Bangladesh’s political leaders ordered police crackdown
Staff Reporter :
A recent report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) alleges that Bangladesh’s political leadership directed police to use excessive force during the July uprising, offering new insights into the violent suppression of protests that unsettled the nation.
The 50-page report, titled After the Monsoon Revolution: A Roadmap to Lasting Security Sector Reform in Bangladesh, was presented to Chief Adviser Professor Muhammad Yunus on January 28 by an HRW delegation led by Asia Director Elaine Pearson.”
According to multiple police officers interviewed in the report, orders to use extreme force against demonstrators did not originate from field officers but from higher political authorities.
One officer, speaking to HRW, stated, “I believe that during the unrest, the role of the police was determined more by political leaders than by the officers in the field.”
Another officer described how police were directed to fire upon onlookers watching from their homes, seemingly to instill fear and suppress public awareness of the crackdown.
The HRW report details how officers were given both explicit and implicit instructions to use lethal force, with some directives resembling those issued in a combat scenario.
One officer recounted that senior officials from Dhaka Metropolitan Police Headquarters monitored live CCTV footage and ordered real-time shootings as if they were “playing a video game.”
The chain of command, as described in the report, indicated that directives originated from Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan and Inspector General of Police Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun, who passed them down to Dhaka Metropolitan Police Commissioner Habibur Rahman and other senior officials.
A particularly chilling moment highlighted in the report comes from a video recorded in August, where a police officer was seen justifying the use of force to Home Minister Khan, stating: “We shoot one dead, or we wound one, and that is the only one that falls.
The rest don’t budge, sir.” Beyond the use of live ammunition, the HRW report documents instances of abductions and forced detentions.
On July 26, six student protest coordinators seeking medical treatment at a Dhaka hospital were allegedly abducted by plainclothes police.
They remained in incommunicado detention for a week before being coerced into issuing a video statement announcing the end of the protest movement.
They were only released on August 1. The political landscape in Bangladesh underwent a seismic shift days later. On August 5, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina abruptly resigned and fled the country amid mounting pressure.
However, instead of restoring order, the aftermath saw even greater chaos, with police accused of further escalating violence.
The HRW report alleges that in Ashulia, police officers set fire to vehicles carrying the bodies of slain protesters. One eyewitness recounted a horrific scene in which a detained protester was burned alive while still in handcuffs.
Local resident Razia Begum, 55, who witnessed the events, shared a harrowing account: “This was the first time in my life that I saw innocent people burned alive this way.”
According to her, when neighbors attempted to extinguish the flames, police responded with gunfire, leaving “the roads covered in blood.” Another witness emphasized that officers were shooting “directly at people’s bodies, not their legs.”