DHAKA: During the anti-discrimination protests that led to the Sheikh Hasina government’s collapse and its aftermath in 204, a United report released on Wednesday found that people of Bangladesh’s Hindu, Ahmadiya Muslim, and indigenous communities were subject to human rights abuses.
Despite reportedly receiving 100 arrests for attacks on various religious and & indigenous groups, the UN Human Rights Office claims that perpetrators of numerous other acts of revenge violence and targeted attacks on like groups also like impunity. After collapse of the state, “widespread problems were reported against Hindu houses, businesses and sites of worship”, it said. The document validates India’s repeated promises of focused attacks on Hindus &, churches.
UN reports right crimes in B’desh 2024 opposition response, estimates 1, 400 killed
Common problems were reported against Hindu homes, companies, and places of worship, especially in rural and generally tense areas such as Thakurgaon, Lalmonirhat and Dinajpur, as well as other places like as Sylhet, Khulna, and Rangpur”, said the UN report titled’ Human Rights Violations and Abuses related to Protests of July and August 2024 in Bangladesh’.
Because Hindus are frequently associated with this social group, it added, these destructions were particularly common in areas thought to be friendly to the Awami League. The statement, based on the incidents reported by numerous credible sources, even estimated that as many as 1, 400 individuals may have been killed during July 1-Aug 15 last year and hundreds were injured, the vast majority of whom were shot by Bangladesh’s security forces.
” Bangladesh’s former govt, security and intelligence services, alongside violent elements associated with Awami League, systematically engaged in a range of serious human rights violations during last year’s student-led protests, “it added.
Sheikh Hasina, the former prime minister, left the nation on August 5 and the Muhammad Yunus-led interim government made its first trip three days later. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights ‘ report documented “terrifying” instances of revenge violence and retaliation against students during protests. It stated that” security and intelligence services” regularly engaged in “rights violations that could amount to crimes against humanity.”
Volker Turk, the UN’s representative for human rights, described the response as a “well-planned and calculated strategy” used by the Hasina government to hold onto power in the face of widespread opposition. Hundreds of extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests, detentions, and torture “were carried out with political leadership’s knowledge and coordination, he added.
Suhas Chakma, director of the Rights and Risks Analysis Group ( RRAG ), criticized the report for failing to identify individual officers responsible for the carnage, citing Yunus’s interim government’s restrictions on the investigation period from July 5 to August 15, 2024.
The report also includes recommendations to reform Bangladesh’s security and justice sectors”. According to the interim government, the interim administration must make sure that violent crimes committed against Awami League supporters, police officers, or members of various religious and indigenous groups are promptly and independently investigated and that those responsible are brought to justice, “it said.
