At least a dozen people died in detention in Bangladesh since last year’s protests, including by torture and gunshot wounds, a rights group said on Wednesday.
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Odhikar, one of the South Asian nation’s largest human rights organisations, demanded justice from the interim government that took over after the student-led protests that toppled former prime minister Sheikh Hasina.
“The interim government should not let these crimes go unpunished,” Odhikar director ASM Nasiruddin Elan said. “Those involved in extrajudicial killings must be brought to justice.”
Odhikar detailed in a report how security forces during Hasina’s 15-year-long autocratic rule engaged in widespread killings to bolster her power – and accused the same agencies of continuing to commit human rights violations since she fled.
Hasina escaped into exile to neighbouring India on August 5, capping an uprising in which the United Nations said more than 1,400 people could have been killed, and has since defied an arrest warrant to face trial for crimes against humanity.
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Since she left, Bangladeshi security forces have carried out sweeping arrests against supporters of Hasina’s Awami League party and loyalists of what they dub her “fascist” ex-government.