Investigation committee forms on Hasina’s surveillance equipment

Staff Reporter :

The interim government has formed a probe committee to look into the procurement of surveillance equipment during the tenure of the ousted Sheikh Hasina administration.
Faiz Ahmed Taiyeb, Special Assistant to the Chief Adviser on Posts, Telecommunications, and ICT, will head the committee.

According to Chief Adviser’s Press Secretary Shafiqul Alam, the committee will examine where the spy devices came from, how much they cost, and how they were used. He briefed reporters at the Foreign Service Academy in Dhaka on Thursday.

Alam noted that reports indicate the previous government spent around US $300 million on such equipment, though some sources put the figure closer to US $200 million. “What we’ve read in the full report leaves no doubt – the former authoritarian regime deployed surveillance tools and spyware to strip the people of Bangladesh of their civil rights,” he said.

“To enable this unlawful monitoring, even our most basic freedom of speech was taken away. They trampled on the constitutional right to privacy,” he added.

The decision to form the committee was made at a meeting of the Council of Advisers earlier in the day. The probe will also verify claims that much of the equipment was purchased from Israel.
Regarding ongoing national reforms, Alam said that last week it was reported 121 recommendations from various reform commissions were being implemented. Of these, 16 have been fully implemented, 14 partially implemented, and the rest are in progress.

Following today’s meeting, 246 more “immediately implementable” reform proposals have been added, bringing the total to 367. So far, 37 have been fully carried out. Eighty-two of these proposals relate to labour issues, with many now in the final stages of implementation.

The Women’s Affairs Reform Commission has listed 71 recommendations for swift action, alongside 37 from the Local Government Division Reform Commission, 33 from the Health Sector Reform Commission, and 23 from the Media Reform Commission.

Alam stressed that priority is being given to reforms that can be enacted without delay.
He also revealed that a separate investigation is underway into the purchase of deadly weapons for the police – focusing on where they were sourced, how much was spent, and how they were used.