HRW repeats call to disband RAB

New York-based rights organisation Human Rights Watch on Friday reiterated its call on Bangladesh government to disband the Rapid Action Battalion and replace it with a ‘rights respecting force.’
The rights watchdog reiterated the call in a statement following a January 16 verdict convicting 25 battalion members 10 civilians of abduction and murder of seven people in Narayanganj 2014.
In the statement, its South Asia director Meenakshi Ganguly stated that those convicted were not the only ones responsible for the situation. 
‘The government has responsibilities too, because of the climate of impunity it has created. In recent cases, when RAB and other law enforcement agencies have disappeared people, witnesses say officers arrived claiming they were from the administration, an open admission they worked for the state,’ the statement read on the website of the right group. 
It stated that many of the disappeared people had later turned up dead.
It also stated that while in opposition, the Awami League called for the disbanding of the battalion. 
‘Before taking office in 2009, prime minister Sheikh Hasina said she would reform RAB. This has not happened, so it is time for the government to take immediate steps to disband RAB and replace it with a rights respecting force,’ the statement read.
It said that for years, the battalion had been deployed by successive governments not only to fight crime, but often as an in-house death squad, leaving a string of extrajudicial killings – often referred to as crossfire –, torture, disappearances, and arbitrary arrests in their wake. 
On January 16, the Narayanganj District and Sessions Judge’s Court sentenced 26 people, including 16 battalion members, to death for the abduction and murder of seven people in 2014. 
Nine battalion members were sentenced to prison terms. 
‘Human Rights Watch opposes the death penalty and will urge it not be carried out,’ the statement read.
On April 27, 2014, Nazrul Islam and senior lawyer, Chandan Kumar Sarkar, and five others were abducted at gun point, were killed later and dumped in Shitalakkhya. Their bodies were found floated in the river Sitalakhya.
The statement also said that members of the Detective Branch of the police in recent years had also been responsible for RAB-style serious human rights violations, including deliberately maiming suspects in custody by shooting them in the leg.
Earlier on the day, Battalion director general Benazir Ahmed told media that the seven-murder verdict of Narayanganj would not affect the image of his force.
‘They [the convicted battalion members] got punishment for what they did, RAB is not responsible for that,’ he said in a function in Rangpur.
Law minister Anisul Haque earlier said that the battalion would not be disbanded.
Since 2011, the rights group in several occasions called for disbanding of the battalion for its failure in maintaining human rights. 

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