41 former police officers arrested in Bangladesh for committing atrocities during student-led protests last year

Dhaka: Police in Bangladesh have arrested 41 former officers who are among 1,059 ex-policemen accused of committing atrocities during the 2024 student-led movement that led to the ouster of prime minister Sheikh Hasina, officials and media reports said on Monday.

Hasina, the Awami League leader, resigned and escaped to India on August 5 last year after anti-discrimination students protests against the quota system turned into a movement and ousted her 16-year regime from power. Some 1,400 people lost their lives during the protests between July and August.

The mass circulation Prothom Alo newspaper, quoting unnamed police headquarters (PHQ) officials, said surviving victims of the atrocities or the family members of the slain victims lodged hundreds of cases with police stations and court accusing the 1,059 officials of the main law enforcement agency.

Police have arrested 41 former officers so far.

The PHQ said police’s two former inspectors general (IGP) Chowdhury Abdullah Al Mamun and AKN Shahidul Haque and former police commissioners of Dhaka and the southeastern port city of Chattogram -- Mohammad Asaduzzaan and Mian Saiful Islam -- were among those who were arrested so far.

Other than Haq, these officers were serving until Hasina's departed from the country.

The highest number of 174 cases were filed against Dhaka Metropolitan Police’s now fugitive former additional commissioner Harunur Rashid.

Arrested former IGP Al Mamun faces 159 cases.

The officials said several senior officers including additional police chiefs and a police commissioner were on the run while some of them were believed to have fled the country.

Bangladesh is currently governed by an interim government led by Muhammad Yunus, whom the Anti-Discrimination Students Movement appointed as Chief Advisor.

Incumbent Inspector General of Police Baharul Alam earlier said the cases filed over the July-August uprising would be investigated under committees led by senior police officers in each of eight police ranges across Bangladesh.

The UN rights office which last week released a fact-finding report on the 2024 violence in Bangladesh reviewed the police and other security forces' role, saying they used force causing “systematic and widespread extrajudicial killings as part of a coordinated strategy of repression”.

The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said the vast majority of the people killed in violence during the uprising were shot by Bangladesh’s security forces.

“Based on the material before it, OHCHR has reasonable grounds to believe that police and paramilitary state security forces resorted to use of force violations against protesters, including systematic and widespread extrajudicial killings as part of a coordinated strategy of repression,” it read.

It said the security forces tried to disperse disruptive “yet peaceful assemblies with ‘disproportionate force’, in particular by shooting military rifles and shotguns loaded with lethal metal pellets” while in some cases “deliberately killed or maimed defenceless protesters by shooting them at point-blank range”.