Ex-army chief urges RAB, DGFI dissolution
Staff Reporter :
Former Chief of Army Staff Lt Gen (retd) Iqbal Karim Bhuiya has urged the disbanding of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) and the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI), citing allegations of enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings during the previous Awami League administration.
He made the comments on Monday while testifying for the second consecutive day at Tribunal-1 in the trial of former army officer Major General (retd) Ziaul Ahsan, who is facing charges of crimes against humanity.
The two-member tribunal bench is headed by Judge Md Golam Mortuza Majumdar, with Judge Md Shafiul Alam Mahmud as the other member.
“I believe RAB should be dissolved immediately. If that is not feasible, then army personnel currently serving in RAB should be withdrawn and sent back to the military,” Bhuiya told the tribunal.
He also called for the abolition of DGFI, saying the organisation had lost its legitimacy by fostering a culture of killings.
Popularly known as “IKB,” Bhuiya served as Bangladesh’s army chief from June 25, 2012 to June 25, 2015 under the Awami League government.
His testimony began on Sunday, and partial cross-examination was completed on Monday. The tribunal has fixed February 18 for the next hearing.
During his testimony, Bhuiya spoke about what he described as the dehumanising nature of military training.
He said soldiers are conditioned to overcome psychological barriers to killing by treating human beings as targets, including firing at human-shaped figures during training exercises.
For this reason, he argued, army personnel should never have been deployed
alongside civilian police forces.
He termed the formation of RAB in 2003 a “serious and disastrous mistake,” stating that the training provided to army members was incompatible with RAB’s policing role.
According to him, extrajudicial killings took place between 2003 and 2006, and similar incidents occurred even before RAB’s creation during Operation Clean Heart.
Operation Clean Heart was a joint security drive carried out from October 16, 2002 to January 9, 2003 under the BNP–Jamaat coalition government.
The operation was later protected under the Joint Operations Indemnity Act of 2003, which was declared unconstitutional by the High Court a decade later following a writ petition.
Earlier, on January 14, Tribunal-1 ordered the commencement of Ziaul Ahsan’s trial on three charges. The first alleges that Sajal and two others were killed on July 11, 2011 in the Pubail area of Gazipur Sadar in Ahsan’s presence.
The second charge accuses him of responsibility for the killing of 50 people, including Nazrul and Mallik, in Pathorghata upazila of Barguna between 2010 and 2013. The third charge also relates to the killing of 50 individuals.
Ziaul Ahsan was placed on remand in the case on December 23, 2024.