HRW for disbanding Rab

The Human Rights Watch (HRW) has reiterated its call to disband the Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) bringing allegations of extrajudicial killings, disappearances and arbitrary arrests against the elite force.

The US-based rights body came up with the call yesterday, two days into a Narayanganj court found 35 people, including 25 former Rab officials, guilty of abduction and murder of seven people and destroying evidence in April 2014.

READ MORE: 26 get death for 7 murders

Of the accused, 26 people were awarded death penalty while nine other accused were jailed for various terms, from seven to 17 years.

“It is time for the government to take immediate steps to disband Rab and replace it with a rights respecting force,” HRW’s South Asia Director Meenakshi Ganguly said.

READ MORE: 7-murder won’t affect image of Rab: Benazir

She said: “While in opposition the Awami League called for the disbanding of RAB. Before taking office in 2009 Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said she would reform RAB. This has not happened.”

Ganguly also appreciated the seven-murder verdict saying, “The prosecution of Rab members is a welcome step towards ending violence and impunity.” She, however, opposed the death penalty and urged the government not to carry it out.

READ MORE: Dismantle Rab, HRW asks govt again

n the her statement, she alleged: “For years, Bangladesh’s Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) has 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” deaths, torture, disappearances, and arbitrary arrests in their wake. And for years, almost no members of RAB were held to account for these crimes.”

“For too long, RAB officials have been shielded from prosecution by successive governments, some even justifying their crimes.”

The statement also reads: “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. Many of the disappeared people have later turned up dead.”