Former Bangladesh Police Chief Faces Charges for Crackdown on 2022 Anti-Government Uprising.
Dhaka, Bangladesh: In a remarkable turn of events, Bangladesh’s former police chief has been brought before the courts, accused of orchestrating a deadly crackdown in a failed attempt to quell the August 2022 revolution that ultimately toppled the regime of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun, the former Inspector General of Police, appeared in court on Wednesday, flanked by serving officers as prosecutors alleged he was responsible for overseeing “massacres, genocide, and crimes against humanity” during the unrest.
Eight defendants, including Ziaul Ahsan, a former commander of the notorious Rapid Action Battalion paramilitary force, stood trial in Dhaka as the International Crimes Tribunal laid out the harrowing details of their alleged misdeeds.
Chief Prosecutor Mohammad Tajul Islam minced no words, stating that the eight men had committed “crimes that even devils dare not do” in their attempts to brutally suppress the pro-democracy uprising.
Islam alleged that the former police chief was the “commander of all atrocities carried out against the student protesters,” as dozens of Hasina’s allies have been arrested since the regime’s collapse, accused of involvement in the crackdown that killed over 700 people.
One defendant, Majharul Islam, the former police chief of Dhaka’s Gulshan district, was seen breaking down in court, begging for his life and claiming he had “supported the protests.” Meanwhile, Ziaul Ahsan, the former Rapid Action Battalion commander, vehemently denied all charges against him.
The court hearing follows a pattern of charges being leveled against former top government officials, including 11 ex-ministers, as the country grapples with the aftermath of Hasina’s 15-year tenure, which was marked by widespread human rights abuses and the mass detention and extrajudicial killings of political opponents.
The International Crimes Tribunal has also issued an arrest warrant for Hasina herself, accusing her of “massacres, killings, and crimes against humanity,” though the former prime minister has since fled to India, where she remains a fugitive in exile.
