Upwards of a thousand people died in the deadly clashes that broke out across Bangladesh in general and Dhaka in particular during the course of the students-led protests, the Home Affairs advisor in the Mohammad Yunus-led interim government, Brigadier General (retd) Sakhwat Hossain told Northeast News today.
In a 45-minute free-wheeling interview over phone, the 76-year-old Hossain, who has already set in motion a series of extensive and intensive investigations into the violence since he took charge on August 8, said that “in some places in Dhaka and elsewhere in the districts, people, mostly students and youngsters, were mowed down or shot by lethal weapons by the erstwhile Sheikh Hasina’s police force”.
Senior police officers Northeast News spoke with on August 15 said that the Home Affairs Ministry’s will “concentrate” on Awami League central and district-level leaders who are suspected to have fled to India and other countries.
The Yunus dispensation, top police sources said, will go “phase by phase” to hunt down the district-level leaders but they were especially interested in tracking down erstwhile Information Minister Mohammad Ali Arafat, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal and Foreign Minister Hasan Mahmood.
“It was earlier believed that Hasan had been detained by the army. He has not yet been found. He is hiding somewhere and we are trying to find out the place. Half the Awami League regime leaders will be traced and action in accordance with the law will be taken against them,” the sources said.
Branding Hasina – the ousted prime minister fled Dhaka for New Delhi on August 5 – as a “megalomaniac” who “presided over a tyrannical reign” and “did not bother about life”, Hossain said that some of her cabinet ministers, primarily those like “Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal (Home), Anisul Huq (Law) and Obaidul Quader (Awami League General Secretary), besides senior police officers, were integral parts of a killing machine”.
Disclosing that Kamal “made more than Taka 2,000 crore” in the course of the Awami League’s tenure in government, Hossain revealed that he has instructed the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) to fast-track the investigations into massive corruption indulged in by the Awami League apparatchik.
“This will be followed by an omnibus order that will institute sweeping investigations into the murders, arson, and looting that began on August 14 across Bangladesh,” Hossain said, emphasizing that the probes will be on the lines of the Nuremberg trials in post-1945 Germany.
Disclosing that since taking charge of Home Affairs he has met a large number of police officers, Hossain said, “it took me five hours of continuous discussions and deliberations to pacify them. I asked them who they killed and under whose orders in the Hasina regime. Many of the officers broke down and wept. They touched my feet and embraced me as a gesture of remorse a forgiveness”.
The Home Affairs ministry under Hossain has already ordered that the uniform for the police force be changed along with the insignia. “This proposal will need cabinet approval which will hopefully come through in the next few days,” Hossain said.
While the Yunus-led dispensation will take a considered view on how to deal with the police force, Hossain revealed that “reconciliation will be a Herculean task, a coterie of officers has been identified. These officers were into drug running and indulged and made huge money in transfer-posting rackets. They will be punished severely once the investigations are concluded”.
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Pointing out that the Yunus-led regime is “surrounded by unseen conspirators and enemies”, Hossain said his “message to the Indian establishment is – do you want a friendly or hostile regime in Dhaka?” Hossain further said that “a country that seeks to become a superpower should not be seen as interfering in the affairs of a neighbouring country such as Bangladesh. We are not some tukde tukde gang”.
