Killings at the border, again

Why do these keep recurring?

We wonder why Bangladeshi citizens continue to be shot by the Indian BSF despite assurances from the highest level of the Indian government that firing would not be resorted to by the BSF. 

Over a period of two days recently, as many as four Bangladeshis were killed in three different districts bordering India. Coming as the deaths do on the heels of the four-day DDG level meeting of the border forces of the two countries that ended last Thursday the killings are even more unacceptable.

The recent killings raise several questions. It was reportedly claimed by the BSF that they had opened fire only in self defence. What was the BSF defending against? Were they being attacked by armed people? 

It is also relevant to ask where the BSF was when they were allegedly under attack, behind or in front of the border fence. If behind the fence, how did the Bangladeshis manage to cross the fence, which is constantly under BSF observation throughout the day and night, both visual and electronic, in the first place, and more so when the BSF capacity to oversee the border is far greater than that of Bangladesh's. Did the BSF recover any lethal weapon that had supposedly threatened their lives? Reportedly, one of the Bangladeshi killed might have been strangle.

It appears that the harmless rubber bullets are not really harmless and apparently the Indian Home Minister's assurances during his visit to Dhaka in July that New Delhi had ordered BSF not to shoot anyone crossing Indo-Bangladesh border, no matter whatever the circumstances were, have not percolated down to the level of the Indian border outposts. 

Every border killing widens the trust deficit, unfortunately. It only helps the cause of the detractors of the efforts to take the pitch of bilateral relations to a new level. And thus there is urgent need for the Indian authorities to strictly enforce what it has committed to Bangladesh. The message to freeze weapons must go down to the last jawan as was committed by Mr. Chidambaram not very long ago. 

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Appointment of administrators as councillors – unconstitutional and ill-intended

The government’s decision to appoint administrators to 61 district councils – the top tier of the local government system – instead of constituting the local bodies with elected representatives appears to have opened up a floodgate of constitutional, legal and political questions. According to report front-paged in New Age on Thursday, the government decided to revive the district councils, which have remained dysfunctional around two decades, on the back of the government decision to appoint two additional secretaries as administrators to the newly formed city corporations of Dhaka only two weeks back. It is pertinent to remember that the previous Awami League-led government enacted the Zila Parishad Act 2000, repealing the Zila Parishad Act of 1988. The law stipulates that the chairman, 15 members and five women members of a zila parishad would be elected by an electoral college consisting of the upazila chairmen concerned, municipal mayors and councillors and union parishad chairmen and members. The three-tier local government system,  introduced by the government of Ziaur Rahman through the Local Government Ordinance 1976, provided for a zila parishad  that was to consist of elected representatives and nominated women members, including a chairman and a vice-chairman to be elected by them from among themselves. In 1988, the Jatiya Party government of HM Ershad enacted the Zila Parishad Act, which provided for a chairman appointed by the government to each zila parishad. The act was made inoperative after the fall of Ershad regime in December 1990 as the chairmen were removed and deputy commissioners were made ex-officio chairmen.

According to Article 59, clause (1) of the constitution of Bangladesh, ‘Local government in every administrative unit of the Republic shall be entrusted to bodies, composed of persons elected in accordance with law’ and according to Article 152 (1) of the constitution, ‘administrative unit means a district or other area designated by law for the purposes of article 59.’ The government decision to appoint administrators has come under strong criticism from constitutional and local government experts who see the decision as contradictory with the constitution of the country. Pertinently, according to a report published in a leading Bengali daily on Saturday, within two weeks of the enactment of the Zila Parishad Act 2000, a then member of parliament filed a writ petition with the High Court challenging the legality of two clauses in the act, concerning the electorate and the provision for the appointment of administrators. With the regards to the petition, a bench of the High Court division has already issued a rule asking the government why these two clauses would not be declared unconstitutional and illegal. The rule is yet to be disposed off. Furthermore, according to a Supreme Court directive on July 30, 1992, signed by five Appellate Division judges who had served as chief justices at different points of time, ‘All current local government institutions must be immediately reconstituted with ‘elected’ representatives replacing ‘unelected representatives’ ’. Needless to say, all these leave the government decision appoint administrators on very shaky grounds.

What is evidently more worrying is that almost all the 61 appointees of the government, are either president and general secretaries of the district chapter of the ruling party.  This would indicate to a clear and ominous intent on the part of the government to politicise the local administration. Given all these, the Awami League-Jatiya party government would be well-advised to immediately withdraw the appointment of administrators to local government bodies in contradiction to the constitution and social and political mores, and immediately arrange for elections to be held at the district councils.

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Disappearances and secret killings

Creating panic among common people.

 

The crossfire and custodial deaths-related criminalities have been chillingly surpassed by abduction, disappearances and surfacing of dead bodies with scar-marks of third degree methods -- all enacted in cloak anzd dagger manner. It is just not enough to say that citizens have started panicking, they are growing apprehensive of newer forms of brutalisation and exaction of vendetta that is complete anachronism in a democracy.

In cases of custodial deaths and cross- fire the perpetrators were easily identifiable but so far as disappearances-led fatalities go, their identities are masked. This accentuates the fear of the unknown which is even more dangerous. The accounts of relatives of the victims and in some cases those of witnesses suggest that plainclothes men picked up the targeted persons and spirited them away in microbuses or some other vehicles.

Whether they are law enforcement personnel like, for instance, Rab, police or detective branch people in plainclothes at whom relatives, eye-witnesses and an Odhikar report pointed a finger of suspicion or they are hired impersonating gangs on a killing mission, we have a serious law and order challenge on our hands. If the killers are hiding behind a facade or lawmen using a new tactic, they couldn't have done so without a nod from somebody and if they are doing it all by themselves then this is clearly running a vicious mini-government within the government.

What is regrettably disquieting is the blasé attitude shown by the home minister to the horrific development. She said she had only come to know of it through newspaper reports. Reportedly, a certain negative attitude was shown by the police in registering the cases whilst the Rab and police have clearly denied having anything to do with the disappearances. Some of the victims have been associated with the BNP or its wings such as Shechha Sebak Dal or Chhatra Dal. 

The state has a huge responsibility in protecting and securing the lives of its citizens, their affiliations or track records regardless. If lawmen should take law into their own hands or fail to rein in gangs doing it then the state's authority is laid open to question. 

The state must not only discourage terrorisation but also be seen to be doing so. That is the big challenge before the government; for, if people can carry out abduction and killing missions with impunity this smacks of the imagery of deaths squads in parts of Latin America. 

We must put this blatant and dangerous abuse of power to end at once while the culprits are exposed and sternly dealt with after a no-nonsense investigation.

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Govt. too busy to listen to secret killing charges

As the Awami League-led government is busy with its political programme to try the opponents on charges of crimes committed during the war of liberation 40 years ago, it has little time to ponder over the present alarming situation of killing, abduction and disappearances of citizens especially when the broader allegation is against the law enforcing agencies.

The victims include innocent citizens, political opponents, businessmen, local government representatives, students and youth leaders.

According to newspaper reports and the records of Human rights organizations, at least 22 persons went missing in and around Dhaka city during eleven months of this year. Of them, ten were recovered dead while others still remain missing. 

At least 12 persons, including Narsingdi municipal mayor, were killed by unknown assailants in Narsingdi district alone in last month (November). 

Meanwhile, 1,350 unidentified bodies were recovered from the desolate and marshy land in different parts of the country, mostly from the outskirts of the capital, in the last 10 months. Many of the deceased were victims of secret killings, human rights organization said.    

Anjuman-Mofidul Islam the only private organization in the country involved with the burial of unidentified bodies said they have buried 1,103 bodies in last 10 months in capital city alone. Anjuman-Mofidul Islam in Chatagong also buried 239 unidentified bodies. 

At least 1,204 bodies were buried as “unidentified” by Anjuman-Mofidul Islam in the year 2010 while 296 in 2009 respectively. Anjuman has buried a total 3,437 bodies during the last 10 years.

Police recovered 15 unidentified bodies from Ashulia, Turag, Keraniganj and bypass areas last week alone.
On the occasion of the world human rights day, a Bengali daily reported that at least 100 persons were missing all over the country. In most of the cases, law enforcing agencies were accused of the abductions and consequent denial of their involvement. 

The law enforcing authorities are worried with the increasing incidents of secret killings but accuse professional killers of committing the crimes who disguise themselves as members of law enforcing agencies.
“The law enforcing agencies have been investigating every allegation of secret killing,” Home Minister Sahara Khatun said while briefing reporters at her office Wednesday. Shara Khatun reiterated her very favourite statement: “The law and order situation is better than any time before” 

However, the main opposition BNP has categorically accused the ruling Awami League of executing ‘planned murders’ in the country through numerous extrajudicial killings. 

“Continuous silent killings are a proof that the government is using its forces to carry out killings,” acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said last Sunday at a press briefing at the party’s Naya Paltan headquarters.

“Unidentified bodies are recovered every now and then from the outskirts of Dhaka city and remote places. The government forces pick up people and kill them without trial. We believe the government has direct link with these killings.” 

Meanwhile, Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal, the student wing of BNP observed a three-day-long protest last week against ‘killing’ of three of their activists namely Shamim Hossain Sohel of Dhaka University, and Ismail Hossain Al-Amin and Masum Hossain.

The body of Ismail was recovered. Ismail’s body was recovered from Dhalehswari river near Munshiganj 11 days after he went missing.

“The three were picked up by people claiming to be RAB personnel. No step has been taken despite informing police. This shows the government is directly linked to the killings,” the BNP leader added.
Referring to statistics of various rights bodies, Fakhrul said 200 people have gone missing in November-December with 27 of them going missing in the last as many days. 

JCD chief Sultan Salauddin Tuku said, “The incumbent government is carrying out assassinations like the BAKSAL regime of 1970s and justice is being denied.” He alleged that the police did not act even after Ismail’s mother Nasima Begum filed two general diaries with Kalabagan police. “Only six months back, organising secretary of the wing’s Uttara unit Noor Hossain Hiru went missing in the same manner and he is still traceless,” the student leader added. 

Various human rights bodies including the National Human Rights Commission have expressed their anxiety at the increased frequency of such occurrences. 

All allegations are alike and in most of the cases, the victims are picked up by people introducing themselves as law officers, especially as Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) personnel. However, RAB officials routinely deny.
‘Line of fire’

RAB is now using the term ‘line of fire’ instead of its earlier jargon “cross-fire” that earned a bad name for the elite force. 

On December 8, a leader of Purba Banglar Communist Party, Mokaddes Ali Malitha, was killed in a shootout between his cohorts and members of Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) in Alamdanga upazila in Chuadanga. Mokaddes was caught in the line of fire and died on the spot, said RAB-6 commander Captain Hasanur Rahman adding that Mokaddes was wanted in 10 cases including 5 for murder.

Only in August this year, the Amnesty International asked the Bangladesh authorities that they must honour their pledge to stop extrajudicial executions by a special police force accused of involvement in hundreds of killings. 

In its report, Crimes unseen: Extrajudicial executions in Bangladesh documented how the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) justify their killings as accidental or as a result of officers acting in self-defence, although in reality many victims are killed following their arrest. 

“Hardly a week goes by in Bangladesh without someone being shot by RAB with the authorities saying they were killed or injured in ‘crossfire’ or a ‘gun-fight’. However the authorities choose to describe such incidents, but the fact remains that they are suspected unlawful killings,” said Abbas Faiz, Amnesty International’s Bangladesh researcher.  

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Extrajudicial killings all around

THE spate of extrajudicial killing still continues. This time, 11 men in Bhola became victim of such killing on Wednesday afternoon. According to a report front-paged in New Age on Thursday, five people, suspected as pirates, along with a fisherman, got killed during a ‘gunfight’ involving the police. Moreover, five more suspected pirates, who escaped the ‘gunfight’, were later beaten to death by the mob. Suffice it to say, the killings in question necessarily point to, regardless of the oft-repeated claims of the incumbents otherwise, unabated slide in law and order on the one hand and growing public distrust of law enforcement agencies on the other.

The Awami League-Jatiya Party government assumed power in 2009 with the commitment, among others, that it would keep law and order under control and that it would stop all sorts of extrajudicial killing. 

Pertinently, it was highly critical of such kind of killing during the tenure of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led government in the past. Besides, it pledged on more occasions than one in the past three years or so before the leaders of different human rights organisations, national and international, that it will show zero tolerance towards such killing. Regrettably, however, it seems to have done little to make those words a reality. Worse still, it has consistently claimed that no extrajudicial killing has taken place during its tenure so far.

Meanwhile, apparently to evade criticism about extrajudicial killing, the law enforcers, especially the Rapid Action Battalion, have allegedly changed their tactics of execution in recent months. The new tactic involves enforced disappearances of alleged criminals. According to Odhikar, a rights organisation, a total of 359 people were killed in what the top brass of the law enforcers called ‘crossfire’, ‘shootout, ‘encounter’, etc in the past three years or so, while the number of victims of mob beating stood at 148 and enforced disappearances, 22, in the past 11 months.

Either way, the incumbents need to realise that what suffers most due to all this is the rule of law, and that if it is allowed to continue, society may plunge into lawlessness, endangering even the hard-earned democracy of the country. It immediately needs to do something decisive about arresting the surge in crimes as well as putting an end to all kinds of extrajudicial killings.

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