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Chief Advisor Muhammad Yunus has called for the meticulous preservation of records documenting alleged atrocities committed under the administration of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina. During a Sunday meeting with United Nations officials, Yunus emphasised that without a proper archival system it is difficult to know the truth and ensure justice", Dhaka Tribune reported. A statement issued by the chief advisor's press wing said the chief adviser during his conversation with UN Resident Coordinator Gwen Lewis and UN human rights expert Huma Khan cited the crackdown on demonstrators at Shapla Chattar, police brutality against protesters following the Delwar Hossain Sayedee verdict, and years of alleged extrajudicial killings. The UN officials, in response, reaffirmed their willingness to assist Bangladesh in documenting human rights abuses. This is a process of healing and truth-building, Lewis said, offering the UN's expertise in technical assistance and capacity-building. Yunu
A BNP leader was beaten to death in front of his wife by his rivals in Dhaka, police said. Mohammad Babul Mia, the former vice-president of BNP's Kulla union unit, was killed when he and her wife were harvesting mustard near Akshirnagar Housing of Dhamrai upazila on Friday afternoon, Daily Star Bangladesh reported. Babul's wife Yasmin Begum said villagers had a long-standing dispute over Akshirnagar Housing, a real estate business. "Although my husband was not involved in the matter, local criminals Afsar, Arshad, and Monir had been threatening both of us for days," she alleged. "They beat him with sticks and SS pipes, seriously injuring him. They even gouged out both his eyes. When I and some locals tried to intervene and take him to a hospital, they stopped us. Only after he became unconscious did they leave the place," she said. Babul was later taken to Savar Enam Medical College Hospital where doctors declared him dead. Monirul Islam, officer-in-charge of Dhamrai Police Statio
The chief of Bangladesh's border guarding force on Thursday termed the reports of attacks on minorities in his country as "exaggerated", asserting that authorities have taken steps for their protection. Addressing a joint press conference along with chief of India's Border Security Force (BSF) Daljit Singh Chaudhary, Director General of the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) Major General Mohammad Ashrafuzzaman Siddiqui said the Bangladeshi delegation has raised objection with regard to fencing at some places along the Indo-Bangladesh border and it was hopeful that the issues would be resolved in the future. Chaudhary, on his part, said infiltration along the international border has come down substantially after the fall of the Sheikh Hasina government on August 5, 2024. On the issue of minorities, Siddiqui said, "Attacks on minorities in Bangladesh are exaggerated. We got several requests from minorities as they were afraid but BGB convinced them that we will help". The BGB chief said
Bangladesh interim government chief Muhammad Yunus' office on Tuesday said the extradition of deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina from India was Dhaka's top priority. This is the government's top priority, Chief Adviser Yunus' press secretary Shafiqul Alam said in a media briefing, adding that Dhaka would continue its efforts to extradite Hasina to hold her trial in person. He said it was up to the people and political parties of Bangladesh to decide if her fascist Awami League would be able to carry on politics but those allegedly involved in killings, enforced disappearances and other wrongdoings must be brought to justice. The spokesman said the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights' (OHCHR) fact finding report, released last week, revealed that Hasina committed crimes against humanity during her tenure. After the report of the UN and some reports of rights groups were published, pressure has been mounted (on India to return Hasina to Bangladesh), the
Deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina has accused Bangladesh's interim government chief Muhammad Yunus for the lawlessness in the country and said he has unleashed terrorists on its people. The 16-year-long Hasina's Awami League regime was toppled in a students' uprising on August 5, 2024 when she fled Bangladesh for India. He (Yunus) dissolved all inquiry committees and unleashed terrorists to butcher people. They are destroying Bangladesh, Hasina said during a virtual interaction with widows and children of slain police officers killed during the July-August violent anti-government protests in 2024. During the conversations, which appeared on social media on Tuesday, Hasina is seen consoling the mourning family members saying she was expecting to return home and avenge the killings. I will return and avenge the deaths of our policemen, she said and added that when her government was toppled, she too narrowly escaped death, by the grace of God, who definitely kept her alive to do .
Bangladesh's security forces arrested 1,308 people under Operation Devil Hunt, launched overnight amid nationwide vandalism as unrest gripped the country for the past four days, with the interim government vowing to continue the crackdown until all devils were uprooted. Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus-led interim government ordered "Operation Devil Hunt" on Saturday after student activists were injured during vandalism at the house of an Awami League leader on the outskirts of Dhaka. Major media outlets including the Daily Star said on Sunday that joint forces comprising army troops, police and their specialised units arrested 274 people majorly in metropolitan cities and others in different parts of the country in the 24 hours since the operation was launched. The operation will target those who are desperate to destabilise the country . . . it will continue until all devils are rooted out," Home Affairs Adviser Lt Gen (Retd) Jahangir Alam Chowdhury said. According to mainstream medi
Forty people have been arrested in Bangladesh in an operation launched following a violent attack on a student group's activists during vandalism at an Awami League leader's house on the outskirts of Dhaka that left several people injured, according to a media report. Chief Adviser Professor Muhammad Yunus's government ordered "Operation Devil Hunt" on Saturday after the attack on students and civilians in the Gazipur district on Friday night. Superintendent of Police (SP) of Gazipur Chowdhury Jaber Sadek said that the 40 people were rounded up from parts of the district as part of the operation, United News of Bangladesh reported. On Friday night, at least 14 individuals, all belonging to the mobs out to vandalise and destroy all signs of deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina's Awami League party, were injured as they came under attack in Gazipur city's Dakshinkhan area. The violence occurred during the attack on the residence of former Liberation War Affairs Minister Mozammel ...
Bangladesh's interim government headed by Nobel Peace laureate Muhammad Yunus said Friday it will contain vandalism and arson taking place across the country. The development comes amid concern from a major opposition party and neighboring India over attacks on a historic house linked to ousted former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Mobs targeting supporters of Hasina have vandalized homes and businesses in various parts of the country since Wednesday night. Many of the establishments belonging to former lawmakers, Cabinet members and the leaders of Hasina's Awami League party were set on fire, apparently as part of a coordinated campaign involving the former home of Bangladesh's independence leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Hasina's father in Dhaka, the capital. The interim government said Wednesday's attack was sparked by Hasina for regularly making provocative remarks from exile to create instability in Bangladesh. The protesters started storming the house one hour before Hasina began
Bangladesh on Thursday lodged a protest with India over the "false and fabricated statements" made by deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina during her stay in India, the foreign ministry here said. The development comes a day after Hasina delivered a speech via social media on Wednesday night in which she called upon the countrymen to organise a resistance against the current regime. In a statement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it lodged a "strong protest with the Government of India over the false fabricated comments and statements continuously being made in different platforms including social media, by the former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, instigating instability in Bangladesh". The protest note, handed over to the Acting High Commissioner of India in Dhaka, conveys the "deep concern, disappointment and serious reservation" of Bangladesh, as such statements are "hurting the sentiments" of the people in the country, the statement said. The ministry also emphasised that
Thousands of protesters in Bangladesh took out their anger at exiled former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Wednesday by destroying a family home that came to symbolize the country's independence and now, they say, the authoritarianism they believe she led. The attack was sparked by a speech Hasina planned to give to supporters from exile in neighboring India, where she fled last year during a deadly student-led uprising against her 15-year rule. Critics had accused her of suppressing dissent. The house in the capital, Dhaka, had been home to Hasina's late father and Bangladesh's independence leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who declared the country's formal break from Pakistan there in 1971. He was assassinated there in 1975. Hasina later turned the home into a museum. Since she fled the country, some of her supporters have tried to gather there but have been attacked by Hasina's critics, who have attacked other symbols of her government and party since the uprising, ransacking and .
A large group of protesters on Wednesday vandalised and set on fire Bangladesh founder Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's residence in Dhaka during a live online address of his daughter and deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina. Witnesses said several thousand people rallied in front of the house at the capital's Dhanmondi area, which was earlier turned into a memorial museum, since early evening following a social media call for Bulldozer Procession as Hasina was supposed to make her address at 9 pm (BST). Hasina delivered her address organised by the Awami League's now disbanded student wing Chhatra League and called upon the countrymen to organise a resistance against the current regime. They are yet to have the strength to destroy the national flag, the constitution and the independence that we earned at the cost of lives of millions of martyrs with a bulldozer, Hasina said in an apparent reference to Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus's incumbent regime, installed by the Anti-Discrimination ...
Bangladesh's interim government is making all efforts to bring back ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina and others from India under the extradition treaty, Home Adviser Lt Gen (retd.) Md Jahangir Alam Chowdhury said on Wednesday. Hasina, 77, has been living in India since August 5 last year when she fled Bangladesh following a massive student-led protest that toppled her Awami League's 16-year regime. Bangladesh's International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) has issued arrest warrants for Hasina and several former Cabinet ministers, advisers, and military and civil officials for "crimes against humanity and genocide". "We are trying to bring back those who are under trial on charges of crimes against humanity at the ICT," Chowdhury was quoted as saying by state-run BSS news agency. He made the remarks while replying to a question on steps taken by the government to arrest over 100 accused against whom the ICT has issued arrest warrant. Last year, Dhaka sent a diplomatic note to New Delhi .
Ousted former prime minister Sheikh Hasina's Awami League has announced a series of protests demanding the resignation of Professor Muhammad Yunus-led interim government for its "oppression" of the minority Hindu community in Bangladesh. This comes as the first major demonstration by the Awami League, whose most of the leaders have either been arrested or underground since the fall of the Hasina-led government on August 5 last year following a students-led anti-discrimination movement. According to a statement posted on Awami League's verified Facebook page, the party will take to the streets starting February 1 to press for the resignation of the interim government and implement the strike and blockade programmes. The statement said the party would distribute leaflets and campaign for their demands from Saturday to Wednesday. Protest marches and rallies will be held nationwide on February 6, followed by demonstrations and rallies on February 10. It said a nationwide blockade has
Bangladesh's deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina's Awami League would not be allowed to participate in elections, a key adviser of Muhammad Yunus's interim government said on Saturday. "The elections will be contested among pro-Bangladesh groups only, said Mahfuz Alam, a top leader of the Anti-Discrimination Movement, which spearheaded the mass uprising that toppled Hasina's Awami League regime and forced her to flee the country on August 5 last year. Addressing a street rally at central Chandpur district, Alam said only former prime minister Khaleda Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), Jamaat-e-Islam and other pro-Bangladesh groups would carry on their politics in the country. He added that either of these will establish future governance through a fair electoral process. "But Awami League's rehabilitation will not be allowed in this country, said Alam, a de facto minister without portfolio in Chief Adviser Yunus's administration. Alam stated that no election would take pla