailed
information or evidence about their claim.
I was informed that the victim's father insists that his son was killed by the RAB forces
because of his involvement in the student movement and the whole family's
involvement into the Bangladesh Awami League, the biggest political party in
Bangladesh for long time. The father further said that his son returned to home from the
university to visit the family on November 28. Now he strongly calls for justice for his
son's killing.
I am very concerned by this alleged brutal extrajudicial killing of the victim. As far as I
know the victim was unarmed and there is no valid explanation which justifies the RAB
claim of "crossfire".
In fact, this killing is yet another incident involving so-called "crossfire killing", which is
out of control and indisputably widespread throughout Bangladesh. I am well aware that
the RAB personnel have escaped legal consequences for the alleged extrajudicial killings
of hundreds of persons in the name of terrorism and so called "crossfire" over the past
two years.
In light of the above, I strongly urge you to take action to arrest and try the alleged
perpetrators of this case in court as soon as possible. Impartial and thorough
investigation should be conducted immediately and the alleged perpetrators should be
charged with murder. Impunity over such atrocious acts should not be tolerated,
particularly for those who are state officers such as the RAB.
I therefore ask for your attention on this widely spread practice being committed by
RAB forces throughout Bangladesh and urge your action to bring the perpetrators to
justice without further delay. For this purpose, I request that the Government of
Bangladesh immediately conduct a thorough inquiry into all the allegations of so-called
"crossfire" killings committed by the RAB including this case.
Human Rights Watch, http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2006/12/13/judge-jury-and-executioner.
Page | 47
Report.4
BANGLADESH: Extra-judicial killings of 378 people allegedly at the hands of

Bangladesh’s law enforcement agencies
ASIAN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION - URGENT APPEALS PROGRAMME
19 July 2005
UG-03-2005: BANGLADESH: Extra-judicial killings of 378 people allegedly at the
hands of Bangladesh¡¯s law enforcement agencies
To sustain the apparent success, the government launched Rapid Action Team (Rat),
comprising of policemen with para-commando training from the army, on 25 January
2003. When Rat failed to bring tangible results, army personnel were included in the
team and the force was renamed Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) on 14 April 2004.
The government also previously launched special drives with different agencies of the
police. One such driver was Operation Spider Web, which was conducted in 2003 in the
southwestern region to net criminals. The government also formed Cobra in June 2004,
which worked in the capital, and Cheetah, which came into force in September 2004.
Soon after the formation of Rab, the so-called ¡®crossfire¡¯ killings started to take place.
The police also soon picked up on this method and very quickly surpassed the Rab in
¡®dealing with criminals¡¯ in this manner.
The government earlier had given army personnel indemnity from prosecution for killing
54 people during Operation Clean Heart, but no such measures have yet been adopted
for the law enforcers responsible for the deaths of the 378 people killed in the past year.
Upon the killings of these people, the police and Rab authorities have informed the
media that the victims died after engaging in crossfire.
When human rights bodies pressed the government to stop extra-judicial killings, the
government announced that it would conduct executive enquiries into all deaths during
police and Rab operations. Despite this welcomed news, the heads of the police and Rab
have stated that the executive enquiries have so far found no fault on the part of any of
Page | 48
their members for any of the deaths in crossfire. However, human rights groups, legal
experts, civil society and opposition parties are most skeptical of this claim. They
previously demanded that an independent enquiry involving the judiciary and
professional bodies be conducted into the extra-judicial killings. Such enquiries must not
involve the police or any Rab authorities in the investigative process itself.
Suggested action:
Please send a letter to the relevant authorities listed below regarding your concern over
the growing number of extra-judicial killings in Bangladesh.
BANGLADESH: Extra-judicial killings of 378 people allegedly at the hands of
Bangladesh law enforcement agencies
I write to voice my extreme concern for the increasingly common practice of extra-
judicial killings by law enforcement agencies in Bangladesh. According to the
information I have received, 378 people have been killed by these agencies since June
2004, with 18 killed in a matter of only 13 days in recent weeks.
The police and special forces, established to reduce the crime rate, have stated that these
deaths were the result of crossfire and that it was the victims who fired first. They have
also allegedly fabricated charges against some of the innocent dead, in an attempt to
make them appear as criminals.
Though I am aware that the government called for an enquiry into these deaths,
impartiality remains a huge issue with the police and other law enforcement agencies,
who are often directly responsible for the killings themselves, being designated as the
investigators.
It is for this apparent collapse in the rule of law in Bangladesh that I write to you
requesting your intervention. Extra-judicial killings under the pretext of ¡®crossfire¡¯
shootings must not be tolerated.
The law enforcement agencies must be made aware of this and informed that they will
be prosecuted for any future conduct of this nature. As for those killings that have
already occurred, the government must ensure that an independent agency investigate
Page | 49
this matter. Allowing local police or army branches to investigate these cases would
prevent any form of impartiality in the investigations. For this to occur, the government
needs to establish a special and independent agency/institute designed solely for the
purpose of investigating these cases of extra-judicial killings. The government must also
establish an effective mechanism whereby victims and their families can lodge
complaints regarding these killings. Once investigations have been conducted and
persons are found to have played a part in such killings, they must be brought before a
court of law without delay and made to answer questions as to their involvement in
these cases. Full punishment must be laid against them if it is found that they are guilty
of such deaths. Compensation should be provided to the victim¡¯s families and all
security measures met whilst investigations are underway.
Finally, the government must bring a stop to its Operation Clean Heart and strictly
discipline Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) if it wishes these forms of human rights abuses
to cease. Only by taking such action will the government show its true resolve to
improve the human rights situation in Bangladesh.
Force, December 2006, http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2006/12/13/judge-jury-and-executioner
Page | 50
Chapter-6
Killings and Other Cases of Abuse by RAB Since the Awami
League Government Came to Power in 2009
Bangladesh is a state party to several of the central international human treaties,

including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention
against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
Bangladesh is thus, among other things, obliged to ensure that no one is arbitrarily
deprived of her or his life, that no one is subjected to torture, and that in the
determination of a criminal charge, everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing by a
tribunal established by law, and to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. Under
international human rights law, Bangladesh is also obliged to thoroughly and promptly
investigate serious violations of human rights, prosecute those implicated by the
evidence and, if their guilt is established following a fair trial, impose proportionate
penalties. Implied in this is that all victims shall have the opportunity to assert their
rights and receive a fair and effective remedy, that those responsible shall stand trial and
that the victims themselves can obtain reparations.
United Nations principles on the prevention and investigation of extrajudicial executions
provide detailed guidelines for governments. They include the need for “thorough,
prompt and impartial investigations” of all suspected unlawful killings to determine the
cause of death and the person responsible. Independent and impartial physicians should
perform autopsies in cases of possible unlawful killings, and bodies should be kept until
an adequate autopsy is carried out and the family informed of the findings. Where the
established investigative procedures are inadequate because of lack of expertise or
impartiality, investigations of possible unlawful killings should be pursued through an
independent commission of inquiry.
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), adopted December 16, 1966, G.A. Res. 2200A
(XXI),
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/04/15/bangladesh-investigate-killing-anti-crime-unit;
Page | 51
It should be noted that the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary

executions has repeatedly requested permission for a country visit to Bangladesh, but has
yet to receive a positive response.
Below are some illustrative cases of continuing abuses by RAB. Human Rights Watch
could have documented dozens of others, but taken together with all the unresolved
cases in
“Judge, Jury, and Executioner,” Human Rights Watch press releases on other cases in
the interim, and documentation by Bangladeshi human rights groups and the media, we
believe that the cases below are sufficient to indicate the urgency of the problem.
Killing of Rasal Ahmed Bhutto

Rasal Ahmed Bhutto, a 34-year old shopkeeper, was picked up in the street outside a
friend’s shop in Dhaka by men in plainclothes in a white microbus on March 3, 2011.
Bhutto had been worried for many months that he was under RAB surveillance because
of his alleged association with the murder of a BNP politician. He had started avoiding
going to his shop for fear of arrest. His brother-in-law, Gulam Mustafa, said that Bhutto
had a bad reputation in the neighborhood, and that he was often the scapegoat, blamed
for any crime in the area.
After his arrest, Bhutto’s family and friends started calling journalists to find out where
he had been taken. They were told by a journalist with close ties to RAB that he had
initially been in the custody of RAB-10, one of RAB’s Dhaka units, and was then
transferred to RAB-3, also in Dhaka.This was later confirmed to Gulam Mustafa by a
close relative, a member of the armed forces with ties to RAB headquarters.
One week later, men in several vehicles, some of them belonging to RAB and some
civilian, brought Bhutto to his family’s neighborhood in Naya Bazaar at around 10 p.m.
and killed him there. They claimed he was killed in a shoot-out.
Eyewitnesses to the killing described seeing Bhutto in an unmarked microbus on the
night of his death escorted by two marked RAB vehicles.
Human Rights Council, “Report of the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Philip
Alston,”
Page | 52
They heard a volley of gunshots about an hour later. By the time Gulam Mustafa arrived
there, Bhutto had been shot and was slumped against a wall in a sitting position. Mustafa
described the scene: There were RAB officers and police all over the place, about 50 in
total. The media was already there and RAB kept saying that Bhutto had been caught in
a special operation. I started shouting at them, saying maybe Bhutto had done some bad
things but where is the rule of law, how dare RAB kill Bhutto. The RAB officers just
stared at me and said nothing, which frightened me. And then although some people
supported me, a local Awami League leader came out and started raising slogans saying
that Bhutto was a criminal anyway… RAB then took the body away for the autopsy.
When I went to collect the body, I saw that there was only one bullet inside his ear. The
police made me sign a blank sheet of paper, I didn’t want to do it but then I just gave in.
When asked why the family had not filed a notice with the police after Bhutto’s arrest,
Mustafa said: “We know what happens when people go missing. We decided not to file a
case because it is better to have a body to mourn over than hoping forever that your
missing one is still alive.” The Disappearance of Mohammad Rafiqul Islam
According to witnesses, uniformed RAB personnel arrived at around 4:30 p.m. on
February 15, 2011, to pick up 41-year-old Mohammad Rafiqul Islam, a salesman at a
grocery store in Dhaka. He has since disappeared. RAB has denied taking him into
custody. After the family was informed by other shopkeepers in the neighborhood who
saw Rafiqul being taken into custody, they tried to contact various government
authorities and even went to the RAB camp. No one was able to provide any
information. On February 22, 2011, Shada Mia, Rafiqul’s son-in-law, filed a missing
person report with the local police. Family members said that Rafiqul was a member of
an Islamist group called “Allah-r Dol,” (Allah’s party). A case had been filed against him
by the police in April 2004 for his alleged involvement of a militant organization.
Mohammad Shada Mia, Rafiqul’s son-in-law, said that his father-in-law used to attend
court hearings regularly.
Human Rights Council, “Report of the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Philip
Alston,
Page | 53
My father-in-law was working at the shop for three years and everyone in the
neighborhood knew him. He had studied Arabic and used to sometimes give the call to
prayers at the mosque…. That afternoon, it seems that a Coca Cola van had come to
deliver new supplies to the store. When he stepped out of the shop, five or six men in
plainclothes took him away. Other shopkeepers said that there were more men in RAB
uniform waiting at the top of the lane with vehicles….I went to the RAB-3 camp, but
the guard said no one had been taken into custody. I went to the police, but they refused
to register a complaint and asked us to wait because sometimes RAB releases people…. I
finally filed a complaint when he did not return after a week. Odhikar interviewed two
eyewitnesses who saw Rafiqul handcuffed by plainclothes officials outside his shop and
then taken to the main street where there were some armed men wearing RAB uniforms
and others in civilian clothes. RAB authorities have denied arresting Mohmmad Rafiqul
Islam. At the time of writing his whereabouts are unknown, but his family is concerned
that he may have been killed by RAB.
The Killing of Azad Hussein Pappu and Abdus Sattar

According to witnesses, Azad Hussein Pappu, and Abdus Sattar were arrested by RAB
officers in the Mirpur area of Dhaka on February 27, 2010. The next day, on February
28, RAB issued a statement saying that the two men had been killed that morning,
around 3 a.m., during a raid in the capital’s South Keraniganj area, which is located at the
opposite end of the city from the point where they were arrested. RAB claimed to be
following a tip-off that two criminal groups were confronting each other. RAB claimed
that after RAB arrived on the scene, Pappu and Sattar came into the line during a shoot-
out as the force retaliated when the criminals opened fire.
According to Pappu’s family members and other witnesses said, five to seven men in
civilian clothes arrested the two men at gunpoint around 11 a.m., as they were leaving
the Mirpur home where Pappu’s mother and several of his relatives live.
The armed men took the two men to a microbus parked at a street corner a few meters
from the entrance to the house, and at that time the men in plainclothes put on vests
Page | 54
with “RAB” written on the back. A large crowd of people witnessed the arrest. Pappu’s
aunt, Shima Begum, was present at the time and told Human Rights Watch, “RAB was
telling people to move away as Pappu had a bomb in his bag that could explode at any
moment.”41 She and Pappu’s uncle also said they heard a RAB officer accusing the two
men of having stolen 1.4 million taka. Pappu and Sattar were then forced into the
microbus and taken away. Pappu’s relatives started looking for him and Sattar at
different RAB and police stations in the area, but officials told them that nothing was
known about the arrests.They also made repeated attempts to call Pappu on his mobile
phone. He answered on four different occasions that afternoon during which he talked
to his aunt, mother and his wife, who was seven months pregnant. He told them that he
was blindfolded, did not know where he was being held and that he would be released as
soon as the interrogation was over. At around 7 p.m., Sattar’s family was informed of the
arrest by a relative living in South Keraniganj. They made several attempts to call Abdus
Sattar, but found that his phone was switched off. Late in the evening they arrived at the
RAB-10 office in South Keraniganj but officers told them Sattar was not there. Early the
next morning, on February 28, friends and relatives informed both families that the two
men had been killed and that their bodies were lying in an open field in the South
Keraniganj area. When Pappu’s mother and other relatives arrived there, approximately
10 to 12 RAB officers and many bystanders were present. The mother told Human
Rights Watch that she started screaming at the RAB officers:
I asked them how much money they got to kill my son and told them that they could kill
me in crossfire as well. One RAB officer then grabbed my neck and said, ‘Get out of
here, bitch. If you don’t shut up, people here will kill you.’ I asked him what he was
doing there and if it was not his job to protect me. He then calmed down, asked me to
leave and said that I could collect Pappu’s body at Mitford hospital.
Human Rights Watch interview with Mohammad Shada Mia, Dhaka, March 7, 2011.
Odhikar fact-finding report, March 21, 2011.
Human Rights Watch interviews with Shaina Begum, Pappu’s mother; Md. Amin Hossain, Pappu’s neighbor; Md.
Azahar,Pappu’s uncle; and Sima Begum, Pappu’s aunt, Dhaka, April 9, 2010
Page | 55
When the two families arrived at Mitford hospital around 3 p.m., hospital staff informed
them that the bodies could not be handed over as their condition did not correspond to
what was stated in the police report. However, they were allowed to see the bodies.
Family members said Pappu’s thighs were severely bruised and there were burn marks
on his back and the right cheek of his face which to the family looked as if they had been
caused by a hot iron. They added Pappu had been shot in the right ear and the bullet had
exited on the left side of his head. Despite repeated requests, the family has not been
able to obtain a copy of the post-mortem report from the police. Sattar’s family
members took a number of photos at the morgue, which they showed to Human Rights
Watch. The photographs show wounds on Abdul Sattar’s forehead and chin, as well as
bruises on his thighs and hands. He also had a burn mark on his chest. Sattar’s sisters
told Human Rights Watch that Sattar and another brother, Mustaq, had been accused of
killing a man named Kamal in the South Keraniganj area. Mustaq had been arrested
three months earlier, but Sattar had gone into hiding. One of the sisters, Mukta, said that
during a visit to South Keraniganj police station after Mustaq’s arrest, she heard him
screaming as he was being beaten and that a police inspector told her, “now you know
how it feels to hear your brother’s screams.” Afterwards, when she was allowed to see
him, Mustaq was unable to stand up and said that the police had beaten him severely.49
Mustaq was later released on bail in June 2010. The same day that she was informed of
the death ofher son, Pappu’s mother went to file a complaint with the South Keraniganj
police station. She told Human Rights Watch that the police refused to accept the
complaint and said to her, “why should we accept a complaint when a criminal has been
killed?” Sattar’s family also tried to file a complaint with the South Keraniganj police
station. According to his sister Mukta, the police told her, “You cannot file a complaint
when criminals kill criminals.” When she asked him if he meant that RAB are criminals,
he just told her to shut up and leave. A few days later, the family filed a complaint with
the Dhaka Chief Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court.
On July 15, 2010, the Officer-in-Charge of the South Keraniganj Police Station
submitted a report to the court regarding the unnatural deaths of Sattar and Pappu.
Page | 56
The report stated that both were killed in crossfire. The family's lawyer, Advocate
Moshiur Rahman, informed Human Rights Watch that he planned to submit a petition
disagreeing with the police report in time for the next hearing on September 15, 2010
but at the time of this writing there was no additional information available on whether
that appeal went forward.
The Death of Mohiuddin Arif

On February 3, 2010, Mohiuddin Arif, a 32-year-old surgery technician at the Apollo
hospital in Dhaka, died from injuries that he apparently sustained after he was arrested
and detained by RAB ten days earlier. At 7:30 a.m. on January 24, 2010, three men in
plain clothes claiming to be officers from RAB- 4 arrived at Arif’s house in Dhaka’s
Pallabi area, where he lived with his wife, two young children, parents, and other
relatives. As Arif had just left for work, his father Abdul Majid phoned him and told him
that RAB was waiting for him at the house. Arif returned home about 15 minutes later
and RAB members immediately took him away.Majid told Human Rights Watch that he
phoned RAB-4 around noon to clarify the whereabouts of his son. He was told that
there was no senior officer present at the station and so therefore no information could
be provided. At 8 p.m., however, seven or eight RAB officers arrived at the house,
bringing Arif with them. In the presence of several family members, they started
searching the house and pushing a handcuffed Arif from room to room. When they
apparently did not find what they were looking for, they yelled at Arif, asking why he had
told them that he had a pistol hidden in the house. He responded that he had done so to
get them to stop beating him. As he was being dragged back to the vehicle in which he
and the RAB officers had arrived, Arif shouted out to Majid, “Father please kill me now;
do not let them take me away again.”
“Man dies in custody,” The Daily Star, February 5, 2010, http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=124943
(accessed November 9, 2010).
Odhikar, “Apollo Hospital technician Md. Mohiuddin Arif died after alleged torture by RAB,” fact-finding report.
Human Rights Watch interview with Assail Hossain, second officer in charge, Pallabi police station, Dhaka, April 6,
2010.
Page | 57
Around 7 p.m. on January 25, the RAB transferred Arif to the Pallabi police station.
Family members arrived at the station around 9 p.m. that evening, but they were not
allowed to talk to Arif. They claim, however, that they paid the police a 16,000 taka
(about US$ 230) bribe in exchange for a promise that he would not be tortured.On
January 26, Arif was accused of robbery and taken to the Dhaka Chief Metropolitan
Magistrate’s Court. The family paid a court clerk a bribe of 16,000 taka to facilitate his
release on bail. They were told, however, that bail could not be granted, but that the
court could ensure that he was not returned to the police station for further
interrogation. Arif was instead sent to the Dhaka Central Jail, where he was admitted to
the jail hospital. On January 31, Arif was taken from the prison hospital to the Dhaka
Medical College Hospital, but due to a lack of available beds he could not be admitted.
Majid was permitted to talk to his son at the Dhaka Medical College Hospital, and told
Human Rights Watch that Arif was in a very bad physical condition at the time, vomiting
and unable to walk. Arif also told his father that he had severe pain in his chest because
several RAB officers had stomped on him during interrogation.
On February 4, Majid returned to the Dhaka Medical College Hospital in the hope that
his son had then been admitted. He was told, however, that he had already been treated
and returned to the jail. A few hours later he was informed by the jail authorities that his
son had died the previous day and that the body had been transferred to the hospital
morgue. At the morgue, Majid noticed that Arif’s legs were, “smashed and did not retain
their usualshape; they were flattened.” Arif’s brother, Mahabub Alam Khokon, who
collected the body from the morgue, said that the repeated beatings had turned the legs
green, that skin had been scraped off on several parts of the body, and that the feet were
swollen and looked as if they were falling apart. In line with standard procedures when
there is a death in custody, a report describing the cause of the death was drawn up.
According to the The Daily Star newspaper, executive magistrate Mokbul Hossain’s
investigation report confirmed that torture marks were found on different parts of the
body.
Page | 58
The officer in charge at Pallabi police station, however, informed human rights workers
from Odhikar that when Arif was detained at the station, the officer did not notice any
injuries on Arif’s body. The second officer in charge, Afsahl Hossain, told Human
Rights Watch that Arif had fallen ill in prison. He added that he did not have any further
details of the case and recommended that Human Rights Watch talk to sub inspector
Feroze Hossain, the first investigating officer, or to the second investigating officer sub-
inspector Mainul Kabir. When contacted by Human Rights Watch, sub inspector
Hossain first denied that he was the investigating officer on the case and then said that
he could not remember any details about it.64 Kabir simply said that he had nothing to
do with the case. Odhikar was told by the officer in charge of Pallabi police station that
Arif had been fired from Apollo Hospital long before his arrest due to allegations of
corruption. However, the senior manager of the human resource division at the hospital
said that this information was incorrect. In fact, Arif’s time punch card from the hospital
appeared to show that he was on duty at the hospital at the time the alleged robbery took
place that he was later accused of taking part in. Arif’s family did not attempt to file a
crime case with the police or the courts. Majid said to Human Rights Watch, “What
would be the outcome? At the very most a RAB officer will be transferred. I will not get
my son back.” However, Constable Zakir Hossain, a guard at Dhaka Central Jail, has
reportedly filed a case of unnatural death with Shahbagh police station. When Human
Rights Watch contacted the police station, assistant sub inspector Sharif said he was
unable to provide any details relating to the case and that it would take him some time to
find out about its current status.
However, after the intervention of the NHRC, this case was investigated by the Home
Ministry. Although the report was not officially made public, it was leaked. The
committee concluded that “Arif’s death was caused by the physical tortures he endured
while he was under the custody of RAB and police.”70 Yet no criminal charged have
been filed against any of the perpetrators.
The Daily Star, February 5, 2010, http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=124943 (accessed November 9,
2010).
Page | 59
The Killing of Lutfar and Khairul Khalashi

Two brothers, Lutfar Rahman Khalashi, who owned a pharmacy, and Khairul Huq
Khalashi, a local garment trader, were arrested by RAB in Narayanganj district around 1
a.m. on November 13, 2009. The following day, family members organized a press
briefing at Madaripur press club in which they urged the authorities to ensure that the
two men would not be killed in crossfire. When relatives and friends heard that the two
brothers might be taken to the RAB-8 office in Madaripur city, approximately 150
kilometers south of Narayanganj, they organized a demonstration in front of the RAB
station there on November 15. The following morning, they were informed that the two
men had been shot and killed near South Shirkhara Sewage gate. On November 16, RAB
issued a statement saying that the two brothers had been killed in an exchange of gunfire
after a group of criminals opened fire on a RAB patrol team early the same morning in
the Jolkor area of Madaripur district. According to a family member who saw the
brothers’ dead bodies, both of them were shot with a single bullet to the chest. The
family has not been able to obtain a copy of the magistrate’s inquest report or of the
autopsy report. Media accounts reported that the two men were local leaders of an
outlawed left-wing political group, the Purba Banglar Communist Party. Bablu Khalashi,
the son of Lutfar Khalashi, said at the press briefing on November 14 that his father had
twice contested local government elections and that his father’s political rivals had
spread the false rumor that he was involved with the outlawed group. He also claimed
that less than two years ago, in July 2008, Obaidul Khalashi, a sibling of Lutfar and
Khairul Khalashi, was killed by RAB.78 A family member told Human Rights Watch
that the RAB killing could be linked to a previous murder case, in which the Khalashi
brothers had been accused in the killing of man who was the brother of the local
government chairperson. The relative further claimed that the Khalashi brothers were
charged with the murder, but they were out of jail, having been released on bail, when
they were killed by RAB. After the death of the two brothers, family members alleged
http://www.prothom-alo.com/detail/date/2009-11-16/news/19832, (accessed November 9, 2010).
73 Human Rights
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they received repeated anonymous threats by phone and were warned by the caller not
to proceed with a criminal case. Several journalists who attended the press briefing in
Madaripur told human rights workers that RAB later requested them to sign a statement
saying that they had not been present at the briefing. The killing of the Khalashi brothers
echoes the case of Mizanur Rahman Tutul, a physician and alleged leader of the
outlawed Purbo Banglar Communist Party (Red Flag faction), who according to the
authorities was killed in a shootout between his group and police on July 27, 2008.The
evening before his death, at a press conference at Jhenidah Press Club, his 80- year-old
mother, Novera Khatun, urged the government to save her son from “crossfire” and
prosecute him instead if he had committed any crimes. According to her, the RAB
arrested Tutul in Dhaka on 25 July, and the arrest was reported by a daily newspaper.82
The Torture of F. M. Masum Around 10 a.m. on October 22, 2009, F. M. Masum, a
journalist with the New Age newspaper, heard loud noises outside the Dhaka apartment
building where he lives. When he went downstairs he found on the street outside a
group of men in civilian clothes beating Baby Akhtar, the wife of his landlord. The men
requested that he unlock the front gate of the building. As he did not know who they
were, he was initially reluctant to do so and asked them to identify themselves. The men
shouted that they were members of RAB. When Masum, after some hesitation, opened
the gate, RAB commanding officer Anisur Rahman and other RAB members, in front of
several witnesses, punched Masum in the face, beat him with wooden batons, and kicked
him. Masum and the witnesses have described to Human Rights Watch how the RAB
members demanded that Masum explain why he dared to defy their orders, and accused
that his reluctance to open the gate showed that he was assisting the landlord Akhtar in
peddling drugs. Masum denied any involvement in drugdealing and repeatedly shouted
that he was a newspaper journalist. According to Masum, the RAB officers then tied his
hands and took him inside the building where he was blindfolded and beaten again. His
left ear started to bleed.
Masum says that he was also forced to sit down on the floor and repeatedly beaten on
the soles of his feet with something that felt like the blunt side of a machete. “At one
point I asked the officers for water, but I was told that I was going to get a bullet instead
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of water,” he told Human Eventually Masum fell unconscious. When he woke up he was
taken to his own apartment on the second floor of the building. RAB had placed seven
or eight bottles of Phensedyl, a cough syrup that in Bangladesh is regarded to be an
illegal drug, on his bed. When Masum tried to protest, someone punched him again and
he was forcibly photographed with the bottles. Shortly afterwards, the RAB took Masum
together with Akhtar to the RAB-10 office in Dholpur, and they arrived there around 11
a.m. As he was too weak to walk, he had to be assisted to the 3rd floor where he was
interrogated and asked if it was true that he was a journalist. He showed the officers the
business and identity cards he had in his wallet. According to Masum, one officer said,
“You should be punished. You are working for Nurul Kabir [the editor of the New Age
newspaper]. Lots of army officers had to suffer during the Caretaker Government
because of him.” Masum says he was then beaten with bamboo sticks around his knees
and with an iron rod on the soles of his feet. “Every time they hit the soles of my feet it
felt as if they were beating straight on to my brain,” he told Human Rights Watch. He
fell unconscious again. When he woke up he found himself locked up in a cell.
Later on he was taken outside. A sign saying “drug peddler” was attached to his t-shirt
and he was placed behind a table with Phensedyl bottles and photographed and filmed
with a video camera. When he was taken back to the cell, one RAB officer told him that
he would be killed in “crossfire.” When Masum’s journalist colleagues learned about the
arrest, they immediately contacted RAB, and the minister and the secretary of the
Ministry of Home Affairs, and requested Masum’s release. According to Odhikar,
various RAB officers provided them with different explanations for the arrest, stating
that he had been discovered with Pethedine, a pain reliever and anti-spasmodic drug that
is widely abused in Bangladesh, or that he was in possession of Phensedyl syrup, or
that he was found in the company of sex workers. Eventually the authorities decided to
release Masum. At 10 p.m. on October 22, a group of journalists from the New Age
arrived at the RAB office. RAB Office Director S. M. Kamal Hossain requested the
journalists sign a document saying that Masum was in good health, even though they
could see that he had bruises on his face and other parts of his body, and that he was
unable to walk unassisted. Following his release, Masum was immediately taken to
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Dhaka Medical College Hospital, where doctors gave him first aid and took an x-ray. He
also had a CT-scan performed at another hospital. The following day he was admitted to
a private hospital, the Dhaka Community Hospital.
On October 23, RAB released a statement saying that, “RAB sincerely expresses regret
for the unwarranted incident that has taken place between RAB personnel and journalist
F.M. Masum of the largely-circulated [sic] daily New Age. RAB is looking into the matter
with importance. The RAB headquarters has formed an inquiry team and the matter is
being investigated. Punitive action will be taken against anyone of RAB found guilty.”
The same day, Arif Newaz Farazi, one of Masum’s colleagues at the New Age tried to
file a complaint with the Jatrabari police station. The police officer in charge informed
him that because the incident included a public authority, the police could not initiate
any action without authorization from the higher authorities. When he returned the
following day, the police told him that they would investigate the matter and that a sub-
inspector had been assigned the task.
The sub-inspector went to see Masum in hospital and talked with him several times on
the phone, as did an investigation team from RAB. On October 25, Home Minister
Sahara Khatun and State Minister Shamsul HaqueTuku also came to the hospital. The
home minister told the press, “It is very sad if the law enforcers did anything
unlawfully…nobody will be spared of his or her misdeed.”
In April 2010, Enamul Kabir, operations officer in RAB-10, told Human Rights Watch
that RAB officer Anisur Rahman was found guilty by a RAB court of inquiry for the
torture of Masum.
As a result, his deputation to RAB was ended and he was sent back to the Bangladesh
Air Force, where he previously served. No further disciplinary sanction or criminal
action had been taken against anyone involved.
Masum spent 12 days in hospital and another two months resting at home before
returning to work. As of early April, he still suffered reduced hearing in his left ear and
pain in his legs. Baby Akhtar, who was arrested at the same time as Masum, alleged the
RAB also beat her and staged photographs of her with bottles of Phensedyl.92 She told
Human Rights Watch that: I was blindfolded and my hands were tied. I was forced to sit
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down. Four men in civilian clothes beat my legs with sugar cane stalks, while a man in
RAB uniform sat on a chair watching. My legs were swollen like pillows.93
During interrogation at the RAB-10 office, she says the RAB beat her again. She added
that when she was asked to stand up to sign and thumbprint the interrogation
documents, she had so much pain in her legs two officers had to assist her.
Killing of Kaiser Mahmud Bappi

According to RAB, just before midnight on September 9, 2009, a team of officers led by
Flight Lieutenant Raihan Asgar Khan, the operations officer of RAB-1 (one of the five
battalions that operate in Dhaka), conducted a raid at the construction site of an
apartment block called Aftab Tower in Dhaka. According to Major Mohammad
Sakhawat Hossain, deputy director of the Legal and Media wing at RAB headquarters,
RAB-1 had received specific information that a wanted criminal called Kamrul Islam, a
name similar to, but not the same as that of the victim, except that they both shared the
nickname “Bappi,” was plotting a major crime at Aftab Tower. According to Maj.
Hossain, the criminals opened fire when the RAB team entered the building. RAB
personnel responded in self-defense. The exchange of fire lasted almost 20 minutes.
Police and RAB reinforcements arrived and surrounded the building. After the shooting
ended, RAB searched the area, recovering arms and ammunition.
They also discovered a body, which they identified as Kamrul Islam. RAB also claimed
to have arrested his two accomplices, Chashma Masud and Abid Hossain Shoikat.
The deceased’s family disputed the RAB claim. They said that the victim’s name was
Kaiser Mahmud, and not Kamrul Islam as claimed by RAB. Kaiser Mahmud, 24, also
had the common Bengali nickname of “Bappi.”Kaiser Mahmud was raised by his older
sister, Shamsunnahar Alam, and her husband, Manzurul Alam. According Manzurul
Alam, he spoke with Bappi at around 11:30 p.m. on September 9.
Human Rights Watch interview with Anaemul Kabir, operations officer, RAB-10, Dhaka, April 7, 2010.
Human Rights Watch interview with Baby Akhtar and Nusrat Jahan Srity, April, 4, 2010.
Human Rights Watch interview with Baby Akhtar, April 4, 2010.
Odhikar fact-finding report, September 10, 2009.
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When Manzurul Alam came home from work after midnight, he was told that Bappi had
not returned. The family kept trying his mobile phone, but it was switched off.
According to his sister, Bappi always came home when he said he would. “I was very
strict with him,” she told Human Rights Watch. “He would not stay out late without
permission.” Manzurul Alam says they waited all night for news. Everyone wakes early
for Sehri [the meal before the day-long Ramadan fast begins], so we started calling his
friends at that time… Finally, Habib, a friend of Bappi’s, called and asked to speak with
me. He said that there was some problem during the night. “Go check the hospitals,” he
said. “It might be
serious. He might be in the morgue.” Manzurul asked a relative to check at the Dhaka
Medical College. Meanwhile, another relative said that the television networks were
reporting that a criminal had been killed and that the person looked rather like Bappi.
Manzurul and other relatives went to the morgue and identified Bappi’s body. However,
an autopsy conducted on September 11, 2009 identified the deceased as Kamruzzaman
Bappi instead of Kaiser Mahmud, the actual name of the victim, or even Kamrul Islam,
as RAB had claimed. Kaiser Mahmud’s family believes that Bappi was killed because
RAB was looking to find and kill the other Bappi, Kamrul Islam, and did not take the
time to properly identify their target. According to Shamsunnahar Alam:
We talked with the watchmen at Aftab Tower. They say that Bappi was standing near the
gate when he saw some strangers outside. He asked them who they were. One of the
men, we later learned his name is Faruk, was wearing shorts and shirt.
He asked Bappi, “What is your name?” When he heard Bappi, he opened fire. Witnesses
heard my brother tell the officers, “Please don’t kill me. You are mistaking me for
someone else. I am from a good family.” They still shot him.
According to family members, Bappi worked as a model and was planning on a
management degree. They said that a group of watchmen at the Aftab tower said that
there was no shootout that day and that Bappi had been killed without provocation.
After human rights groups began to question the incident, the Home Ministry ordered
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an investigation. The inquiry was led by the deputy secretary, Law Section of the
Ministry of Home Affairs, and included a member from Odhikar. The investigation
found that Bappi did not die in crossfire, as reported to the media by RAB. Instead,
when they questioned the two men arrested during the operation, the committee
discovered that Masud, Saikat, and Bappi had gathered at Aftab Tower to consume
Phensedyl, a cough syrup often used as a recreational drug. They interviewed an
eyewitness who worked as a laborer at the construction site who said that he had often
seen the three men gather there to drink Phensedyl and that he had never seen them
carry any weapons. He also said that RAB had placed the weapons they later claimed to
have recovered beside Bappi’s body. The committee also found that, contrary to RAB
claims, there were no police cases lodged against Kaiser Mahmud to show that he was a
criminal suspect. The committee found that,
“RAB has not been able to prove and as per RAB's statement that armed criminals were
present at the crime spot.” It concluded that:
It is evident that that it was a mistake on the part of RAB to have conducted the raid
without verifying the truth of the information provided by the source regarding the
presence of top terrorist Kamaruzzaman Bappi alias Mian Bhai alias Bappi and his
associates with arms at the crime spot. In this case, the officer who gave the leadership
in the raid has failed to prove his efficiency and wisdom.
Kaiser Mahmud Bappi became the victim of wrong information provided by RAB
source and criminal Kamaruzzaman Bappi alias Mian Bhai alias Bappi of RAB's records
and the dead Kaiser Mahmud Bappi who was killed at 00:30 hours on 10/9/2009 by
RAB - 1 at No 323 East Rampura on the ground floor of an under-construction building
of Mr. Bacchu Mian in a RABconducted raid are not the same person. The dead Bappi is
a drug addict but in the investigation of the Committee, Bappi has not been identified as
a criminal. The secret-information providing source and the officer who led the
operation should be brought under the law. Despite these findings by the committee that
Kaiser Mahmud was wrongfully killed in a case of mistaken identity the government has
not acted on the report, which recommended that the perpetrators be prosecuted.
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Killing of Moshin Sheikh and Ali Jinnah

On May 28, 2009, 23-year-old Moshin Sheikh, and 22-year-old Ali Jinnah, both students
at Dhaka Polytechnic Institute, were killed by RAB.
According to fellow students interviewed by Human Rights Watch, Sheikh and Jinnah
went to have tea at a stall located just outside the dormitories of the Dhaka Polytechnic
Institute around 10 p.m. on May 27. When they failed to return at midnight, the time by
which regulations require all students to be back at the dormitories, their friends made
several failed attempts to reach them by phone. The media reported that several students
witnessed the two men being arrested by plainclothes RAB officers as they were going to
have tea. One of Sheikh’s classmates also reportedly said that someone identifying
himself by name as a member of RAB-2 answered the phone when their friends tried to
call the two missing students around midnight on May 27. Around 1 a.m. on May 28,
one of the students saw a television headline stating that the RAB killed two men in
Dhaka. Suspecting that the two men might be Sheikh and Jinnah, early in the morning a
group of students went to the Dhaka Medical College Hospital, where they found
Sheikh’s and Jinnah’s bodies in the morgue.
Assistant superintendent of RAB-2 Talebur Rahman told the press that the killing took
place around 12:30 a.m., when RAB conducted a search of vehicles near the National
Parliament. He said, “ the RAB men asked them to halt, they fired on them forcing the
RAB men to retaliate triggering the shootout. Soon after the exchange of fire, the RAB
personnel found two dead bodies lying on the roadside. After searching the bodies, they
found two revolvers and bullets.” The director general of RAB said that the two students
were killed in a “shootout” as they were engaged in “snatching.”
The autopsy report reportedly stated that a total of seven bullets pierced the bodies of
Sheikh and Jinnah. Jinnah was hit in the middle and on the right side of the chest. Injury
marks were also found on his legs. Sheikh was hit in the neck and abdomen.
Farhad Sheikh, the older brother of Sheikh, told Human Rights Watch that his brother
was involved in student politics and served as an organizing secretary of one of three
rival factions of the Chhatra League, the Awami League’s student wing. In the weeks
prior to the death of Sheikh and Jinnah, there had been several violent clashes between
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the different student factions, including one on the day that the two men were last seen
alive.107 On June 7, 2009, Sohel Taj, then state minister for home affairs, said that, “If a
case is filed in connection with the killings, actions will be taken against the people
responsible through proper investigation.”
On June 15, 2009, Jashimuddin, brother-in-law of Jinnah, filed a case with the Dhaka
Chief Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court, accusing ten members of RAB-2 and one student
of murder. Metropolitan Magistrate AKM Emdadul Haque asked the officer-in-charge
of Tejgaon police station to investigate and submit a report to the court.109 According
to Jashimuddin, the report eventually issued by the Tejgaon police simply repeated what
RAB had stated in its press release. Jinnah’s family then filed a new petition with the
Dhaka Chief Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court challenging the report submitted by the
police. The court issued an instruction to the Criminal Investigation Department of
Police to conduct a new investigation. As of September 2010, the family had not
received any information about the investigation.
Sheikh’s family has not filed a case with the authorities. Farhad Sheikh told Human
Rights Watch: “We do not have the money to file a complaint with the police, and
nothing happens without money.” The principal of Dhaka Polytechnic Institute,
Shamsul Alam has said about the victims that, “both of them were meritorious students
and well behaved.”
Home Ministry Probe of Kaiser Mahmud Bappi’s death.”

http://bangladeshfirst.com/docdetails.php?cid=&scid=0&docid=10, (accessed March 26, 2011).
Human Rights Watch interview with Ashaduzzaman and Habibur Rahman, students, Polytechnic Institute, Dhaka,
April 5, 2010.
“Family of slain polytech student to file murder case,” New Age, May 30, 2009,
http://www.newagebd.com/2009/may/30/front.html (accessed November 9, 2010).
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Chapter-7
Special reference to Limon
Md. Limon Hossen, a 16-year-old student of the Kathalia P. G. S. Multilateral High
School and College and an examinee of the Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC)
examination under the Bangladesh Technical Education Board of Dhaka. Limon's family
lives in Saturia village under the jurisdiction of the Rajapur police station in Jhalkathi
district. His father Mr. Tofazzel Hossen is a day-labourer by profession while his mother
Mrs. Henoara Begum is a housewife. On 23
March 2011, at around 3:30pm, Limon was
asked by his mother to bring the family’s
cattle from the bank of the Sondha river
where three cows were left for grazing. At
around 4pm, while returning home Limon
was stopped by a group of nine persons
riding three motorbikes (three persons on
each bike). Among them one man was plain
clothed while the rest eight were wearing the
black uniform of the Rapid Action Battalion
(RAB). The plain clothed man, who was later
identified as Md. Lutfor Rahman, Deputy
Assistant Director (DAD) of the Crime
Prevention Company No. 01 of the RAB-8 based in Barisal city, asked Limon's name
and started beating accusing him (Limon) to be a 'terrorist'. Limon, who used to manage
his tuition fees by working as part-time labourer at local brick factory due to his family's
unaffordability, claimed that he was student informing the name of his college. He also
requested the RAB men to contact the principal of the Kathalia P. G. S. Multilateral
School and College to verify his studentship.
Source: The Daily Star – 30.04.2011
Page | 69
DAD Lutfor and his colleagues denied to accept Limon's statement and attempted to kill
him by pointing gun at him. Limon cried in fear and requested the RAB personnel for
not to kill him. Suddenly, DAD Lutfor shot him pointing gun in his left thigh. Limon
fell on the ground and lost his sense. The news of Limon's shooting at Limon in broad
day light reached his relatives and neighbours immediately. Limon's mother Mrs.
Henoara Begum along with his uncle Moazzem Hossen rushed to the scene and saw that
Limon was bleeding from his left leg. When the mother and uncle cried out for help for
saving the life of Limon the members of the RAB prevented them from approaching
Limon. The RAB members started beating Moazzem. DAD Lutfor grounded Moazzem
and stood on Moazzem's head and neck with Lutfor's boot while the other colleagues
held his hands and legs in order to stop Moazzem's movement. The RAB personnel
took off the lungi (a clothed worn by males in Bangladesh and few neighbouring
countries) from Limon's body making his body naked. They put the lungi on the blood,
which came out from Limon's body, and stamped with their boots to wipe the blood
from the ground with the lungi and threw the blood-soaked cloth into the river.
The RAB personnel took off Limon's shirt to tie up the bullet wound. After about two
hours four persons carried Limon's body to a boat at a nearby boat pier and asked the
boatman Mr. Munsef to ply the boat, which left for unknown place.
The family became worried about Limon's fate and the deteriorating health condition of
Moazzem, who was critically injured due to torture by the RAB. They took Moazzem to
the Kawkhali hospital for treatment. They learned from the eyewitnesses that a black
pickup van of the RAB took away Limon's body from a pier near to Jamaddar Bari.
Since then, Limon whereabouts remained unknown to the family. Later, in the evening,
Limon found himself at the Sher-E-Bangla Medical College Hospital in Barisal city when
he returned to his sense.
In the late night, DAD Lutfor filed two criminal cases (No. 10 and 11) with the Rajapur
police station accusing Limon and seven others claiming an incident of encounter
between a so called group of terrorists and the RAB-8, which is habituated to publicize
fake stories of encounter since its inception.
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The first case (First Information Report- FIR No. 10 of the Rajapur police station, dated
23 March 2011) was registered under Sections 19 A and 19 F of the Arms Act-1878. In
this case DAD Lutfor claimed that a group of terrorists of the Shahid Jomaddar's gang
opened gun fire targeting the RAB team when the latter reached Shahid Jomaddar's
house. RAB responded the gunshots by firing from their own pistols and Stenguns. The
terrorists escaped except one person named Limon, who had a bullet wounds in his left
thigh, with a USA-made pistol and magazines in his possession.
The second case (First Information Report- FIR No. 11 of the Rajapur police station,
dated 23 March 2011) was registered under Sections 322, 353, 307 and 34 of the Penal
Code-1860 for obstructing the law-enforcement agencies to discharge their duties and
attempting to murder.
In both complaints the RAB's DAD Lutfor claimed Limon's age as 25 years despite the
fact that according to the official records Limon's age is 16 years and 3 months only.
They have also insisted the hospital staffs to record the same age of Limon when he was
brought to the Sher-E-Bangla Medical College Hospital in Barisal.
On 24 March, at 10am Limon's family came to know that Limon had been admitted to
the Sher-E-Bangla Medical College Hospital in Barisal. When the relatives went to the
hospital they saw four armed men of the RAB cordoned Limon at Bed No. 11 of the
Surgical Ward No. 27. The RAB men refused Limon's father Mr. Tofazzel to see his son.
Limon's mother Mrs. Henoara, as a form of extreme submissiveness and request, the
held legs of the on-duty RAB personnel requesting them to allow her to see her son.
Then, they allowed Henoara to go her son, but after a short while they kicked out her
from the hospital. The family learned that Limon was admitted to the Sher-E-Bangla
Medical College Hospital at 8pm on 23 March, after four hours of the shooting Limon
by the RAB.
Human Rights Watch.
The Daily Star
Page | 71
After the midnight of 24 March, the doctors of the Sher-E-Bangla Medical College
Hospital confirmed that they were unable to cure Limon, who had a perforation in his
left thigh due to bullet wounds. On 25 March, the doctors referred Limon to the
National Institute of Cardiovascular Disease (NICVD) for better treatment. The doctors
of the Sher-E-Bangla Medical College Hospital implied that Limon's condition was
critical and life-threatening for which huge amount of money will be required to save his
life. The family became worried about money. The people of Limon's neighbourhood
donated money for his treatment although it was not enough that compelled the helpless
family to borrow money mortgaging a piece of land.
On 26 March evening, the Rajapur police cordoned by Constables Aftab and Abdur
Rashid took Limon to the NICVD in the city of Dhaka by an ambulance forcing
Limon's family to pay BDT 5,500.00 for the fare of the ambulance. When Limon was
taken to the NICVD early in the morning of 27 March the doctors further referred him
to the National Institute of Traumatology, Orthopedic and Rehabilitation (NITOR) for
required treatment.
On 27 March, the doctors of the NITOR operated on Limon's left and finally amputated
it from the thigh of which all the tissues were found completely damaged due to bullet
wounds. Limon has been under treatment of the doctors of the NITOR, who imposed
all the expenditure of Limon's surgery upon the family.
The members of the RAB cordoned the hospital after Limon had been taken to the
NITOR and continued surveillance.
On 6 April, a leading national daily newspaper published a detailed report about the
incident with a picture of Limon's amputated leg. Since the media report the RAB and
police forced the authorities of the NITOR to lock the hospital ward where Limon was
admitted. All the doors of the ward were locked from inside expelling the relatives of
other patients and denying entry to visitors at that ward. The journalists, human rights
defenders and lawyers were refused entry to the hospital by the uniformed and plain-
clothed members of the RAB and the police. The Chairman of the National Human
Rights Commission (NHRC) of Bangladesh Prof. Mizanur Rahman has only been
Page | 72
allowed to visit Limon, who described the story to him. The NHRC Chairman suggested
the parents of Limon to file complaints to seek justice from the court of law.
Following the suggestion of the NHRC Chairman when Limon's relatives tried to
consult with lawyers regarding filing complaint with the local Court of Magistrate of
Jhalkathi district the members of the RAB have started intimidating and threatening
everyone of the whole area in Jhalkathi including the journalists, lawyers, relatives and
neighbours for expressing their opinion regarding the barbarity of this paramilitary force,
which has earned reputation of an "official death squad of the Bangladesh
Government".
Moreover, the officials of the RAB have been calling many people over cell phones
asking them to go to the office of the RAB-8 and keep silent about the case of Limon. A
large number of plain-clothed members of the RAB have been staying in Saturia village
and collecting the names of and other particulars of the persons, who have already
shared their views with the newspapers and donated money to Limon's family for his
treatment. The well-wishers and neighbours of Limon have now been forced to go in
hiding in fear of extrajudicial killing by the RAB.
Additionally, the plain-clothed members of the RAB have cordoned the Ward of the
NITOR denying entry of the attendants of the patients, who have been helpless for
getting food, medicine and assistance for using washrooms while hospital does not
provide adequate support and care of the patients.
Limon's father Mr. Tofazzel Hossain told the Asian Human Rights Commission
(AHRC) that his family has seen an unimaginable disaster due to the atrocities of the
RAB (Tofazzel's audiovisual interviews are available here: video clip-1 and video clip-2).
He pointed out that, firstly, his son, who had passion of maintaining study by part-time
working in brick factory, has been a physically disabled for his whole life. Secondly, as a
day labourer Tofazzel cannot afford the high expenditure of medical treatment of his
son as the public hospital asked his family to buy all medicines and necessary tools for
the surgery and the post-operation medical treatment. He has already spent BDT
150,000.00 for his son's treatment, which has also been cordially supported by the
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people of all walks of his native village and by selling a piece of his land. He is highly
confused about the fate of his son as the family's affordability is on the verge of its last
limit. Thirdly, Tofazzel's hope for getting justice has been diminishing due to continuous
threats and intimidations by the RAB to his relatives, neighbours and other professionals
who have expressed their sympathy to his family. Tofazzel asked when the AHRC
interviewed him, "Can anyone imagine how we have been suffering from this disastrous
situation? Is there any mechanism to stop the barbarity of the RAB in this country?"
Additional Information of Limon’s Case

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has learned there is another person
named Limon Hossain Jamaddar, who lives in Dhaka and reportedly employed in a
private company, in the area where Limon was shot by the RAB-8 on 23 March 2011.
This Limon Hossain Jomaddar, aged around 25 years, is a son of Mr. Kamrul Jamaddar,
having a relationship with Mr. Shahid Jamaddar whom the RAB team accused in the two
criminal cases lodged after shooting Limon Hossen, who is 16-year-old college student.
The Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), which is termed as an "elite force" by the
Government of Bangladesh, did not bother for verifying the identity of a targeted person
regardless whether the person concerned is innocent or involved in any kind of offence
due to its extreme lack of minimum efficiency of law-enforcement.
SUGGESTED ACTION:
Please urge the authorities of Bangladesh to launch a thorough investigation into the
matter immediately asking them to prosecute the perpetrators for the crime beyond any
impunity. The victim, his relatives and well-wishers must be protected from any further
attacks or harassment by the Rapid Action Battalion or the police. Adequate
compensation should be afforded to the victim. The two fabricated cases that have
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already registered against Limon Hossen by the RAB must be dropped. The RAB should
be disbanded immediately for committing such heinous crimes.
Please note that the AHRC has already written separate letters to the UN Special
Rapporteurs on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Punishment or
Treatment and Rights of the Children calling for their intervention into this matter.
Dhaka, May 31,2011 (bdnews24.com)

The Asian Human Rights Commission’s webside
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Chairman of NHRC Prof. Mizanur Rahman’s speech

‘It is mandatory for law enforcing agencies to provide information on any death in their
custody to the National Human Rights
Commission (NHRC)’, says its chairman.
Mizanur Rahman told a discussion in the city on
Tuesday that the commission would send letters
to the agencies asking them to give information
on such deaths.
"Information will have to be provided if anyone
dies in the custody of RAB (Rapid Action Battalion) or police, whether it is crossfire or
encounter," he said.
"According to the Human Rights Commission Act, the commission has the right to seek
such information," he added.
He said the decision to send the letters would be taken at the next meeting of the
commission.
Relief International organised the discussion at Dhaka University titled "Media's Role in
Establishing Transparency in Human Rights in Bangladesh".
About Limon Hossain, who had to get his leg amputated after allegedly being shot by a
RAB member, Mizanur said, "It is not the Human Rights Commission's duty to see
whether Limon is a criminal or not. The commission will see whether the law enforcing
agency violated human rights in this regard."
Limon was shot at Rajapur in Jhalakati on Mar 23. He alleged that RAB members took
him to a place adjacent to his house and shot. One of his legs had to be amputated
following the incident.
Following widespread criticism of RAB across the country, RAB director general
Mokhlesur Rahman on Apr 11 said, "Limon could be a victim of the situation."
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RAB filed two cases — one for obstruction of government duty, attempt to murder and
injuring RAB members, and the other under Arms Act — against Limon and several
others on the day of the incident.
Limon's mother Henuara Begaum also filed a case against six RAB members for murder
bid. About an allegation that human rights organisations do not come forward when any
law enforcer is killed by criminals, Mizanur said, "We have to understand that the entire
state works to get a criminal to trial when he kills a policeman. On the other hand, when
a general person is killed by law enforcers, there is none to be with him. So the human
rights organisations help him."
As for the commission's work area, he said, "Many have misconception in this regard.
Every crime and violation of law is not violation of human rights. So the commission
only works with the crimes through which human rights are violated."
Dhaka University department of international relations teacher Imtiaz Ahmed said,
"There are some media that have honest journalists. But they cannot provide right
information fearing the owners of the media."
"The state is being run with laws passed during colonial period. So the politicians and
public servants get more facilities than the others. If we want to bring transparency in
human rights issues, we'll have to come out of the old ideas," he said.
English daily Financial Express consultant editor Jaglul Ahmed Chowdhury presented
the key paper at the discussion.
He said several human rights issues were tied with media's constructive and courageous
role.
The media can play a significant role in this regard given transparency and acceptable
policy, he said.
"Although many newspapers publish reports on violation of human rights with
importance, many such incidents are left behind curtains," he added.
Relief International country director Nazrul Islam also spoke at the discussion.
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Role of National Human Rights Commission (NHRC)

National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) will be an intervening party in the case
filed against Limon, a victim of Rab torture, and defend the youth on his behalf.
NHRC Chairman Prof Mizanur Rahman said this while addressing the closing session of
a weeklong workshop in the city on Thursday.
South Asian Institute of Advanced Legal and Human Rights Studies organised the
workshop titled “South Asian legal system student exchange programme.”
The NHRC chief also described police’s submitting of charge sheet against Limon as a
test case for the judiciary.
Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) shot 17-year-old student Limon into disability on March 23
and filed two cases against him the same day.
In one case, police pressed charges against the boy on April 24.
Prof Mizanur remarked that the state organs, especially the law enforcement agencies,
are the major violators of human rights in the country.
Abusive authority of the state should be stopped for promoting and protecting the
human rights of individuals under the constitutional obligations, he said.
He added the state has constitutional obligations to stop custodial deaths and torture and
take proper legal actions against the perpetrators and provide supports to the victims.
Prof Mizanur distributed certificates amongst the participants of the workshop, who
were students of Bangladesh and Nepal. Suraj Basnet, assistant professor of Kathmandu
School of Law; and Dr Uttam Kumar Das, deputy director of SAILS; among others,
spoke at the session.
Source: The Daily Star – 30.04.2011
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Chapter-8
RAB Impunity: The Failure to Punish Human Rights Abuses
Government and RAB officials often stress that RAB-members who commit
wrongdoing face internal administrative sanctions and are occasionally prosecuted. In
2009, RAB said, 164 officers were punished by the force and criminal cases were filed
against five members. However, RAB’s willingness to take action against members for
alleged involvement in extortion, drug trafficking and other crimes apparently does not
extend to bringing actions against those RAB members who commit grave human rights
violations. As far as Human
Rights Watch has been able to establish, no RAB officer has ever been prosecuted for
any of the killings carried out by the force. The torture of journalist F.M. Masum is a
case in point, where the RAB officer judged by the RAB to have committed the acts was
simply sent back to his military unit without any further punishment.
In two cases, the Ministry of Home Affairs, after its own investigations, found RAB
officials responsible for extrajudicial killings. In the case of Mohiuddin Arif, who was
killed on February 3, 2010 in Mirpur, the investigation found that Arif had died in RAB
custody due to torture. The other case was that of Kaisar Mahmud, also known as Bappi
(both cases discussed in detail in the previous chapter). A member of Odhikar was part
of the inquiry committee. The committee found that Bappi had not died in crossfire as
claimed by RAB, but had been shot. Although, in both cases, it was recommended that
the perpetrators be prosecuted and punished, the government has not taken any action.
The High Court Division of the Supreme Court has raised concerns on several occasions
about the “crossfire” phenomenon. On June 29, 2009 the High Court issued a notice in
response to a public interest litigation filed by the human rights organizations Ain o
Salish Kendra, Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust, and Karmajibi Nari, asking the
government to explain why killing by law enforcement personnel in the name of
“crossfire” or “encounters” should not be declared illegal. At this writing, the
government had not responded. On November 17, 2009, the High Court issued an
unprecedented suo moto ruling in relation to the above mentioned killing of Lutfar
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Khalashi and Khairul Khalashi. Relying on newspaper reports stating that the two
brothers were killed by RAB personnel, Justice AFM Abdur Rahman and Justice
Mohammed Emdadul Hoque Azad, directed Major Kazi Wahiduzzaman of RAB-3, Lt.
Hasan of RAB-8, the director general of RAB and the secretary of the Ministry of Home
Affairs to show cause within 48 hours as to why appropriate actions should not be taken
against concerned RAB officers.
In December 2009, in a reply to the suo moto ruling, Mohammed Ashraf Hossain, law
officer at the RAB headquarters, stated that the newspaper reports were, “not at all true
and the reportings are baseless, false and motivated.” He further stated that, “no
occurrence as claimed in the report has taken place within the territorial jurisdiction of
RAB-3 and RAB-8 and no operation whatsoever was conducted by the RAB-3 and
RAB-8 at the alleged place of occurrence as well as against the alleged victims and
furthermore no officer is working by the name of Kazi Wahiduzzaman in RAB-3 and
RAB-8.” Hossain’s statement provided no explanation as to why RAB had previously
said that the two men were killed in a shootout between RAB and a group of criminals.
On December 14, the High Court heard the arguments of the State and the
nongovernmental organizations Ain O Salish Kendra and Bangladesh Legal Aid and
Services Trust, acting as interveners in the case. However, on the request of the attorney
general, the matter was adjourned until January 9, 2010. Expressing concern that 11
crossfire killings had been reported in the 26 days since the suo moto ruling was issued,
the court asked the attorney general to ensure that there would be no new “crossfire”
killings before the next hearing.
The attorney general promised to communicate the request to the director general of
RAB. On January 7, 2010, the Chief Justice reconstituted the High Court benches and
the judges that had issued the suo moto ruling were assigned to deal with civil instead of
criminal cases. At this writing, the case has not yet been assigned to a new bench.
“60 killed in ‘crossfire,’” The Daily Star, December 30, 2009, http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=119703
(accessed November 9, 2010).
See text of Home Ministry findings, “Home Ministry Probe of Md. Mohiuddin Arif’s Death in RAB-police
custody,”
http://bangladeshfirst.com/docdetails.php?cid=&scid=0&docid=9, (accessed March 26, 2011).
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Concerns about RAB Expressed by Civil Society Actors and Others

Human rights workers, lawyers, judges, journalists, and other concerned citizens in
Bangladesh have repeatedly expressed apprehension about the “crossfire” killings, and
urged the government to investigate deaths in the custody of RAB and the police.
There was outrage after RAB shot and injured a student, Limon Hossain, in Jhalakathi
on March 23, 2011, as he was grazing cattle. His left leg was amputated on March 27.
Limon said that RAB members shot at him within minutes of arriving at the field where
he was working, even as he told them that he was a student and urged them check with
villagers and his college principal. RAB insisted the boy was injured during a shoot-out
with criminals, and started a criminal case against him accusing him of possessing illegal
weapons.
This case may well have ended up as another statistic in RAB’s record of killings, torture
and indiscriminate firing, except that the Bangladeshi media highlighted Limon’s
suffering. The National Human Rights Commission wrote to the Home Ministry
demanding an immediate investigation. “I will go to the president if the Home Ministry
does not form a probe committee and submit its report to the NHRC within the
stipulated time,” NHRC chairman Mizanur Rahman told journalists. “The Rapid Action
Battalion has no authority to shoot a person even if that person is guilty. The RAB
personnel responsible for the incident have violated human rights and the law. The
offenders must be detected and punished to stop such practice.” Earlier, after a leaked
cable citing international concerns about RAB violations, the Daily Star, in an editorial
had said: Regrettably crossfire, or encounter deaths, has become an accepted norm of
operation of RAB, which, we assume, has the blessings of the government too.
Had that not been so, such an abhorrent practice would have stopped long ago when the
media started spotlighting the extrajudicial killings. A damning indictment has been
made, both of the battalion and the government of Bangladesh, by the international
human right organizations who have termed the unit as “government death squad.”…. It
is time for the government to react decisively. We cannot have a situation where
methods used to combat criminals and criminality replicate exactly the behaviour of the
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criminals. That bodes very badly for a society that claims to be civilized. If the
government is really serious about human rights and the rule of law it must stop the
extrajudicial killings must stop forthwith.
Earlier, in May 2009, at a time when many government representatives still paid lip-
service to the promise of putting an end to extrajudicial killings, the New Age
newspaper, in an editorial, called upon the government to take decisive action to hold
those responsible to account:
The government needs to realize that the impunity with which the Rapid Action
Battalion has carried out extrajudicial killings since its inception in 2004 may have
become well-entrenched after more than half a decade of virtual non-accountability…If
it is truly committed to bringing an end to extrajudicial killings by the law enforcement
agencies, it needs to translate its tough talk into decisive and demonstrable actions.
Many within the justice system have also warned that law enforcement officers’ lack of
respect for rule of law undermines the whole legal system. Dr. Shahdeen Malik, Supreme
Court advocate and director of the law school at BRAC University, points out that
extrajudicial killings mean that the government does not have faith in its legal and
judicial system: Though often imaginary excuses and stories are introduced to justify the
murders, for us to continue as a viable nation and state, these killings must stop.
Otherwise, like any other society that had used extrajudicial killing, Bangladesh will
degenerate into a lawless and violent society.
http://www.newagebd.com/2009/oct/05/front.html (accessed November 9, 2009); Mahbubul Islam, “The danger

of denying fundamental rights,” New Nation, January 14, 2010,
http://www.ittefaq.com/issues/2010/01/14/news0130.htm (accessed November 9, 2010).
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Senior judges have publicly expressed the same views. In January 2010, Supreme Court
Justice Nazrul Islam Chowdhury said in a seminar that “extrajudicial killing must be
stopped” and argued that “it will be suicidal for the nation, the society and the country
to leave with the law enforcement agencies to decide who should be killed on criminal
charges.”
The National Human Rights Commission had earlier recommended the government to
ensure independent investigations into all alleged extrajudicial killings. In December
2009, Justice Amirul Kabir Chowdhury, the commission’s chairperson, recommended
that: Each of the incidents should be investigated by an independent inquiry committee
of minimum three members comprising a government official not below the rank of
deputy secretary, a police officer not below the rank of superintendent of police and a
civil society personality of the choice of thefamily of the victim.
Shahidul Alam, the renowned photographer and managing director of Drik Picture
Gallery in Dhaka, said in April 2010 that, “Criminals have survived because of patronage
of the powerful. The removal of criminals, through ‘crossfire,’ does not affect the system
of control, but merely substitutes existing criminals for new ones. This is why crimes
continue unabated under RAB. All it does is to undermine the legal system.”
On March 22, 2010, the police closed down Drik Picture Library shortly before the
opening of an exhibition featuring photographs by Shahidul Alam and installations
relating to the theme of “crossfire” and the RAB. The reason given by the authorities
was that the exhibition “lacked official permission” and would “create anarchy.”Shahidul
Alam, told the news media, however, that Drik had organized thousands of exhibitions
in the past, including some at which the present and former prime ministers attended the
opening, without any requirement from the authorities for explicit permission to hold an
exhibition.133 On March 31, after Shahidul Alam filed a writ petition with the High
Court, the police officers placed outside the gallery were removed and the exhibition was
opened to the public
New Age, April 1, 2010,
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International Cooperation
Foreign governments and inter-governmental organizations have repeatedly expressed
concern about RAB’s poor human rights record and the government’s reluctance to hold
accountable those responsible. At the UN Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic
Review of Bangladesh in 2009, it was recommended that Bangladesh, “address the
problems of extrajudicial killings and torture by security forces” and “take steps to
address the culture of impunity for human rights violations by law enforcement
agencies.” Dhaka-based diplomats have repeatedly made similar recommendations. In
early 2009, EU ambassador Stefan Frowein stated:
Internally, it falls to the judiciary and the new National Human Rights Commission to
ensure that human rights are fully enforced, not least with respect to allegations of
torture and extrajudicial killings by security forces. If there is no punishment for such
crimes, there is no deterrent emanating from the State and such violence becomes
sanctioned, officially or unofficially.
At the same time, many foreign governments have come to regard RAB as an essential
partner in the fight against terrorism. Talking to the New Age newspaper in December
2009, M. Sohail, director of RAB’s legal and media wing, said that RAB exchanged
experience, knowledge, training and facilities with defense teams in the US, UK, and
Australia. InJanuary 2010, in an interview with the same newspaper, the director general
of RAB said that the three countries had helped the force by conducting training on
human rights, investigations, and counterterrorism.
In 2008, the UK and the US started separate human rights-focused training programs for
RAB. The US Department of Justice has reported that its International Criminal
Investigative Training Assistance Program works with the US Marshals Service to assist
RAB in implementing internal disciplinary procedures and internationally accepted
standards for use-of-force. In February 2009, at the inauguration of a US sponsored
human rights training workshop for RAB, Ambassador James Moriarty stated:
The training we are providing is aimed at helping RAB develop a capacity to
transparently report and investigate allegations of human rights violations and, when
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necessary, hold accountable those individual RAB officers who may have acted
improperly. According to the US embassy, the training strives to “contribute to
increasing transparency of investigations; improving forensic capabilities, especially
evidence collection and management; establishing an internal affairs unit; and improving
risk assessment and mitigation. Future training will also include basic forensics, interview
skills (for internal investigations), public affairs training and investigating human rights
complaints.”
The US embassy reports that it, since 2008, has completed two rounds of training for a
total of approximately 50 RAB members. While indicating to Human Rights Watch that
their approach was to first focus on human rights and then expand to more general anti-
terrorism and anti-crime training, the US State Department stated in a report to the US
Congress as far back as fiscal year 2004 that the Anti-Terrorism Assistance Program had
contributed to ensure that RAB officers had received “expert anti-terrorism instructor
training.” In November 2009, a Bangladeshi newspaper reported a US Admiral as saying
the US had promised RAB to work together on counter-intelligence and curbing
terrorism. The UK has also worked on “introducing and providing RAB with the skill
sets to conduct their law enforcement duties in a more ethical manner.” Areas covered in
the UK's cooperation with RAB include human rights training, interview, investigation
and crime scene skills, and the inclusion of RAB members in a range of other human
rights and law focused events. The training is delivered to selected candidates with the
idea that these candidates should provide training to other RAB members, thereby
ensuring the skills and knowledge are spread through all RAB battalions. In March 2008,
for example, the British High Commission organized a 12-day training in which 54
members of RAB were trained by British police on human rights. In October 2009, the
British National Policing Improvements Agency gave a five-day-long training session to
21 RAB members on forensics. In November 2009, a nine-day-long training on major
crime investigations was organized for 20 RAB members. The UK has publicly justified
its human rights training program for RAB.
Saad Hammadi, “'We are not supposed to do anything extrajudicial,’” New Age Xtra, January 22-28, 2010,
http://www.newagebd.com/2010/jan/22/jan22/xtra_inner4.html, (accessed November 9, 2010).
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To date, from a human rights perspective, the UK’s and US’s training and capacity
building efforts appear to have had little practical impact. Since the training, there have
not been significant reductions in RAB’s involvement in human rights abuses, and
accountability for such violations has not increased. The training approach appears to
have overlooked the fact that the RAB’s poor human rights record is not a consequence
of isolated actions by a few “bad apples,” but rather results from an operating strategy
that sanctions impunity for those who commit human rights abuses.
Saad Hammadi, “'We are not supposed to do anything extrajudicial,’” New Age Xtra, January 22-28, 2010,
http://www.newagebd.com/2010/jan/22/jan22/xtra_inner4.html, (accessed November 9, 2010).
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Chapter-9
Recommendations
To the Bangladesh Government
• Make strong and repeated public statements, at the highest institutional level, against
unlawful killings and custodial abuse by the RAB, and make public commitments that all
those responsible for abuses will be prosecuted.
• Ensure that the RAB and other law enforcement agencies promptly communicate
information on all persons taken into custody to relatives and legal counsel, and make
sure that all persons detained are brought before a court within 24 hours of arrest, as
required by Bangladesh law.
• Ensure that the RAB and other law enforcement agencies grant detainees prompt
access to legal counsel, medical personnel, and family members.
• Allow nongovernmental human rights organizations unfettered access to all RAB

stations and detention cells to ensure that the practice of torture ends.
• Make it mandatory for the RAB to regularly provide the government and the National
Human Rights Commission (NHRC) with detailed information about all arrests carried
out by the force, all persons held in its custody, and any killings in which its members are
involved, and to also make that information public.
• Develop a policy, with input from victims of abuse (and their families) by the security
forces, to provide financial compensation to the victims of abuse, and ensure the policy
is fully implemented.
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• Immediately adopt the rules of procedure of the National Human Rights Commission
and ensure the NHRC has adequate and independent budget and personnel resources to
conduct effective operations to investigate allegations of abuses by the RAB and other
security forces.
Investigations and Prosecutions

• Ensure there are prompt and impartial and independent investigations into all
allegations of torture and deaths in the custody of RAB. Implement the National Human
Rights Commission’s proposal that all such incidents be investigated by an independent
inquiry committee comprising a government official not below the rank of deputy
secretary, a police officer not below the rank of superintendent of police and a civil
society personality selected by the family of the victim.
• Prosecute to the fullest extent of the law all former and current members of RAB, of
whatever rank, who are found to be responsible for unlawful killings, torture, and other
human rights abuses, including those who gave orders. Similarly punish commanding
officers and others in a position of authority that knew of these abuses and failed to
prevent or punish those who committed them.
• Immediately suspend, pending a full investigation, and remove from RAB facilities any
individual for whom there exists credible evidence that he or she has committed torture
or participated in the extrajudicial execution of a detainee, pending investigation.
• Establish an independent civilian authority charged with receiving complaints and

investigating allegations of crimes committed by members of RAB and other law
enforcement agencies and armed forces, or ensure that the National Human Rights
Commission is sufficiently resourced and fully mandated to do so. Require by law that all
state officials, including members of the RAB, shall cooperate with such investigations.
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• Make public all past reports of inquiry commissions tasked with investigating alleged
violations of human rights concerning RAB, and ensure all future reports are also made
public.
• Publicly release detailed information on all arrests, prosecutions, and convictions
against members of RAB for human rights violations.
• Ensure that administrative and judicial proceedings against RAB members regarding
alleged violations of human rights are open to public scrutiny and the participation of
victims and their family members.
• Investigate all allegations that RAB members and other public officials have
intentionally acted to obstruct efforts by victims, their family members, and others to
seek justice for violations of human rights, and prosecute or discipline those responsible
for such obstructions and any attempt obstruct justice, including tampering with
evidence. Reopen and re-investigate formal complaints made to police about abuses by
RAB officials.
• Establish a comprehensive witness protection program to guarantee that anyone who

files a complaint or is prepared to testify against an alleged human rights abuser is able to
do so without fear of being subjected to retaliatory harassment or violence.
Institutional Reform
• If RAB’s human rights record does not improve dramatically within the next 6 months
and abusers are not prosecuted, the Bangladeshi government should disband RAB and
donors such as the US and UK should withdraw all aid and cooperation. In its place the
government should create a new unit within the police or a new institution with a
different operating culture that puts human rights at its core to lead the fight against
crime and terrorism.
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• RAB or its replacement should become an entirely civilian institution. Its officers and
rank and file members should no longer be drawn from the military, which has a
different culture, ethos, and training from the police.
• In the event RAB is retained, establish an independent commission to assess RAB’s

performance, to identify all those plausibly deemed to be involved in serious violations
such as extrajudicial killings who should be excluded from a reformed RAB and
prosecuted, and to develop an action plan to transform RAB into an agency that
operates within the law and with full respect for international human rights norms.
The commission should:
1. Be composed of respected members of law enforcement,
independent judges and
lawyers, and members of Bangladesh’s human rights community;
2. Include the active participation of independent international
experts on law enforcement and human rights;
3. Have full access to all relevant government documents;
4. Have the power to subpoena documents and compel witnesses
to appear and give testimony;
5. Provide victim and witness protection as necessary;
6. Have a time limit of no more than six months to complete its
inquiry and present its report, with concrete recommendations on
RAB reform;
7. Have the power to make public statements during and after its
inquiry, including to answer the government’s response(s) to the
commission’s recommendations; and
8 Have the power at any time during its mandate to publicly
recommend the immediate suspension, pending investigation, of
any current or former RAB member implicated in serious human
rights violations.
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• Duly consider and promptly implement the recommendations issued by the

commissions on RAB reform
Law Reform
• End the practice of seconding members of the armed forces to RAB, and make
necessary legislative amendments to prohibit the future use of serving soldiers for law
enforcement duties.
• Adopt legislation that makes torture a specific criminal offense in accordance with
article 1 of the UN Convention against Torture, with punishment that is commensurate
with the crime, in line with Bangladesh’s international commitments as state that has
ratified the UN CAT.
International Cooperation
• Invite relevant United Nations special mechanisms, such as the special rapporteur on
torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and the special
rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions to visit Bangladesh to
conduct investigations and make recommendations.
• Make the required declarations under articles 21 and 22 of the Convention against
Torture so that the Committee against Torture can receive individual communications.
• Accede to the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention against Torture and other
Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and immediately establish the
National Preventative Mechanism required by that treaty, with the power to visit any
place of detention. Accede to the Optional Protocol and Second Optional Protocol to
the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
• Ratify the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced
Disappearance.
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• Thoroughly vet all Bangladeshi military and police who apply for UN peacekeeping
missions to ensure that they have not committed violations of human rights.
• Ban from participation in UN peacekeeping operations any individual from RAB, the
police, or military whom the government identifies as having responsibility for serious
human rights violations, pending investigation.
To the National Human Rights Commission

• Continue to strenuously press the government to accept the proposal of the NHRC for
independent investigations into all alleged extrajudicial killings.
• After the rules for the operation of the NHRC are adopted by the government,
establish a special desk with dedicated staff to receive complaints of extrajudicial killings
by the RAB.
and other security forces, effectively document cases of such killings, and use its powers
to compel RAB and other security officials to testify about such abuses in public
hearings.
To the Chief Justice

• Immediately assign the suo moto case to a court, and instruct that court to promptly
set a date for a hearing on the case.
To Bangladesh’s Bilateral and Multilateral Donors

• Press the government, through public and private diplomacy, to implement all the
recommendations made in this report.
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• Refuse to work with RAB on law enforcement or counter-terror operations until the
RAB ceases its use of torture and extrajudicial executions, promotes transparency in its
operations by revealing timely information about detainees it is holding, and agrees to
measures (both internal as well as an external monitoring scheme) to ensure
accountability for all RAB personnel found to be involved in violations of human rights.
• Refuse to provide material and financial assistance to RAB until serious measures are
taken to end extrajudicial executions and torture, and to actively prosecute those
implicated in such abuses.
• Refuse to support training programs for RAB—unless specifically focused on human

rights education—until the force ends the pattern and practice of torture and
extrajudicial executions. Ensure trainers providing human rights education to RAB
personnel have thorough knowledge of RAB’s human rights record, and have received
first-hand information and testimonies from victims and family members of victims
whose rights have been violated by RAB.
• Set clear benchmarks to measure progress for any RAB pledges to respect human
rights, and undertake internal reform processes which must be met before cooperation
or assistance is resumed.
• Ensure proper vetting of all participants in training and exchange programs in order to
guarantee that RAB officers against whom there are credible allegations of involvement
in human rights violations are barred from taking part.
• Publicly call on the government to disband the RAB. In the event that the government
refuses and decides to retain the RAB, publicly insist on that a commission on RAB
reform be created, with a terms of reference developed in consultation with victims,
their families, and human rights NGOs, and support the commission’s work.
Page | 93
• Publicly raise in donor and UN forums, and the UN Human Rights Council, the
government’s continuing failure to keep its promise (made during the Bangladesh
universal periodic review at the Human Rights Council) to implement a “zero tolerance”
policy for extrajudicial executions, and insist on accountability
• Raise strong concerns with the prime minister about ministerial-level statements that
reject outright the involvement of RAB in extrajudicial executions, despite evidence to
the contrary, and insist that ministers be disciplined or dismissed if they continue to
issue blanket denials in response to credible allegations of violations of human rights by
RAB personnel.
• Ensure the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) vets all
Bangladesh military and law enforcement officials, including commanders, applying for
UN peacekeeping missions, reviews the participation of Bangladesh officials already
serving in peacekeeping operations, and bars all those credibly found or suspected to
have committed, ordered, or tolerated serious human rights violations. Ensure the
DPKO publicly informs the government of Bangladesh of the reason for the exclusion
of any Bangladesh solider or law enforcement official on human rights grounds.
• Support civil society initiatives to bring pressure on RAB personnel to cease violating
human rights, seek government action to prosecute members of RAB responsible for
violations, and convince the government and political parties to take legislative and
other policy measures to address RAB’s violations of human rights.
• Provide funding and technical assistance to support a broad-based coalition of civil

society organizations working against impunity, and to NGOs and civil society groups
who are members supporting or participating in that coalition.
Page | 94
To the US Government
• Vigorously enforce the Leahy Law, denying US assistance and training to all RAB units
and members, until serious and systematic abuses by RAB end and the Bangladeshi
government holds RAB officials and officers responsible for human rights abuses
accountable. Publish details of the content and dates of all training provided by US
officials, civilian and military, to RAB.
To the UK and Australian Governments

• End UK and Australian assistance and training to RAB until serious and systematic
abuses by RAB end and the Bangladeshi government holds RAB officials and officers
responsible for human rights abuses accountable. Adopt legislation similar to the Leahy
Law prohibiting UK assistance to units and individuals responsible for gross human
rights abuses. Publish details of the content and dates of all training provided by UK
officials, civilian and military, to RAB.
To the United Nations

• The UN Country Team in Bangladesh should publicly issue a joint agency statement
opposing arbitrary detention, torture, and extrajudicial executions by the RAB, and raise
these concerns in meetings with the prime minister, cabinet members, and
representatives of the military forces and police.
• The UN Human Rights Council should communicate its serious concerns to the
Bangladesh government that issues raised at the UPR session on Bangladesh remain
largely unaddressed, and especially draw attention to continued extrajudicial executions,
torture, and arbitrary detention being practiced by the RAB.
• The Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) should thoroughly review the
participation in peacekeeping operations of all Bangladeshi soldiers and law
enforcement officials, including commanders, to ensure that they have not committed,
ordered, or tolerated serious human rights violations.
Page | 95
Chapter-10
Comparative assessment
From above discussion we see that constitution provide our fundamental right but
above these reasons people can not get their fundamental rights. Many unethical killing
is occurred for extra judicial killing. Many people are killed by RAB without any justice.
Although these people was not criminal. Extra judicial killing is violation of fundamental
right provided in constitution of Bangladesh. Because our constitution ensures our
fundamental rights but extra judicial killing is against our fundamental right.
Conclusion
Bangladeshi people have 23 fundamental rights under the constitution. One of the most
important rights is to get proper judgment. Extra judicial killing is violated by our
constitution. Our constitution does not support extra judicial killing. But inour country
extra judicial killing is occurred continuously. Government must stop extra judicial
killing. Because it reduces our international relation. For getting proper judgment we all
of us should against this type of killing.
Page | 96
Bibliography
Constitution of Bangladesh
RAB Office, RAB-4 at Mirpur-1
National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) of Bangladesh
Newspapers
The Prothom-alo
The Daily Star
BDnews24
The New Age
Articles
Article of claim rights and liberty rights.
Article of individual rights and group
Article of natural and legal rights rights
Article of positive rights and negative rights.
Online
www.hrw.org
www.hrsolidarity.net/mainfile.php/2005vol15no03/2425/.
www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/bangladesh-urged-lift-banextrajudicial-
killings-exhibition-2010-03-23 .
www.pmo.gov.bd/pmolib/constitution/part3.htm.
www.shahidulnews.com. - http://www.shahidulnews.com/crossfire/.
www.modernghana.com/blogs/266017/31/extra-judicial-killings-by-bangladesh.html.
www.extrajudicialkilling.info.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rights
Page | 97

Extra Judicial Killing in Bangladesh

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Extra Judicial Killing in Bangladesh

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Legal Possession of Extra Judicial Killing by RAB

Objectives of the Study:

3. To critically analysis that whether extra judicial killing is helpful ? If helpful

4. Present condition of Human right in Bangladesh.

5. What should to do government of Bangladesh.

4. In the meantime, the Bangladeshi government should establish an independent

5. The Bangladeshi government should ensure that anyone detained by RAB or

should also allow nongovernmental human rights organizations unfettered

6. Foreign governments and international organizations should refuse to work with

Our country’s constitution is a written constitution. It is not easily changeable. If we

constitution/part3.htm [Online] // http://www.pmo.gov.bd/

Natural rights versus legal rights

Individual rights versus group rights

Fundamental Rights in Bangladesh

17. Rights of property (Article-42)

Extra Judicial Killing

Laws Being Ignored

Violation with fundamental right in constitution

Bangladesh urged to lift ban on extrajudicial executions exhibition

Formation of Rapid Action Battalion

The apparent failure of the police personnel in rounding up extortionists and

The New Age daily in April 2005

Bangladesh’s elite anti-crime and anti-terrorism security force is responsible for

Rapid Action Battalion, http://www.rab.gov.bd/index.php#, (accessed April 22, 2011).

Rapid Action Battalion, http://www.rab.gov.bd/index.php#, (accessed April 22, 2011).

Rules to guide RAB

Rapid Action Battalion, http://www.rab.gov.bd/index.php

Rapid Action Battalion, http://www.rab.gov.bd/index.php

Rapid Action Battalion, http://www.rab.gov.bd/index.php

While not a new phenomenon either in Bangladesh or globally, extra-judicial killings by

Rapid Action Battalion, http://www.rab.gov.bd/index.php.

Human Rights Watch

New Age, October 4, 2009

Rapid Action Battalion, http://www.rab.gov.bd/index.php.

RAB Office-RAB-4 at Mirpur-1

Rapid Action Battalion, http://www.rab.gov.bd/index.php#, (accessed April 22, 2011).

The Rapid Action Battalion (RAB)’s Extrajudicial Killings:

Asian Human Rights Commission in April last .

Statistics of RAB activities

Limitations of the data

The Daily Star

Rapid Action Battalion, http://www.rab.gov.bd/index.php.

Magnitude and temporal pattern of reported RAB killings

Figure 1: Reported Killings by RAB, June 2004 – September 2006

Official Description Count Percent

Crossfired 284 77.4

Killed During shootout 42 11.4

Not Reported 26 7.1

Health Problems 9 2.5

Encounter with RAB 4 10.9

Total 367 100.0

Source: Database of RAB Killings Compiled by Human Rights Watch

Figure 2: Monthly Reported Killings by RAB,

Temporal Period Count Monthly Rate

June 2004 – December 2004 82 11.7

January 2005 – December 2005 124 10.3

January 2006 – September 2006 161 20.7

Total 367 13.6

Figure 3: Reported Killings by RAB by Month,

Source: Database of RAB Killings Document by Human Rights Watch

Geographic distribution of reported RAB killings

Rapid Action Battalion, http://www.rab.gov.bd/index.php.

Figure 4: Reported RAB Killings by Geographic Division,

Division of Incident Count Percent