A day after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled Bangladesh on Aug. 5, Major General Ziaul Ahsan of the Bangladesh Army was sacked for his suspected role as the mastermind behind scores of enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings.
The same evening, Ziaul boarded a commercial flight in Dhaka, attempting to flee Bangladesh. When the plane was about to take off, it was brought back from the runway to the boarding bridge. The former intelligence chief was taken off the aircraft and detained by the army authorities.
On Aug. 15, the army authority handed him over to the police and he was arrested in a case filed over the death of a shopkeeper who was shot dead during the nationwide wave of protests that preceded Hasina’s resignation.
Ziaul is just one among numerous members of Hasina’s party, police and army officers, judges, other high officials, high-profile businessmen and others who have gone underground or fled the country fearing violent reprisals from mobs and arrest by the authorities.
Immediately after Hasina’s fall, many fled to neighboring India by crossing the porous border illegally. Others flew out of the country and managed to reach the United States, Canada, the U.K., Turkey and other countries, according to news reports and an opposition party spokesperson.
A 34-year-old leader from Hasina’s Awami League party who crossed into India on Aug. 6 told VOA that he was among those Bangladeshis, mostly leaders and activists from the party, who made it to India immediately after Hasina’s fall.
“With three of my party colleagues, I entered India, illegally,” said the man, who requested anonymity for fear of arrest in India or retaliation from the new government in Bangladesh.
“A mob came to my home looking for me,” he said in Kolkata, where he is hiding now. “Somehow, I managed to give them a slip. They could have lynched me if they found me there. I am very lucky to be able to enter India.“The mobs that were attacking us are not there now. But I still fear being arrested if I return to Bangladesh now. Like thousands of others, I have entered illegally. I am afraid of legal action in India, too. ... I am very anxious.”
Years of human rights abuses
Mohammad Ashrafuzzaman, who has been documenting rights violations in Bangladesh for more than 15 years, said the attacks on anyone associated with Hasina and the security services were motivated by years of human rights abuses.
“After the ouster of Sheikh Hasina, they are either fleeing Bangladesh or, going in hiding in the country to escape people’s retaliation for the crimes against humanity they committed during her 15-year regime,” said Ashrafuzzaman, who is now with the Australia-based Capital Punishment Justice Project.
“Individually and with command responsibility, Ziaul Ahsan indulged in multiple types of gross human rights violations, including enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings, mostly to help Hasina crack down on her political rivals and other dissidents. After Hasina’s fall, he attempted to flee Bangladesh, trying to escape arrest and prosecution.”
The ire of the mobs was directed most intensely at the police and the Awami League because of their roles in seeking to suppress the wave of student protests that toppled Hasina.
According to an Aug. 16 report from the U.N.’s human rights office, nearly 400 people, mainly protesters, were killed in the three weeks leading up to Hasina’s ouster. It said about 250 people died in the following two days, during which Awami League leaders, supporters, minorities, police personnel and their family members were mainly targeted.
Some attempting to flee Bangladesh were caught by vigilante groups and handed over to police, who now stand accused of perpetuating some of the same tactics against the Awami League leaders that were previously used against their opponents.
Meenakshi Ganguly, deputy director of the Asia Division of Human Rights Watch, recently said in an email to The Associated Press that it was extremely concerning that the justice system “is replicating its abusive and partisan behavior since the fall of the Awami League government of Hasina with arbitrary arrests and failure in due process, merely reversing those targeted.”
“While there is legitimate anger over the abuses under Sheikh Hasina’s authoritarian governance, the focus should be on reform, not reprisal, which will only serve to undermine the pledges of the interim government,” she said.
Top officials on the run
Hasina’s law minister, Anisul Huq, and private industry and investment adviser Salman F. Rahman were trying to flee Dhaka by boat on Aug. 13, disguised as common villagers. But private citizens recognized and detained them before handing them over to the police. The two were arrested in connection with the death of two students who had been shot dead during the protests.
AHM Shamsuddin Chowdhury Manik, a former Supreme Court judge, was caught by Bangladeshi border guards on Aug. 23 while he was trying to cross the land border into India illegally. He was arrested on charges of attempted illegal border crossing.
When Manik was being taken to court, a mob attacked him violently, leaving one of his testicles ruptured and requiring surgery.
Other Awami League officials have faced similar attacks, according to news reports. A Dhaka newspaper, the Daily Star, reported that former social welfare minister Dipu Moni and former deputy sports minister Arif Khan Joy were assaulted on their way into court for a hearing on Aug. 20.
Among the many high-profile Awami League politicians and government officials who have gone underground is former Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan, who disappeared from his house as soon as Hasina fled Bangladesh.
Awami League General Secretary Obaidul Quader, who was also Hasina’s minister for road transport, is also on the run. Some say he had fled the country a day before Hasina’s ouster while others say he is hiding inside Bangladesh.
On Aug. 18, military authorities announced that they had provided shelter at an army cantonment to 626 persons immediately after Hasina’s downfall because “they were scared of their lives.”
According to the army statement, those who received protection included 515 police officers, 24 senior politicians and five high-profile judges. Almost all of them left the cantonment voluntarily on Aug. 18, after the violence in the country settled down, the statement said.
Dhaka-based political analyst Zahed Ur Rahman told VOA that key figures in Hasina’s administration and security services had good reason to fear retribution from the mobs once she had departed.
“Awami League party and law enforcement agencies tortured hundreds of thousands of people in many ways during her regime. People became helpless victims of extortion. In the last three general elections, they could not cast their votes. Many close to Hasina amassed massive wealth through illicit means. For many such reasons people were frustrated with the regime,” Rahman said.
“Hasina’s party leaders and other government officials knew they would face violent retribution from the people once Hasina was overthrown. So, as soon as Hasina was ousted, they fled the country or went underground, to escape people’s wrath,” he added.
