Men run past a shopping center which was set on fire by protesters during a rally against Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her government demanding justice for the victims killed in the recent countrywide deadly clashes, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Sunday, Aug. 4, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

A report by the UN Human Rights Office has held the deposed Awami League government of Bangladesh carried out largescale repression that led to human rights violations and abuses during July-August 2024 in Bangladesh. The report prepared by a fact finding team also observed that violence against minority Hindus and indigenous communities of Bangladesh took place after the fall of the Hasina government when the interim government was in charge. The interim government of Prof. Mohammad Yunus has welcomed the report and termed it a “thorough independent investigation”.

“Based on direct testimony from senior officials involved and other inside sources, the OHCHR was able to establish that the integrated and systematic effort using the entire range of police, paramilitary, military and intelligence actors, as well as violent elements linked to the Awami League, to commit serious violations and abuses occurred with the full knowledge, coordination and direction of the political leadership,” the report has stated.

The report also pointed out that violence against minority Hindu community and the indigenous communities in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) took place soon after the fall of the Hasina government. “Violent mobs engaged in serious acts of revenge violence, including killings, targeting police and Awami League officials, especially early August onwards. Some Hindus, Ahmadiya Muslims and indigenous people from the Chittagong Hill Tracts were also subjected to human rights abuses, including the burning of homes, and attacks on places of worship, “ the report noted.

The Yunus government in Dhaka that welcomed the report, however, pointed out that the attacks by mobs against the Hindu community and the Ahmadiya Muslims resulted from “intersecting motives”. “Different and often intersecting motives drove these attacks, ranging from religious and ethnic discrimination to perceived opportunities for revenge against Awami League supporters among minorities, local communal disputes, including about land and interpersonal issues.”

Human rights activist and Director of Rights and Risks Analysis Group Suhas Chakma has criticised the UN report for saying “While accountability for human rights violations by Sheikh Hasina’s regime must be established, the UN Inquiry Report has failed because of the restrictions imposed by the interim government headed by Dr. Mohammad Yunus to investigate human rights violations only from 5 to 15 August 2024.”

Dhaka:

Bangladesh’s interim leader Muhammad Yunus, who heads the caretaker government installed after an August revolution, said Monday that general elections would be held late next year or in early 2026.

Pressure has been growing on Nobel Peace Prize winner Yunus — appointed the country’s “chief adviser” after the student-led uprising that toppled ex-premier Sheikh Hasina in August — to set a date.

The 84-year-old microfinance pioneer is leading a temporary administration to tackle what he has called the “extremely tough” challenge of restoring democratic institutions in the South Asian nation of some 170 million people.

“Election dates could be fixed by the end of 2025 or the first half of 2026,” he said in a broadcast on state television.

Hasina, 77, fled by helicopter to neighbouring India as thousands of protesters entered the prime minister’s palace in Dhaka.

Her government was also accused of politicising courts and the civil service, as well as staging lopsided elections, to dismantle democratic checks on its power.

Hasina’s 15-year rule saw widespread human rights abuses, including the mass detention and extrajudicial killings of her political opponents.

Yunus has launched commissions to oversee a raft of reforms he says are needed, and setting an election date depends on what political parties agree.

“Throughout, I have emphasised that reforms should take place first before the arrangements for an election,” he said. 

“If the political parties agree to hold the election on an earlier date with minimum reforms, such as having a flawless voter list, the election could be held by the end of November,” he added.

But including the full list of electoral reforms would delay polls by a few months, he said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)