No 'crossfire' halt despite promise: AI

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Amnesty International (AI) has come down hard on the incumbent government for not stopping extrajudicial killings as it pledged, reports bdnews24.com.
In its annual report, the UK-based human rights watchdog also criticised human rights violations in the trials of BDR members and violence against women.
The organisation launched Amnesty International Report 2010: State of the World's Human Rights, on Thursday and the 430-page report has dealt with major abuses that happened in 2009 in 159 countries.
In its assessment on Bangladesh, it was stated that prime minister Sheikh Hasina after assuming power had pledged that the government would end extrajudicial executions.
Police and RAB were implicated in the alleged extra-judicial executions of up to 70 criminal suspects in the first nine months of 2009. Police authorities usually characterised suspected extrajudicial executions as deaths from "crossfire" or after a "shoot-out".
Referring to a "crossfire" event, the report said family members of Mohsin Sheikh and Mohammad Ali Jinnah, two pro-government student leaders, alleged that RAB shot the two men dead.
"The RAB claimed that the men disregarded a warning to stop at a checkpoint. It said that in the "gunfight" that followed, the men were shot dead. An autopsy of the bodies showed that none of the bullets fired by RAB officers had gone astray, which suggested that this was a planned killing and not a "gunfight"." See more on Page 2