On 5 August 2024, the prime minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina, whose party the Awami League had governed since 2009, fled to India in a helicopter, as thousands of protestors marched towards Gono Bhavan, her official residence. This was the culmination of three weeks of protests spear-headed by student groups, initially demanding changes to civil service jobs’ quotas. However, as law enforcement authorities, with the support of ruling party activists, opened fired and killed hundreds of unarmed protestors, the student movement garnered widespread popular support and turned into mass protests.
On 8 August 2024, following three days during which Awami League politicians and minority religious groups seen as supportive of the former ruling party were targeted in recriminatory violence, a new interim government was installed under the leadership of 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohammed Yunus.
From the start, the new government said that it was committed to bringing to justice those responsible for the killings of unarmed protestors. Within weeks of taking up his position as head of the interim government, Yunus requested the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) to undertake a fact-finding mission into human rights’ violations and abuses that occurred between 1 July and 15 August 2024. The new government also stated that it was committed to bringing to justice those implicated in other serious human rights violations that took place during the 15 years of Awami League government, in particular the practice of enforced disappearances.
1,400 people killed in 3 weeks
The killings of demonstrators by security forces started on 16 July 2024 - when six protestors were shot dead by the police - and ended on 5 August, shortly after Hasina fled the country. But the total number of people killed by security forces over this period remains unconfirmed.
The government’s Ministry of Health has so far listed the deaths of 841 people. According to the OHCHR fact finding report, published on 12 February 2024, the country’s National Security Agency provided it with the names of an additional 314 people killed. Altogether, the OHCHR estimates that about 1,400 people were killed in this time period, a number that also includes revenge attacks by protestors. According to the OHCHR report, 52 members of security forces, most of them policemen, were killed, while the Awami League provided a list of 144 of its officials it says were murdered in similar attacks.
In relation to the killings by the security forces, the OHCHR report concludes there were reasonable grounds to believe that the “former government and its security and intelligence apparatus, together with violent elements associated with the Awami League, systematically engaged in serious human rights violations, including hundreds of extrajudicial killings”.
The report adds that “these violations were carried out with the knowledge, coordination and direction of the political leadership and senior security sector officials, in pursuance of a strategy to suppress the protests and related expressions of dissent”, and that they may “amount to crimes against humanity”.
As for the revenge violence that took place between 5 to 8 August, the OHCHR report does blame “supporters, members and local leaders” of the opposition parties, the Jamaat-e-Islami and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, for some of the attacks but states that the available information “has not shown that such incidents were orchestrated or organised by these parties’ national leaderships, which also took steps to condemn violence targeting minority groups”.
Almost 100,000 suspects of “murders”
Shortly after the interim government was installed in power, families of those killed by law enforcement authorities started to file First Information Reports (FIRs) at police stations, often listing hundreds of people as allegedly responsible for the “murder” of their relatives. According to the OHCHR report, as of 31 January 2025, 1,181 FIRs were lodged with the police and are being investigated, listing a total of 98,137 accused, including the names of 25,033 political party leaders. Some FIRs also included lists of pro-Awami League journalists, lawyers or other social activists. Numerous press reports suggest that in many cases, activists of local opposition parties took over the drafting of the FIRs and were responsible for the names listed.
Whilst some of those named may have been linked to a murder, hundreds of those listed were arrested without any investigation undertaken, a move allowed by Bangladeshi laws. Bangladesh authorities have not provided the number of people arrested on the basis of these FIRs.
As the interim government became concerned that people were being arrested without just cause, Police Headquarters issued instructions in September asking the police to “withdraw” the names of those accused in FIRs if preliminary investigations showed they were not involved in the crime. Another concern is the accountability of the police itself, since many of the police officers involved in these arrests and investigating these cases, may themselves have been involved in shooting at protestors in July and August 2024.
Further concerns about those detained under these FIRs relate to access to bail. In many cases, despite police failure to provide the courts with evidence of a link to a “murder”, those detained are routinely denied bail by all courts – the Magistrates, the District and the High courts. Since no one has been charged with an offence yet, let alone faced a trial, there are hundreds of accused in pre-charge detention.
119 accused of crimes against humanity
In 1973, shortly after Bangladesh became independent, the new government enacted the International Crimes (Tribunal) Act to allow it to prosecute Pakistani military officers who had allegedly committed international crimes during the country’s nine month war of independence. These trials never took place, but the Awami League, after it came to power in 2009, used the 1973 law to establish a court, the International Crimes Tribunal of Bangladesh (ICT-BD), to prosecute Bangladeshis, mostly the leaders of the opposition party Jamaat-e-Islami, who had allegedly committed crimes during the 1971 war in support of the Pakistan military. The trials, which resulted in six men being executed, were widely criticized for their lack of due process.
In September 2024, the government appointed a new Chief Prosecutor, Muhammad Tajul Islam, to the ICT-BD to prosecute those accused of international crimes in relation to the July and August 2024 killings. This appointment was criticised by some as Tajul Islam was a senior defence lawyer for the Jamaat-e-Islami in the previous trials at the tribunal, but he insists he will carry out his work independently.
So far, the ICT-BD prosecutor’s office has received 278 complaints from victims. Following initial investigation, prosecutors have filed 18 criminal cases with the tribunal accusing a total of 119 people, all of whom have had arrest warrants issued against them. As of February 2025, 39 of these accused are in detention, some of whom were already detained for “murder” cases.
Those currently detained under the ICT-BD Act include the former minister for Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs, Anisul Huq, the former director general of the National Telecommunication Monitoring Centre, Major General Ziaul Ashan, as well as the former head of the National Security Intelligence Agency, Monirul Islam, but most of the accused are thought to have escaped from the country.
Sheikh Hasina, who now lives in India, is of course a target of ICT-BD prosecutors. The Bangladeshi government has made a request to the Indian government for her extradition, but it is unlikely that India will comply. If Hasina is not extradited, the Bangladeshi authorities could hold a trial in absentia, or file a complaint with the International Criminal Court (ICC) requesting it to open a case against her.
In November 2024, the government appointed the international lawyer Toby Cadman as a special prosecutorial advisor and also made some significant amendments to the 1973 Act to bring the country’s legislation closer to international standards, but death penalty continues to apply, and there is no proper process of interlocutory appeals nor protections in relation to trials in absentia, similar to those that exist in international jurisdictions where the law allows such trials to take place.
There are also concerns about the level of experience of the judges as well as their independence, one of whom, for example, used to be a member of an opposition party.
Immunity for revenge killings
The current government has not sought accountability for those involved in revenge crimes either during the protests or immediately after Hasina fled the country, between 5 August and 8 August, when no government was in place. On 14 October 2024, the new interim government adopted an order stating that “students and citizens who put forth all efforts to make this uprising successful will not face prosecution, arrest, or harassment for their acts between July 15 and August 8”.
The OHCHR report states that the government sought to justify the provision of immunity for those who committed serious revenge crimes by saying that the violence in question was “mostly done as desperate self-defence or in response to extreme provocation” and that there needed to be “discretion in prosecution to stabilise the situation, heal the nation in the post-conflict period and promote national reconciliation”.
Many are critical of this immunity. Nirmal Rozario, from the Bangladesh Hindu, Buddhist, Christian Unity Council told the AFP news agency that “if the government means to ensure good governance, they should investigate each and every case and try the perpetrators”.
Hasina allegedly “responsible” of enforced disappearances
In August 2024, the new interim government set up a five-member Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances under the chairmanship of a retired High Court judge. In its preliminary report, part of which was published in December 2024, this Commission stated that it had received 1,676 complaints of disappearances and undertaken a preliminary review of 758. “Victims were detained for varying periods, ranging from 48–60 hours to several weeks or months, and in some cases, up to eight years,” the report stated. “Contrary to the perception that the victims were exclusively held in secret cells, interviews with survivors have revealed that many were detained in cells that also housed legal detainees.”
Moreover, it stated that the “culture of enforced disappearance was designed over 15 years to remain undetectable” and that Hasina was “prime facie responsible for acts of enforced disappearances”.
Following the report’s publication, the Chief Prosecutor filed a case alleging that 12 people, including the former prime minister, her then defence adviser, Major General Tarique Ahmed Siddique, and the former Inspector General of Police, Benazir Ahmed, committed crimes against humanity in their involvement with disappearances of hundreds of people. “Over the past 15 years, a culture of fear was established in Bangladesh through enforced disappearances and crossfires. Thousands of people were abducted by various forces, either in plainclothes or in uniform. Most of them never returned,” the ICT-BD chief prosecutor, Tajul Islam, told journalists at the time. In response, the ICT-BD has issued arrest warrants against the 12 officials accused of crimes against humanity regarding enforced disappearances.
