Shawdesh Desk:

The Department of Immigration and Passports has cancelled passports of 97 individuals, including deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina, over their alleged involvement in killings during the July-August mass uprising and enforced disappearances.

Chief adviser’s deputy press secretary Abul Kalam Azad Majumder came up with the information at a press conference at the Foreign Service Academy in Dhaka on Tuesday evening.

He said that passports of 75 individuals, including Sheikh Hasina, were cancelled by the passport department for their alleged involvement in the killings during the student-led mass uprising.

The passport office also cancelled passports of 22 individuals for their alleged involvement in enforced disappearances during the tenure of the now ousted Awami League regime, he added.

When asked whether India had been informed about the cancellation of Sheikh Hasina’s passport, Azad Majumder said, ‘The Indian government also knows that her passport has been cancelled and they said that they had issued her a travel document.’

Sheikh Hasina resigned as prime minister on August 5 amid a student-led mass uprising and fled to India and has been staying there since.

The professor Muhammad Yunus-led interim government formed on August 8 is listing those who were martyred during the mass uprising. The government has already published the names of 826 martyrs in the first phase.

Besides, the International Crimes Tribunal is currently investigating the cases filed against Sheikh Hasina and others on charges of genocide during the uprising.

The ICT has also issued a warrant for Sheikh Hasina’s arrest in connection with the cases filed by the  victims’ families with the ICT on charges of genocide.

Earlier in August, the immigration department initiated a move to revoke the official passports of Sheikh Hasina, her former cabinet colleagues, and former members of parliament, as both her cabinet and the 12th parliament were dissolved.

Besides, the issue of enforced disappearance of many people in the country during the Awami League regime in the past 15 years came to the fore after the regime’s fall.

The interim government formed a commission of inquiry into enforced disappearances that allegedly happened from January 6, 2009 to August 5, 2024.

The commission submitted an interim report to the government in mid-December that revealed the brutal torture of the victims of the enforced disappearance by the then state forces.

The draft report said that many people were forcibly taken away and held in secret detention centres for periods ranging from 48 hours to years.

In some cases, the victims of disappearance were shot dead with their bodies tied to cement bags being sunk in river or simply left on the railway tracks to be mutilated.

The commission so far received 1,676 complaints of enforced disappearance and of the complaints it has so far reviewed 758.

Among the 758 complaints, 73 per cent of the victims have returned, but the remaining 27 per cent (at least 204) are still missing.

Earlier on December 15 last year, the home ministry ordered the immigration and passports department to withdraw passports of 20 former army and police officials and prevent them from travelling abroad over their involvement in enforced disappearances.

The ministry came up with the move against the 20 people following the request of the commission of inquiry into enforced disappearance.

The 20 individuals are—former inspectors general of police Benazir Ahmed and Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun, sacked Major General Ziaul Ahsan, former additional inspector general of police and chief of Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime Md Monirul Islam, former detective branch of police chief Mohammad Harun-Or-Rahid, former additional IGP Md Mukhlesur Rahman, Colonel Tofail Mustafa Sarwar, former Lieutenant Colonel Miftah Uddin Ahmed, former intelligence wing director of Rapid Action Battalion Lieutenant Colonel Md Mahbub Alam, former additional DIGs Khandaker Lutful Kabir and Md Shahabuddin Khan, former Lieutenant Colonel Md Kamrul Hasan, former director of intelligence at RAB Lieutenant Colonel Md Sarwar-bin-Qasem, former CTTC chief and additional commissioner of police Md Asaduzzaman, additional commissioner of police Sheikh Muhammad Maroof Hasan, former DB deputy commissioner Moshiur Rahman, former additional deputy commissioner of CTTC Md Touhidul Islam, former three directors of Counter Terrorism and Intelligence Bureau at Directorate General of Forces Intelligence retired Brigadier General Abu Taher Mohammad Ibrahim, retired Brigadier General Mohammad Towhidul Islam and brigadier general Md Mahbubur Rahman Siddique.

Some of the officers on the list, including Zaiul Ahsan, Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun, and Moshiur Rahman, have already been arrested in connection with cases filed over murders during the student-led mass uprising, while some others, including Benazir Ahmed, left the country.