AN institution — the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) – seeking a public apology is an expression of acknowledging liability and guilt.
The elite force pulled together with police, army and air force, and border guard personnel to improve law and order also sought apology for extrajudicial killings, involuntary disappearances and all other misdeeds.
It’s a clear admission of the crimes that the force had perpetrated since its inception in 2004. And, the admission warrants that legal action should be forthcoming.
On December 12, the director general of the force at a briefing at the battalion’s media centre in Dhaka sought apology on behalf of the force to the victims and the families of the victims who had been tortured and harmed since the establishment of the force.
But rights organizations are in support of abolishing the force because they think there is no need for encounter or extrajudicial killing, especially after the ouster of the fascist Sheikh Hasina government.
Meanwhile, rights organisation Ain O Salish Kendra lists 3,973 people have been killed in events officially termed as ‘gun fights’, ‘encounters’, ‘cross fires’ and so called ‘infighting’ between January 2004 and June 2024.
Of them, the rights group says, 1,286 people were killed in gun fights with the battalion while the accused were held in custody. The rights group also blames the battalion and the police jointly responsible for the killing of 94 people during the period.
According to media reports, the inquiry commission on enforced disappearances that the government instituted on August 27 to investigate involuntary disappearances and extrajudicial killings that took place between January 2010 and August 5 this year said on November 5 that it had received complaints of disappearances of more than 1,600 victims in the last 15 years of the authoritarian regime of the Awami League, toppled in a mass uprising on August 5. About 200 of the victims are reported to be still missing.
The RAB DG also expressed commitment that the force would run with transparency and integrity to win public trust, noting that 16 battalion personnel have been arrested on charges of their involvement in crimes such as extortion, drug-related offences and robbery after the August 5 political changeover.
The DG also assured that the battalion personnel would not get involved in crimes. But the admission is not enough.
Therefore, we want the government to look into the allegations of crimes against the force. Anyone found guilty of the crimes must not be spared.
