International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) Chief Prosecutor Muhammad Tajul Islam has said the Fact-Finding Report of the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) will be used at the tribunal as an irrefutable evidence for crimes against humanity during the July-August student-led mass uprising, reports BSS.
"There is no basic difference between OHCHR report and the evidences found in the probe of the ICT investigation agency. It was made very clear by the report that Awami League (AL) as party directly used deadly weapons on people," Tajul said at a briefing at his office in the capital on Thursday.
AL's front organisations Bangladesh Chhatra League and Jubo League alongside different security forces, following the specific planning and direction of party chief and then prime minister Sheikh Hasina, party general secretary Obaidul Quader and former home minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal also used deadly weapons on people.
The ICT chief prosecutor said the OHCHR fact-finding report is a very clear and extremely strong evidence for crimes against humanity and will be used by the prosecution at the tribunal.
The fact-finding report titled 'Human Rights Violations and Abuses related to the Protests of July and August 2024 in Bangladesh' was released on February 12.
The report states: "OHCHR finds that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the former government and its security and intelligence apparatus, together with violent elements associated with the AL, systematically engaged in serious human rights violations, including hundreds of extrajudicial killings, other use of force violations involving serious injuries to thousands of protesters, extensive arbitrary arrest and detention, and torture and other forms of ill-treatment."
OHCHR further has reasonable grounds to believe that these violations were carried out with the knowledge, coordination and direction of the political leadership and senior security sector officials, according to the report.
OHCHR assesses that as many as 1,400 people could have been killed during the protests, the vast majority of whom were killed by military rifles and shotguns loaded with lethal metal pellets commonly used by Bangladesh's security forces, the report reveals.
It shows thousands more suffered severe, often life-altering injuries. More than 11,700 people were arrested and detained according to Police and RAB. Reported fatality figures indicate that around 12-13 per cent of those killed were children.
The report also mentions that the Bangladesh Police had provided OHCHR with the names and functions of 95 members of the police, AL or AL affiliated organisations whom the Police considers having provided weapons to citizens for use in violent attacks during the protests.
Among them, 10 persons were members of parliament at the time. 14 local Awami League leaders, 16 Jubo League leaders, 16 Chhatra League leaders and 7 members of the police were involved in the crimes.
