Prof Yunus Nurtures Weapons against Hasina

By Nava Thakuria, New Age Islam 15 February 2025 A UN report describing the horrific picture of atrocities on agitating students and common Bangladeshi nationals by the then Awami League-led government in Dhaka and lately surfaced the presence of torture cells once used to terrorize the opponents during Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s consecutive 15 years long tenure have now empowered the current interim government to purse for punishment to the ousted lady premier and many of her associates. Led by Nobel laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus, the interim administration (which was formed following Hasina’s flee to neighbouring India on 5 August 2024 to take an urgent refuge), has already urged New Delhi to hand over Hasina to face hundreds of criminal cases in her home country. In a recent media interview, Prof Yunus asserted that Hasina must be brought back to justice, otherwise the people of Bangladesh will not forgive the caretaker government. It may be mentioned that the UN Human Rights office sent a probing team to Bangladesh following the request of the interim government chief Prof Yunus in September to conduct an independent and impartial fact-finding inquiry into the alleged human rights violations and abuses during the deadly events that took place between 1 July and 15 August 2024.The team’s report, published in Geneva on 12 February 2025, indicated that Hasina government’s various machineries along with violent elements linked to Awami League systematically engaged in a range of serious human rights violations during the nationwide protests. “The security and intelligence services of Bangladesh’s former government killed as many as 1,400 people – where 12-13 per cent were children – and arbitrarily arrested or detained more than 11,700 others during the student-led protests”, said the UN report, adding that Bangladesh Police recorded 44 of their officers were also killed in the mass uprising against the Hasina government. The series of protests were triggered by the south Asian nation’s higher court directives to reinstate a quota system in public service jobs (to the descendants of independence war fighters). The public angers were rooted in broader grievances about governance and corruption, deepening economic inequalities and lack of access to economic, social and cultural benefits. “The brutal response was a calculated and well-coordinated strategy by the former government to hold onto power in the face of mass opposition,” commented UNHR chief Volker Türk, adding that there were reasonable grounds to believe hundreds of extrajudicial killings, extensive arbitrary arrests and detentions, and torture, were carried out with the knowledge, coordination and direction of the political leadership and senior security officials as part of a strategy to suppress the protests and related expressions of dissent. These serious human rights violations also raise concerns from the perspective of international criminal law, so that additional criminal investigations are warranted to determine the extent to which they may also amount to crimes against humanity, he added. The UN investigating team revealed that over 75 % of the victims died from gunfire and 60 % of them were shot with weapons meant for war. Senior official testimony indicated that Hasina herself directed the security forces to ‘kill protesters and hide their bodies’ to quell the agitation. The report also provided a number of recommendations to reform the security agencies and abolish a host of repressive laws as well as for implementing broader changes to the political system and economic governance in the Muslim majority nation with over 170 million populaces. A large number of Hindus, Ahmadiya Muslims and indigenous people from the Chittagong hill tracts also faced rights violations. Some 100 arrests in relation to attacks on distinct religious and indigenous groups were made, but many perpetrators of violence enjoyed impunity. Welcoming the report, Prof Yunus observed that it has documented all killings, disappearances and torture on the agitating students. The octogenarian banker turned caretaker regime chief asserted that all those involved in crimes against the Bangla population in the last one & half decades would be punished under the law. Sharing his first-hand experience to visit Aynaghar (house of mirror/glass) in Dhaka recently, Prof Yunus termed those houses as torture cells and secret prisons. In these notorious Aynaghars established in different parts of the country, political opponents were subjected to inhumane atrocities following the direction of Septuagenarian Hasina to suppress dissenting voices. Terming Aynaghars as horrific, Prof Yunus lamented that unusual cruelty took place there where the victims were deprived of basic minimum rights. The Yunus administration sent a diplomatic note to New Delhi in December asking for Hasina’s extradition. Dhaka, after revoking passports of Hasina and over 90 others accusing their involvement in enforced disappearances and the last July-August killings, recently sent necessary documents to New Delhi for her early repatriation under the prisoner exchange agreement between the two nations. As New Delhi is yet to entertain the request, the Bangla government now thinks of seeking an international intervention if the process takes a very long period. Days back, the country's International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) also issued arrest warrants for Hasina and several others accusing genocide under their influences. Originally formed by Hasina to try the pro-Pakistani elements against the 1971 Liberation War, the ICT has now been used against the daughter of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman by the current administration. Meanwhile, a few Indian voices urge New Delhi to send back Hasina respecting the extradition treaty between India and Bangladesh signed in 2013 (and amended in 2016) and also deport millions of illegal Bangladeshis and Rohingya immigrants taking shelter in India. A leader of Shiv Sena (Uddhav Bal Thackeray faction) even asked the Centre to find inspiration from the US government in Washington DC to deport all illegal nationals from India (including Hasina). Some pointed out that Hasina should not be entertained with a permanent asylum as her presence and occasional outbursts will only deteriorate the Indo-Bangla relations in the days to come. One must realize the fact that not a single nation across the globe came forward appreciating New Delhi for giving shelter to Hasina (not to speak of offering asylum to the deposed leader) till date. …. Nava Thakuria is an official representative of PEC in South & Southeast Asia URL: https://www.newageislam.com/islam-politics/muhammad-yunus-sheikh-hasina-bangladesh/d/134625 New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism