AL, police carried out coordinated attacks on protesters

The fact-finding report of the Office of the United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has unravelled the details of how the ousted Awami League government had brought down the police as well as party cadres to suppress the students and people during the July uprising. It says Awami League supporters and police carried out coordinated attacks on the protesters.

The OHCHR report was published in Geneva last Wednesday. The report states as the protests went on; the state security forces increasingly integrated armed Awami League supporters into their efforts to quell the protests. These also included members of the Awami Jubo League, which is nominally the Awami League’s youth wing but also includes many middle-aged men who engage in violence.

It said in many operations, armed Awami League supporters lined up along with the police or sheltered behind police lines, before launching attacks timed to support the police’s own efforts to violently disperse the protests.

Awami League supporters also stopped and searched people, apprehended protesters and handed them over to the police in an organised, seemingly prearranged fashion. Jatrabari police station even had armed Awami League supporters staying there, according to an inside source.

This cooperation was facilitated by the politicisation of the police under the former Government, which created deep links between Awami League, Chhatra League and the police.

The OHCHR report further adds as protests became more generalised from 18 July, and especially also in early August, armed Awami League supporters mounted large attacks of their own, including with firearms.

In this regard, the current inspector-general of police (IGP) informed OHCHR that there had been many anomalies in the issuance of firearms licenses to Awami League and Chhatra League supporters and that many of them had used these firearms for illegal purposes against protesters.

The report states the Bangladesh Police provided OHCHR with the names and functions of 95 members of the police, Awami League or its associated bodies whom the police considered having provided weapons to citizens for use in violent attacks during the protests, including 10 persons who were members of parliament at the time, 14 local Awami League leaders, 16 Jubo League leaders, 16 Chhatra League leaders and seven members of the police.

The police also provided the names and functions of 160 Awami League-affiliated political leaders at the national and local level and security sector officials whom the police considered having incited or ordered violent attacks by citizens against other citizens.

The report reads Awami League supporters’ attacks were consistently carried out in alignment with, and in support of, the security forces’ own efforts to suppress the protest movement. Awami League local party leaders and government officials, including members of parliament, led some of these attacks. Based on first-hand testimony, corroborated by videos and other sources, OHCHR documented a number of cases around the country.

According to the OHCHR report, on 19 July, armed Awami League supporters, reportedly led by Awami League officials, shot at protesters near Crescent Hospital in Uttara. The same day, several hundred Awami League supporters, led by a local Awami League official, carried out an attack at Mujahid Nagar Central Mosque in Rayerbag. Two elderly men were killed. Others at the mosque mounted a fierce defence, and some 80 people were reportedly injured, with three persons dying in the clashes.

Also on 19 July, Jubo League supporters joined the Police’s violent efforts to prevent protesters from peacefully forming a human chain near the parliament, including by Jubo League supporters beating up the protest’s main speaker, it added.

The report said on 2 August, armed Jubo League supporters attacked protesters in front of Milestone College in support of broader police efforts to violently disperse protests in Uttara. Several women among the victims were hit with iron bars or pistols.

On 3 August, armed Chhatra League and other Awami League supporters armed with firearms, machetes and iron rods organised into several attack formations of about 60 men each and attacked a group of male and female protesters in Cumilla. Large numbers of protesters were injured, while seven suffered gunshot wounds. Police made no efforts to intervene. The next day, armed Awami League supporters carried out similar attacks, while also firing from buildings in the area, it said.

The report also cited several cases of the then Awami League lawmakers being directly involved in deadly mass violence unleashed on the protesters.

In one such incident on 4 August, police and Awami League supporters armed with firearms, among them a member of parliament (MP), fired lethal ammunition at largely peaceful protesters in Ashulia, Savar. Three children and four men suffered gunshot injuries.

The same day, armed Awami League supporters, led by another MP launched an apparently coordinated attack with the police on protesters in Mirpur, including by firing at them from nearby buildings with lethal ammunition. One victim survived a shot to the groin, while another man was shot in the head, the reports added.