Crossfire (Bangladesh)

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Crossfire refers to the death of a person by gun shot, oftentimes under the custody of a law enforcement agency in Bangladesh. There are accusations that it is staged extrajudicial killing. [1] In March 2010, the then director general of the elite law enforcement agency of Bangladesh, Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) said that since it was started in 2004 RAB had killed 622 people. Human Rights Watch, a New York-based NGO, has described RAB as a Bangladeshi government death squad. [2] Odhikar, a Dhaka-based human rights organization, reported at least 1,169 people lost their lives in extrajudicial killings between January 2009 and May 2016 in Bangladesh. According to Odhikar, in June 2016, extrajudicial killings in the country took at least 24 lives. [3] According to another rights group, Ain O Salish Kendra, 79 people were killed in so-called shootouts while in police custody in Bangladesh in the first six months of 2016. [4] The police were involved in 37 of these deaths. Of them, seven had been in killed in crossfire with Detective Branch (DB) officials. [5] Bangladesh police forces shot dead 130 people in a Philippines-style drugs crackdown in three weeks starting from May 2018. [6]

Contents

Nature

Bangladesh Government claims that incidents of crossfire deaths are the result of law enforcement officers acting in self-defence. The narrative of the Government comes in either of the following 2 forms: (1) the deceased was caught in crossfire that erupted after miscreants had started shooting at the police, (2) after being challenged by a patrolling police team, few suspected armed persons on motor bikes opened fire; deceased died in the gunfight and few others fled. However, rights group have been refusing to believe the police version of the crossfire incidents. They have long accused Bangladesh's security forces, especially the elite law enforcement agency Rapid Action Battalion, of arbitrarily picking up people, torturing them, and then killing them in custody. When suspects are shown to journalists, they often wear a bulletproof vest. But, while taking them to raids to arrest their accomplices, the criminals are routinely without any such vest. [3] Media usually reports these incidents as crossfire within quotation marks. [3] [4]

Events

Crossfire threats

Detective Branch of Bangladesh has been accused of threatening abducted or captured people with cross fire to get confessional statement from them to magistrates. [15]

In photography

Photographer Shahidul Alam organized an art exhibition named as 'Crossfire' with a series of large images evocative of the places where the victims were murdered or discovered. [1] [16]

See also

Related Research Articles

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References

  1. 1 2 Gonzalez, David. "Where Death Squads Struck in Bangladesh". Lens Blog. Retrieved 2018-08-11.
  2. ↑ Cobain, Ian (2011-01-26). "Bangladesh 'death squad' trained by UK police resumes extrajudicial killing". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 2017-01-22.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Hussain, Maaz. "Rights Groups Criticize 'Crossfire' Deaths in Bangladesh". VOA. Retrieved 2017-01-22.
  4. 1 2 Sarker, Sujit (2016-07-01). "79 killed in 'crossfire' in 6 months in Bangladesh: Rights group". Asia News Network. Retrieved 2017-01-22.
  5. ↑ "Police trump RAB in crossfire deaths: Ain O Salish Kendra". bdnews24.com. Retrieved 2017-01-22.
  6. 1 2 Safi, Michael; Rahman, Shaikh Azizur (2018-06-06). "Audio clip 'captures Bangladeshi police killing drugs suspect'". The Guardian. Retrieved 2018-06-09.
  7. ↑ "Youth killed in crossfire was 'Mukul Rana,' not Shariful - Crime". News Bangladesh. Archived from the original on 2017-02-02. Retrieved 2017-01-22.
  8. ↑ "Avijit, Niladri killings: Key suspect killed in 'crossfire'". New Age. 2016-06-20. Retrieved 2017-01-23.
  9. ↑ "One 'crossfire' death, too many questions". The Daily Star. 2016-06-19. Retrieved 2017-01-23.
  10. ↑ "Crossfire Kills Bangladesh Assault Suspect in Custody, Police Say". The New York Times. Reuters. 2016-06-18. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2017-01-22.
  11. ↑ "In Bangladesh, a license to kill" . Retrieved 2017-01-22.
  12. 1 2 ""Crossfire"". Human Rights Watch. 2011-05-10. Retrieved 2017-01-22.
  13. ↑ "'Murder' it was". The Daily Star. 2018-06-01. Retrieved 2018-06-09.
  14. ↑ "Death of Ekram: Audio exposes moments of controversial anti-drug crackdown". bdnews24.com. 2018-06-01. Retrieved 2018-06-09.
  15. ↑ "Tavella Murder : 'I was threatened with crossfire', accused tells family". New Age. 2015-11-11. Retrieved 2017-01-23.
  16. ↑ "An Acclaimed Photographer in Bangladesh Says He Was Tortured" . Retrieved 2018-08-11.
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