A death squad is an armed group whose primary activity is carrying out extrajudicial killings or forced disappearances as part of political repression, genocide, ethnic cleansing, or revolutionary terror. Except in rare cases in which they are formed by an insurgency, domestic or foreign governments actively participate in, support, or ignore the death squad's activities. Death squads are distinct from assassination from their permanent organization and the larger number of victims who may not be prominent individuals. Other violence, such as rape, torture, arson, or bombings may be carried out alongside murders. They may comprise a secret police force, paramilitary militia groups, government soldiers, policemen, or combinations thereof. They may also be organized as vigilantes, bounty hunters, mercenaries, or contract killers. When death squads are not controlled by the state, they may consist of insurgent forces or organized crime, such as the ones used by cartels.
Extrajudicial punishment is a punishment for an alleged crime or offense which is carried out without legal process or supervision by a court or tribunal through a legal proceeding.
Rapid Action Battalion or RAB, is an anti-crime and anti-terrorism unit of the Bangladesh Police. This elite force consists of members of the Bangladesh Army, Bangladesh Police, Bangladesh Navy, Bangladesh Air Force, Border Guard Bangladesh, Bangladesh Civil Service and Bangladesh Ansar. It was formed on 26 March 2004 as RAT, and commenced operations on 14 April 2004. From 2004 to 2008 RAB had killed 1,062 people.
Shahidul Alam is a Bangladeshi photojournalist, teacher and social activist. He has been a photographer for more than forty years and "his photographs have been published in almost every major western media outlet".
An extrajudicial killing is the deliberate killing of a person without the lawful authority granted by a judicial proceeding. It typically refers to government authorities, whether lawfully or unlawfully, targeting specific people for death, which in authoritarian regimes often involves political, trade union, dissident, religious and social figures. The term is typically used in situations that imply the human rights of the victims have been violated; deaths caused by legitimate warfighting or police actions are generally not included, even though military and police forces are often used for killings seen by critics as illegitimate. The label "extrajudicial killing" has also been applied to organized, lethal enforcement of extralegal social norms by non-government actors, including lynchings and honor killings.
The Independence Day Award, also termed Independence Award, Swadhinata Padak, and Swadhinata Puroskar, is the highest state award given by the government of Bangladesh. Introduced in 1977 by president Ziaur Rahman, this award is bestowed upon Bangladeshi citizens or organizations in recognition of substantial contribution to one of many fields, including the War of Liberation, the Language Movement, education, literature, journalism, public service, science and technology, medical science, social science, song, games and sports, fine arts, rural development, and other areas.
Law enforcement in Bangladesh is one part of the Justice System in Bangladesh along with Prisons and Courts.
The Bangladesh Rifles revolt was a mutiny staged on 25 and 26 February 2009 in Dhaka by a section of the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR), a paramilitary force mainly tasked with guarding the borders of Bangladesh. The rebelling BDR soldiers took over the BDR headquarters in Pilkhana, killing BDR director-general Shakil Ahmed along with 56 other army officers and 17 civilians. They also fired on civilians, held many of their officers and their families hostage, vandalised property and looted valuables. By the second day, unrest had spread to 12 other towns and cities. The mutiny ended as the mutineers surrendered their arms and released the hostages after a series of discussions and negotiations with the government. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who returned to office less than two months before the revolt, was widely praised domestically and internationally for her handling of the mutiny, however some criticised her for not ordering an armed raid of the BDR Rifles compound. The Daily Star commended "her sagacious handling of the situation which resulted in the prevention of a further bloodbath".
Corruption in Bangladesh has been a continuing problem. According to all major ranking institutions, Bangladesh routinely finds itself among the most corrupt countries in the world.
The Purbo Banglar Communist Party or PBCP is an outlawed Communist Party in Bangladesh. The PBCP formed in 1968 following a split in the Bangladesh Communist Party. It is mainly active in the areas of Khulna and Jessore in the South West of Bangladesh near the border of the Indian state of West Bengal where CPI-Maoist Naxalite insurgents have been active in an ongoing Civil War against the Indian state. The PBCP suffers from violent rivalry both internally and externally with different Party factions and rival splinter groups. The PBCP was criticized by Siraj Sikder, the founder of the Purbo Bangla Sarbohara Party, as being a neo-revisionist and a party that is "left in form but right in essence".
Enforced disappearances in Bangladesh are cases in which the Government of Bangladesh directly or indirectly kidnaps people and holds them incommunicado. According to a Dhaka-based human rights group Odhikar, at least 402 people have become victim of enforced disappearance from 2009 to 2017 under the current Awami League administration. These incidents along with extrajudicial killings in Bangladesh has been criticized by The United Nations and human rights groups including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), a special paramilitary unit in Bangladesh, is alleged to be behind most of these disappearances even though RAB claimed these allegations to be false. The current Awami League government denies involvement in these forced disappearances even when victims later surface in custody.
Chowdhury Fazlul Bari is a former Bangladesh Army officer and former Director General of Directorate General of Forces Intelligence.
Lieutenant Colonel (Dismissed) Tareque Sayeed Mohammad is a former Bangladeshi Army officer who was convicted in the Narayanganj Seven murder case. He was the commanding officer of Bangladesh elite force Rapid Action Battalion (RAB)-11. He is the Son in Law of former minister Mofazzal Hossain Chowdhury.
Crossfire refers to the of 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 extra-judicial killing. 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. 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. 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. The police were involved in 37 of these deaths. Of them, seven had been in killed in crossfire with Detective Branch (DB) officials. Bangladesh police forces shot dead 130 people in a Philippines-style drugs crackdown in three weeks starting from May 2018.
Detective Branch is a specialized unit of Bangladesh Police. According to Human Rights Watch, there is extensive documentation of human rights violation by Detective Branch and Rapid Action Battalion. According to Human Rights Watch, 70 percent of extrajudicial deaths involving the police involved Detective Branch.
Abdul Aziz Sarkar was a Bangladeshi police officer who served as the Director General of Rapid Action Battalion.
The Bangladesh drug war or Bangladesh's war on drugs is an ongoing campaign against alleged drug dealers and users by the government of Bangladesh under Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. The extrajudicial killings of alleged drug dealers by the elite anti-crime unit Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) and the police have been criticized by human rights groups and foreign diplomats.
Killing of Ekramul Haque refers to the extrajudicial killing of Ekramul Haque, councillor of Teknaf Municipality Ward three, by a unit of Rapid Action Battalion. That resulted in the first usage of the Magnitsky Act against Bangladeshi officials.
Tofayel Mustafa Sorwar is a Bangladesh Army Brigadier General and the former Additional Director General (Operations) at the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) an elite multi-service unit of the Bangladesh Police. He has been sanctioned by the U.S. Department of the Treasury for human rights violation at RAB during his time at the agency.
Mohammad Anwar Latif Khan is a Bangladesh Army Colonel and the Sector Commander of Border Guards Bangladesh in Rajshahi. He is the former Additional Director General (Operations) at the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) an elite multi-service unit of the Bangladesh Police and oversaw crackdowns on Islamist militants. He has been sanctioned by the United States for his activities in RAB. He had previously commanded RAB-5, RAB-7, and RAB-11.
