Dhaka: The troubles of ousted Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina are going to increase further. A complaint was filed against Sheikh Hasina and several others before the International Crimes Tribunal today, accusing her of committing genocide and crimes against humanity during a massive student movement against her government. An official of the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) investigation agency said, “This complaint was filed by the father of one of the students who died after being shot by police during the protest.”
A Supreme Court lawyer filed this complaint on behalf of Bulbul Kabir, father of ninth grade student Arif Ahmed Siam, who died after being shot by police during the protest on August 5. “We have filed a complaint and investigation into the case has begun,” the daily newspaper ‘The Daily Star’ quoted Ataur Rahman, deputy director of the investigation agency, as saying. “After the investigation is completed, we will submit the report to the tribunal’s chief prosecutor’s office for the next procedure,” he said. According to state news agency BSS, the complaint accuses Hasina and several others of committing “genocide and crimes against humanity”.
Hasina accused of mass murder
The complaint was filed at a time when the interim government said that the killings committed between July 1 and August 5 would be tried by the International Crimes Tribunal. The complaint accuses 76-year-old Hasina and others of carrying out mass murders between July 15 and August 5. As per procedure, the agency will have to investigate the complaints and then file a case before ICT-Bangladesh, which was originally set up to prosecute Bengali-speaking criminals who had sided with Pakistani troops during the 1971 Liberation War.
Apart from Hasina, these people can also be prosecuted
The complaint also names Hasina’s Awami League general secretary and former road transport minister Obaidul Quader, former home minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, former information and broadcasting junior minister Mohammad Ali Arafat and several senior police officers. More than 230 people were killed in Bangladesh in incidents of violence that erupted across the country after the fall of the Hasina government on August 5. The death toll has risen to 560 during the three-week violence that began with a student movement against the controversial reservation system in jobs.