A leading human rights organization has issued a stark warning about deepening lawlessness, mobocracy, and impunity for armed terrorists, militants, extortionists and rapists in Bangladesh, even after the February 12 national elections that brought the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) to power.
Write For Rights, a global advocacy group focused on justice, freedom of expression, and the rule of law, condemned what it described as a persistent breakdown in governance since August 2024. The organization highlighted the failure to curb militant activities and criminal resurgence under both the previous Yunus-led interim administration and the current BNP-led government.
According to the statement, authorities have not apprehended around 3,000 listed terrorists, including 352 trained shooters and 124 members of the banned Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB). Many secured bail and resumed killings and extortion. Police data shows concentrations in major cities: 115 in Dhaka, 180 in Chattogram, 90 in Sylhet, 42 in Khulna, 40 in Rajshahi, 20 in Gazipur, and 12 in Barishal.
Critics allege selective omissions from these lists, particularly figures linked to BNP and Jamaat, such as Zakir Khan, Sajjad, Jasimuddin Rahmani, and Shafiur Rahman Farabi, who have remained free since the political shift in August 2024.
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The release pointed to notorious criminal Sheikh Mohammad Aslam, alias Sweden Aslam—who faces 22 cases, including nine murders—and was freed on bail on September 4, 2024, after 27 years in prison. He and others like Ekram Dewan, Rony, Pichchi Helal, Emon, SM Arman, and Freedom Rasu reportedly resumed operations unchecked.
Adding to concerns, militant patron Mufti Harun Izhar—linked to groups like Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, and local outfits including Hizb ut-Tahrir, Hefazat-e-Islam, and Jamaat-Shibir—recently met Law Minister Asaduzzaman to push for releasing imprisoned militants and dropping anti-terrorism cases. Reports tie Harun’s family to HuJI-B origins, raising alarms about official tolerance of extremism.
Despite Home Minister Salahuddin Ahmed’s March 4 directive for police to target extortionists and terrorists nationwide, progress appears limited. The government has recommended withdrawing 2,208 cases against opposition figures from the prior Awami League era, following the interim period’s withdrawal of 23,865 cases and mass releases.
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Conversely, Write For Rights claims some 400,000 Awami League members, minority leaders, journalists, lawyers, and professionals faced arbitrary arrests under the Yunus administration, with over half still detained without trial under the BNP government. Reports include torture, medical neglect, bail denials, rearrests, over 1,000 targeted killings in mob violence, 48 custodial deaths, and more than 40 extrajudicial killings since August 2024.
Probir Kumar Sarker, founder and chairperson of Write For Rights, stated: “This selective enforcement has fostered a culture of impunity, and enabled mob violence, extortion, and militant resurgence while crushing dissent. Human rights reports document hundreds of mob lynchings, rising sexual violence, and attacks on minorities, underscoring a broader collapse of the rule of law.”
The group demanded:
– Immediate halt to arbitrary arrests, prolonged detention, custodial killings, and torture.
– Impartial review of cases against Awami League members and regime critics.
– Investigations into murders, custodial deaths, torture, and mob attacks on Awami League affiliates, police, and minorities.
– Compensation for victims of violence, vandalism, and looting since August 5, 2024.
– Arrests of armed terrorists, militants, and rapists, including bailed offenders resuming crimes.
– Recovery of illegal and looted arms.
Probir Kumar Sarker urged the United Nations, human rights bodies, and the international community to pressure the BNP-led government to restore democratic principles and the rule of law.