DHAKA: Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has said no one involved with drug dealing in the country will be spared in the country’s “war on drugs.” She was addressing a news conference on Wednesday afternoon at her official residence Ganabhaban.
One hundred and twenty-three people have been killed during the ongoing “war” in the past 15 days. The police in Bangladesh started countrywide anti-drug operations on May 14, directed by the Inspector General of Police to run an all-out war against the drug dealers.
Human rights activists of the country urged the government to protect the fundamental rights of the people, calling the killings “extrajudicial.”
The latest “shootout” incidents on Tuesday night took another 15 lives of alleged drug peddlers throughout the country. The authorities have said they will continue the anti-drug movement until the drug trafficking situation comes under control.
During the press conference Hasina stressed that there were no innocent people who had been victimized in this “war” as the law enforcers’ operations were based on long-term intelligence information.
“Show me an incident where an innocent person has been victimized (during the drive). We’ll surely take steps if any innocent person falls victim to the drive,” she said.
She also stressed the need to continue the anti-narcotic crackdown as drug addiction was a social problem for the country. “Drugs spread like a disease in the society … Nobody will be spared, however influential he may be,” Hasina added. “We must root out the curse of drugs from the society … If some incident takes place during a drive, and if you (the media) highlight it, then shall we stop them (the raids)?”
During the press briefing, she said the security agencies had arrested at least 10,000 people in connection with drug dealing.
“Operations will continue until we have control of the situation,” says Asadujjaman Khan, home minister. He said that so far there was no certain time frame to end the “war” on drugs. “We will do all we can. Nothing has been finalized. We will do what we feel is best.”
Advocate Sultana Kamal, renowned human rights activist and the chairperson of Transparency International Bangladesh, has urged that any kind of extrajudicial killing should stop.
She told Arab News: “The state should stop all these extrajudicial killings since they are contrary to our constitution and the conventional law of the country.”
She said that earlier she and her colleagues had even approached the court for a resolution to stop the extrajudicial killing. The court wanted to know why extrajudicial killings should not be declared illegal. But unfortunately the government did not reply till now. Kamal said: “The persons responsible for these killings should be brought to justice.”
The country’s main opposition party, the BNP, is seeing the ongoing anti-drug operations as a political move by the ruling party Awamileague.
Barrister Rumin Farhana, assistant foreign affairs secretary of the BNP, said: “In the name of the anti-drug operations the police in many areas were taking bribes from people, and later on the victims were put into ‘crossfire.’ We have reported two such cases in the past couple of days.”
She said that no country in the world had succeeded in handing drug-dealing through extrajudicial killing. This approach has failed in the Philippines and Mexico. Farhana believes drugs cannot be completely wiped out from society. But we can control the problem.
“Since it is a general election year, the government is trying to intimidate the opposition supporters and leaders through this anti-drug crackdown,” Farhana said. She considers this movement a “stunt approach” of the government to earn “quick popularity.”
