How Hasina lost control in August

A report of the UN fact-finding mission presented a detailed account of how the ousted prime minister lost her control over the helm of the country’s affairs and eventually fled the country.

According to the report, released on Wednesday, extrajudicial killings to suppress the “March on Dhaka” (5 August) Public announcements by the protest leaders and information obtained by intelligence agencies gave Bangladesh’s political leadership the knowledge that the protest movement was planning a major protest march towards the centre of Dhaka on 5 August. 

“On the morning of August 4, the then Prime Minister chaired a meeting of the National Security Council in which, inter alia, the chiefs of the Army, Air Force, Navy, BGB, DGFI, NSI, police and its special branch, and the ministers of Home Affairs, Education and Foreign Affairs, according to participants. They discussed reimposing and enforcing a curfew to prevent the “March on Dhaka.”

“After the meeting, the Home Affairs Ministry declared that a strict curfew would continue indefinitely without breaks, while the Prime Minister issued a statement describing the protesters as terrorists and appealing to our countrymen to suppress these terrorists with a strong hand,” the report added.

A second meeting was held in the late evening of August 4 at the Prime Minister’s residence, attended by the Prime Minister herself, the Minister of Home Affairs, the heads of the Army, police, RAB, BGB and Ansar/VDP, the Principal Staff Officer of the Armed Forces Division and the Army’s Quartermaster General, among others. During the meeting, the Army Chief and other security officials reassured the Prime Minister that Dhaka could be held, according to senior officials. A plan was agreed in which the Army and BGB would deploy alongside police to block protesters from accessing central Dhaka, if necessary by force. The Army and BGB were to block access routes into central Dhaka by deploying armoured vehicles and troops and not letting protesters pass, while the police were to “control mobs,” according to senior officials who participated in those meetings”. 

“Consistent with these testimonies, at 00:55 am on 5 August, the former Director-General of the Special Security Forces, which was Sheikh Hasina’s personal bodyguard force, sent two consecutive WhatsApp messages to the Director-General of the BGB. According to hard copies of those messages provided to OHCHR, the first message forwarded a broadcast message that appeared to be from protest leaders informing marchers on routes to take into central Dhaka. The second message appeared to contain a video outlining an order of battle, distinguishing a first and second line of defence, a third long-range unit, a backup unit and a rear guard, along with advice from protest leaders on how to circumvent these lines of defence.

“On the morning of 5 August, Army and BGB personnel largely stood by and did not implement their assigned roles in the plan. One senior official testified that the Army had not deployed the forces that it promised to deploy, while another noted that BGB let some 10,000-15,000 protesters per hour pass by entry points it was supposed to control. A third senior official recounted how he knew that something was going wrong when he saw CCTV footage showing 500-600 protestors moving from Uttara towards central Dhaka without the Army stopping them”. 

“A fourth senior official personally called the Prime Minister to inform her that things were not going according to plan,” it added. 

Between July 15 and August 05 2024, at least six journalists were killed at or around protests in Dhaka, Sylhet and Sirajganj. Around 200 journalists were injured, according to figures provided by a reputable civil society organisation.

In some of the cases below, for which OHCHR obtained first-hand testimony, journalists were victims of security forces indiscriminately firing at protesters. However, in other cases, journalists were directly targeted with violence due to the exercise of their profession, including in some cases by protesters. “Photojournalists were especially subject to aggressions by different actors who did not wish their involvement in events to be recorded, said the report.

mirmostafiz@yahoo.com