During her 15 years rule, Sheikh Hasina had committed vicious crimes one after another. From keeping people detained and torturing them at secret detention centers known as Aynaghar to using her puppet law enforcement agencies to kill hundreds of students and people during the mass uprising that took place in July and August last year, the list of her crimes goes on. Although common sense tells us that no punishment is enough for her, the reality is different. Receiving support from the neighbouring country, Sheikh Hasina and some of the top brass of her party are still alive, leading an unperturbed, guilt-free life, with even making occasional speeches from there with no sound of remorse. What’s more alarming is the narrative which is being set by some sections of Bangladeshi politics and society, who are showing eagerness to forgive Sheikh Hasina and make way for Awami League’s return as a political party despite the atrocities committed by them.
The extent of Sheikh Hasina and her party’s crimes came to the forefront once again on 12 February, when Chief Adviser of Bangladesh Professor Muhammad Yunus along with other government officials, journalists and victims visited one of the Aynaghars at Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) Headquarters in the capital’s Uttara. The images and videos that surfaced on social media after the visit laid bare how inhumanely and brutally Sheikh Hasina and her party leaders orchestrated a terrorised state structure and inflicted the steamroller of repression on the Bangladeshi people during their 15-year reign of terror.
The Aynaghar visit by the Chief Adviser coincided with the publication of a fact-finding report by OHCHR, an agency of the United Nations, which found Sheikh Hasina and her regime directly responsible for killing hundreds of students and people during the July uprising. The crimes committed by Hasina and her men were termed as ‘Crimes Against Humanity’ in the report, making way for the interim government to take actions against the former dictator.
Based on the Aynaghar and OHCHR Report episodes, we also demand exemplary punishment for Sheikh Hasina and the top brass of her Awami League party, including Obaidul Quader and Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal. We urge the interim government to take urgent steps to repatriate Hasina and her party high-ups from India and putting them up for trial. We also call upon the government to initiate the process of banning Awami League as a political party and setting such an example so that they can never return to the political scene of Bangladesh, just like their student unit, the Chhatra League, has been banned by the government.
We also call upon the remaining political parties in the country, including old time Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, to learn lessons from the Aynaghar and July Massacre episode and the fate that has befallen Sheikh Hasina and her party men alongside Awami League as the political party. We do not want the repetition of another tyrant like Sheikh Hasina, and if that happens, it is our belief that the people of Bangladesh will rise to the occasion and resist their evil designs once again. But, it is our hope that the political forces of the nation will avoid the path of further bloodshed and damage through devising a new roadmap to initiate a new kind of politics in Bangladesh, one which will ensure peace, justice and security for everyone living within the boundary of this country.
May a new Bangladesh emerge from the ashes of what Sheikh Hasina and her cronies have left behind.
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