THE imprisonment of rights defenders Adilur Rahman Khan and Nasiruddin Elan of Odhikar has put Bangladesh once again in global focus. The Dhaka cyber tribunal on September 14 jailed the rights defenders for a fact-finding report on violence and police operation at Hefazat-e-Islam demonstrations at Shapla Square in May 5–6, 2013 and fined them Tk 10,000 each in a case filed under the Information and Communication Technology Act 2006. Dozens of international rights organisations along with the United Nations, the United States, France, Germany and Canada have criticised the sentence. Informed and conscientious section of society at home and local and international rights organisations alleged that the trial and conviction are politically motivated to hide what exactly happened at the place that night. The conviction has spawned debates over the trial proceedings, which has not considered an independent investigation of the violence and operation at the Hefazat demonstrations. As different organisations came up with different tallies of casualties during the operation, rights activists say that it was expected that the government would hold an independent, preferably judicial, investigation of the operation.

When Odhikar put the number of casualties at 61, other organisations came up with almost similar figures. The US-based Human Rights Watch in its August 2013 report, for an example, said that at least 58 people, civilians and security personnel, died then. Amnesty International put the figure at 41 and Ekattarer Ghatak-Dalal Nirmul Committee at 39 while Hefazat-e-Islam claimed that ‘hundreds’ of its activists were killed in the operation. On different occasions, the government also admitted casualties, putting the number at around a dozen. With such variations in the number of casualties in reports of different organisations, the government should have formed an independent committee to establish the truth. But it went to prosecute the two rights defenders, raising concern among other rights defenders at home and abroad. Rights defenders have also raised their concern about the unusual move for a reinvestigation after the completion of witness deposition and the very trial under repealed Section 57 of the ICT Act. What also appears to give credence to the public perception that the government has targeted Odhikar is the renewal denial of the registration of the organisation, which was vocal against rights abuses during the 2001–06 BNP-led government, the military-backed caretaker government in 2007–08 and the Awami League-led government since 2008. The denial of division to the imprisoned defenders, defying court order, also gives credence to the harassment by the powers that be.

The government must, therefore, establish the truth about the overnight operation through an independent investigation and hold to justice the people involved in extrajudicial killings or high-handedness. The authorities need to realise that convicting people through controversial trial is unacceptable.