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Bangladesh's ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her minions in government, security services and her Awami League party systematically engaged in serious human-rights violations during last year's student-led protests, according to UN findings.
A 105-page report prepared by the fact-finding mission of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), unveiled Wednesday in Geneva, presents a string of such crimes surrounding the July-August uprising that toppled the past government and recommends dos and don'ts for now.
"Based on deaths reported by various credible sources, the report estimates that as many as 1,400 people may have been killed between 1 July and 15 August, and thousands were injured, the vast majority of whom were shot by Bangladesh's security forces," the report reads.
"Of these, the report indicates that as many as 12-13 per cent of those killed were children. Bangladesh Police reported that 44 of its officers were killed," it adds.
"Based on a thorough analysis of all the information laid out in this report, OHCHR has reasonable grounds to believe that, between 15 July and 5 August, the former Government and its security and intelligence apparatus, in coordination with violent elements linked to the Awami League, systematically engaged in serious human rights violations and abuses.
Violations were committed with the knowledge, coordination and direction of the political leadership and senior security sector and intelligence officials."
The UN agency mentions that on 21 July, one intelligence report had warned her (ex-PM) about security forces using excessive force. Senior officials also relayed such concerns to her in early August. The Prime Minister also discussed protest-related issues with her government ministers in at least one cabinet meeting, held on 29 July. The Prime Minister and senior advisers in her office also conferred directly and over the telephone with senior security officials to supervise operations and to issue orders.
"The then Home Minister, accompanied by the Inspector General of Police and the Dhaka Metropolitan Police Commissioner, personally went to Jatrabari on 20 or 21 July, when police and RAB were shooting and killing numerous protesters on the Dhaka-Chattogram highway and around Jatrabari Police Station. An authenticated video filmed on the occasion shows a local police commander telling the Minister and the two senior police chiefs that the police were shooting people dead."
Many of the "most serious violations were committed by elite, well-trained and highly disciplined agencies reporting either directly to the then Home Affairs Minister such as BGB and RAB, or to the then Prime Minister herself as was the case for DGFI and NSI. None of the serious violations that occurred were subject to any genuine investigations or accountability efforts. Senior leaders received numerous reports about the situation on the ground and violations that were occurring. Instead, the then Prime Minister and other senior officials actively reinforced the efforts of other officials to conceal violations by falsely alleging responsibility of protesters and opposition parties for the killings in fact committed by state security forces".
According to a senior official's testimony, the report says, "the then Prime Minister personally ordered killings when she told senior officials present at a meeting on 19 July to 'arrest the ringleaders of the protests, the troublemakers, kill them and hide their bodies'.
In other meetings, she personally discussed the violent clearing of the Dhaka-Chattogram highway with senior security officials.
"Testimony from senior officials establishes that the Prime Minister approved the plan to cover up the arbitrary arrest and detention of student leaders by Detective Branch and DGFI. In a Cabinet meeting held on 29 July, she also ordered the removal of the head of Detective Branch for creating a public relations disaster when he released a coerced videotaped statement of these student leaders, while failing to order that the students' arbitrary detention and coercion be investigated."
The UN fact-finding report further mentions that on 4 August, the Prime Minister chaired a National Security Council meeting in the morning and a second meeting in the evening at her residence where the Prime Minister, the Home Affairs Minister and the most senior security-sector officials formulated and agreed the plan to use force to stop the mass 'March on Dhaka' launched by the protesters.
"In pursuance of that plan, police and, in at least one instance, also Army personnel, fired at protesters in violation of international human rights law and committed extrajudicial killings," the report says, based on findings.
"As the protests continued, armed Awami League supporters continued to launch attacks on protesters, jointly or in alignment with the State security forces.
"In some cases, police and other security forces deliberately killed or maimed victims, including children, by shooting them at point-blank range.
Allegations carried in the report have it that some army soldiers fired from rifles loaded with lethal ammunition at protesters on at least three occasions, resulting in at least one killing. "Army units also fired automatic weapons" into the air, which is "likely to have led to additional injury and death".
To remain in power, the former Government tried systematically to suppress protests with increasingly violent means.
"The testimonies and evidence we gathered paint a disturbing picture of rampant State violence and targeted killings, that are amongst the most serious violations of human rights, and which may also constitute international crimes. Accountability and justice are essential for national healing and for the future of Bangladesh," Volker Turk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said at the report- presentation ceremony.
"In terms of weapons, 78 per cent of the fatalities were caused by firing, and of that, 66 per cent were caused by military rifles, and 12 per cent by shotguns with pellets," Mr Turk told the briefing session.
The report examined in detail the emblematic case of Abu Sayed, among others, and the report concludes there are reasonable grounds to believe that Abu Sayed was the victim of a deliberate extrajudicial killing.