DHAKA: Bangladesh’s former prime minister Sheikh Hasina masterminded a deadly crackdown on mass protests that prompted her ouster last year, prosecutors at a domestic war crimes tribunal said on Monday.

Up to 1,400 people died in July 2024 when Hasina’s government launched a brutal campaign to silence the opposition, according to the United Nations. Hasina lives in self-imposed exile in India, where she fled by helicopter, and has defied an arrest warrant from Dhaka over charges of crimes against humanity.

“The investigation team has found Sheikh Hasina culpable in at least five charges,” Mohammad Tajul Islam, chief prosecutor at Bangladesh’s domestic International Crimes Tribunal (ICT), told reporters.

“They have brought charges of abetment, incitement, complicity, facilitation, conspiracy, and failure to prevent mass murder during the July uprising.” Tajul Islam said the prosecution had submitted its first report to be presented at the court set to try Hasina and two of her aides — former home minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal and ex-police chief Abdullah Al Mamun.

“Sheikh Hasina directly ordered law enforcement agencies and auxiliary forces aligned with her party to kill and maim, and to burn corpses and even people who were still alive at certain points,” he added.

The ICT was set up in 2009 by Hasina to investigate crimes allegedly committed by the Pakistani army in 1971. Investigators have collected video footage, audio clips, Hasina’s phone conversations, records of helicopter and drone movements as well as statements from victims of the crackdown as part of their probe.

Published in Dawn, May 13th, 2025