The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party on Thursday demanded an investigation into the disappearances and extrajudicial killings under the supervision of the United Nations.
‘The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet has advised the government to establish an independent commission to look into cases of disappearances and extrajudicial killings. What has come in the statement is what we have been stating for a very long time. We demand an impartial investigation conducted under the auspices of the UN and that those responsible be prosecuted,’ BNP secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said.
He came up with this remark while talking to reporters at the BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia’s political office in Gulshan on Thursday over her health.
‘I spoke to the doctor. They said she [Khaleda Zia] is fine. All her test reports are good. There is no problem with the test,’ he said.
He mentioned that the news of Khaleda Zia's illness spread as a quarter attempted to divert the issues that came in the statement of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
At a press conference in Dhaka on Wednesday, concluding her four-day visit, Michelle Bachelet said that the Bangladesh government should acknowledge the allegations of enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings and investigate them impartially.
She said that various UN human rights mechanisms – including the UN Committee Against Torture, had been raising concerns for several years about allegations of enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killing, and torture, many of which had been attributed to the Rapid Action Battalion, and the lack of accountability for such violations.
