Hasina’s legal counsel calls UN finding on July Uprising death toll ‘highly inaccurate’

Former prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s legal counsel has formally written to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk, seeking a public retraction of a key finding in a UN fact-finding report on the 2024 protests, according to NDTV.

In the letter issued on Thursday, Steven Powles KC of London-based Doughty Street Chambers challenged the casualty figure cited in the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) report.

"It has come to light - even based on the official records of the Interim Government that spread false and inflammatory information to justify the violent overthrow of prime minister Hasina's government - that the Fact-Finding Report's conclusion that 1,400 protestors were killed during this period was highly inaccurate," Powles wrote.

The Indian broadcaster claims to have accessed the letter.

The report, titled "Human Rights Violations and Abuses related to the Protests of July and August 2024 in Bangladesh", was published in February 2025. It estimated that up to 1,400 people were killed in just 46 days.

The vast majority were shot by security forces, it said.

The UN human rights investigators said "an official policy to attack and violently repress anti-government protesters" had been directed by political leaders and senior security officials.

The findings show the then-government, including Sheikh Hasina, "were aware of and involved in very serious offences," Türk told a news conference in Geneva during the report's launch.

The findings were widely cited internationally and contributed to sustained international pressure on Hasina, who has remained in exile in India after fleeing the deadly protests.

In the letter, Powles pointed to Bangladesh's own official estimate, published by Muhammad Yunus-led interim government on Jan 15, 2025.

The gazette lists the number of casualties closer to 834, roughly half the UN figure.

Powles said even this figure may be inflated, referring to the student-led Anti-Discrimination Movement's own tally of 650 deaths.

"The actual number is likely to be even lower, if there was an investigation based on independent and impartial sources," Powles mentioned.

"The much higher figure was used to exaggerate the nature and extent of the violence, and to portray Prime Minister Hasina as having ordered the mass-murder of peaceful protestors; an accusation that was central to the campaign to overthrow her Government," wrote the lawyer.

He alleged that the “inflated” figure was weaponised politically.

Powles also expressed concerns about the independence of the OHCHR inquiry as it was carried out "at the invitation” of the interim government.

The letter says that Yunus himself had admitted the movement that led to Hasina’s ouster was a "carefully planned, disciplined operation."

Requesting a swift response, it says: "The OHCHR is respectfully requested to issue a public retraction and correction of this aspect of the report regarding the figure of 1,400 protestors killed. This is necessary to ensure that the UN does not become an instrument for perpetuating a false narrative."

In November 2025, the International Crimes Tribunal sentenced Sheikh Hasina and former home minister Asaduzzaman Khan to death on charges of crimes against humanity during the 2024 protests.

Hasina also faces a number of cases linked to the movement.

The legal team representing Hasina has consistently contested those proceedings as politically motivated.