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II. Background

Since winning independence from Pakistan in 1971, Bangladesh has been wracked by violent, adversarial politics and serious challenges to the rule of law.  Two political parties dominate the scene—the Awami League (AL) and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP); the latter held power most recently until October 2006. Both parties have used armed groups and militias in violation of the law to consolidate power and maintain control.  The Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), founded under a BNP government in 2004, is the latest example of this practice.

Although this report focuses on RAB, the police and other arms of the security apparatus are also responsible for serious violations, including torture and a large number of extrajudicial deaths.¹²  These violations are part of a degraded human rights environment, in which arbitrary arrests, physical and psychological torture, lengthy pretrial detention, and impunity for security forces are the disturbing norm.  Transparency International’s annual survey of corruption consistently ranks Bangladesh at or near the top of its list of the world’s most corrupt states.¹³

In October 2001 a four-party alliance led by the BNP won over a two-thirds majority in parliament and Begum Khaleda Zia became prime minister for the third time.¹⁴  The BNP won 41 percent of the vote (compared to the AL’s 40 percent), and formed a coalition with three smaller parties: Jama’at-e-Islami (which won 4.3 percent), Jatiya Party-Naziur (1.1 percent), and Islamic Okye Jote (0.7 percent). Jama’at-e-Islami and Islamic Okye Jote advocate a greater role for Islam in public life.  They have at times been implicated in attacks against Bangladesh’s minority communities.¹⁵

A central pillar of the BNP’s 2001 electoral campaign was the fight against crime, which had spun out of control.  Frustrated with the government’s lack of response, vigilante mobs were attacking suspected criminals.¹⁶ In December 2001, after the BNP took office, mobs in Dhaka killed an estimated 14 people in 10 days, including four suspected muggers who were hacked to death during daytime on a busy street.¹⁷  The Zia government quickly came under criticism for failing to establish law and order.  Extortion, kidnappings, and murder continued to rise. The ruling party decided to act.

In October 2002 the government declared the start of Operation Clean Heart, which involved the deployment of more than 40,000 military personnel to fight crime.  The operation lasted 85 days.  During that time the army arrested more than 10,000 people, at least 50 of whom died in custody in unclear circumstances.¹⁸  Officials attributed most of the deaths to “heart attacks.”¹⁹

On January 9, 2003, just before the operation came to a close, the BNP proposed legislation to ensure that no member of the armed forces could face prosecution for abuses during the campaign.  The Joint Drive Indemnity Ordinance 2003 was based on an expansive interpretation, in contravention of international law, of article 46 of the Bangladesh constitution.²⁰  It granted immunity from prosecution to armed forces and government officials for their involvement in “any casualty, damage to life and property, violation of rights, physical or mental damage” between October 16, 2002, and January 9, 2003.  The opposition and human rights groups, as well as two UN special rapporteurs, said the law shielded officials from justice for torture and custodial deaths, but the ordinance passed the BNP-controlled parliament nevertheless.²¹

In April 2003, after a petition from the sister of a torture victim who had died in Operation Clean Heart, the High Court issued a show-cause ruling for the government to explain why the Joint Drive Indemnity Ordinance should not be declared illegal.²²  The government did not reply. To date, no military personnel are known to have been held criminally responsible for any of the 50 or more custodial deaths.

Operation Clean Heart did not succeed in bringing crime adequately under control, and vigilantism against suspected criminals resumed. In response, the government decided in January 2003 to establish a special unit of police with commando training called the Rapid Action Team, or RAT.  The special police force proved unsuccessful in combating crime due to the lack of trained professionals, disorganization, and corruption in the force.  Building on the experience from Operation Clean Heart, the government took steps to give the military a law enforcement role.

Formation of RAB

On June 2, 2003, the Cabinet Committee on Law and Order decided to replace RAT with RAB—the Rapid Action Battalion.²³  Eight months later, in March 2004, the government formally created RAB, although the force did not begin full operations until June of that year.

The government presented RAB as a composite force comprising elite members from the military (army, air force and navy), the police, and members of Bangladesh’s various law enforcement groups.²⁴  Members were seconded from their parent organizations, to which they returned after serving time with the new force.

RAB’s operations are based on the Armed Police Battalions (Amendment) Act 2003, passed by parliament in July 2003, amending the Armed Police Battalions Ordinance, 1979.  The new law placed RAB under the command of the inspector general of the police and, by extension, the minister of home affairs.  The law requires RAB to be commanded by an officer not below the rank of deputy inspector general of the police or someone of the equivalent rank from the army, navy, air force, or other “disciplined force.”  The main tasks of the RAB, according to the law, are to:

• Provide internal security
• Conduct intelligence into criminal activity
• Recover illegal arms
• Arrest criminals and members of armed gangs
• Assist other law enforcement agencies
• Investigate any offense as ordered by the government.²⁵

Critics complained that, rather than build a new crime-fighting force, the government should undertake efforts to reform law enforcement and the courts.  Creating RAB, they feared, would undermine the police.  With Operation Clean Heart in mind, some worried about using the military for civilian policing.  They saw RAB as a way for the government to deploy the army for policing tasks, with one lawyer even calling it “martial law in disguise.”²⁶

The opposition Awami League accused the government of creating a force to target its political opponents.  In July the party leadership said that RAB was “a ploy to eliminate Awami League and a unique strategy to violate human rights.”²⁷

The government defended the creation of RAB as necessary to combat crime.  “The law and order situation was bad and it had to be contained,” said Minister of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Moudud Ahmed, who was instrumental in setting up the force.  “Our police is inadequate. They do not have sophisticated weapons nor do they have sufficient training.”  He said RAB had to be created because “it is not possible to raise the whole police to a sufficient standard.”²⁸

Members of RAB-10 in Dhaka show the press an arrest of suspected criminals and goods they allegedly smuggled from India, November 2005. © 2005 Sohrab Alam

At first RAB enjoyed strong popular support.  Wearing black uniforms with black headscarves and wraparound sunglasses, the new force intimidated criminals and the public alike.  It began to arrest known gangsters and thugs and, according to the government, crime dropped.²⁹  But complaints of excessive use of force soon began.

RAB focused its work on criminal suspects—usually those who refused to cooperate with government- or BNP-connected gangs.  But that changed on August 17, 2005, when roughly 500 bombs exploded almost simultaneously in 63 of the country’s 64 administrative districts, mostly in front of government buildings.  Two people died in what most analysts considered a show of force more than intent to kill. A militant Islamist group called Jamiatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) claimed responsibility for the attacks to push their cause of establishing an Islamic state in Bangladesh.  Subsequent bomb and suicide attacks around the country killed more than two dozen people, among them lawyers, judges, and other symbols of the secular state.

After the bombings, militants sent threatening letters to judges, lawyers, journalists, government officials, and others to warn them of the need for sharia law.  “As Muslims, we have declared a war to establish the rule of the Koran,” one letter to a journalist said.  “If you continue to make propaganda against us in your newspapers, we will make your parents sonless, your children fatherless and your wives widows.”³⁰

The government had long denied the existence of militant Islamist groups in Bangladesh, despite pressure from Western governments after September 11, 2001, to take steps.  But the existence of such organizations became undeniable after the synchronized August 2005 attacks, and the government began to arrest alleged members and leaders of the JMB.  In addition to fighting crime, the government deployed RAB in its “anti-terror” fight.³¹  On March 2, 2006, head of the JMB Sheikh Abdur Rahman surrendered to RAB in Sylhet.³²  Four days later, RAB arrested the JMB’s second-in-command Siddiqul Islam, known as Bangla Bhai.³³

Structure of RAB

RAB is under the jurisdiction of the Bangladeshi Ministry of Home Affairs.  Until the BNP-led government stepped down on October 27, 2006, the state minister for home affairs was Lutfozzaman Babar.³⁹

The first RAB director general was Anwarul Iqbal.  On April 24, 2005, he was replaced by Mohammed Abdul Aziz Sarkar, a top police official who had served with UN peacekeeping forces in the former Yugoslavia.  His deputy director was Col. Md. Mahbubul Alam Mollah,⁴⁰ a military officer who has also served in UN missions abroad.⁴¹  On October 31, 2006, the caretaker government replaced Mohammed Sarkar with Khoda Baksh, former head of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), though it announced no reason for the move.⁴²  Khoda Baksh is the co-defendant in at least one case or a RAB “crossfire” death during his time with the CID (see case of Iman Ali, below).

Although ostensibly a joint force, RAB is controlled more by the military than the police.  With the exception of former Director General Sarkar and current Director General Baksh, most top RAB officials come from the armed forces.  According to the military, 60 percent of RAB members come from the police and the rest from the military and various civilian organizations,⁴³ but a press account puts the proportion of military personnel in RAB at 46 percent as of May 2006,⁴⁴ and officials from one foreign government following law enforcement in Bangladesh had a radically different analysis, suggesting to Human Rights Watch that 70 percent of the force was military and 30 percent police. The force receives commando training from the army special forces, and members are equipped with what the military calls “the most modern weapons, gadgets and law enforcement training in the world at par with the US FBI and UK’s MI6 or Scotland Yard.”⁴⁵

RAB has four wings: operations, intelligence, administration and finance, and legal and media.  According to the RAB website, as of November 8, 2006, head of the operations wing was Lt. Col. Asif Ahmed Ansari, an army officer who served with the UN peacekeeping operation in Mozambique and studied with the Defense Intelligence Agency in the United States.⁴⁶ Ansari also commands RAB-1 in Dhaka (see below).  As of November 8, 2006, the intelligence wing was run by Lt. Col. Gulzar Uddin Ahmed, also from the military, who served in UN peacekeeping missions in Cambodia and Sierra Leone.⁴⁷

Website of the Rapid Action Battalion, December 1, 2006.

According to the Bangladesh military, as of October 2006 RAB had 8,500 troops.⁴⁸  The number varies as members join the force and then return to their parent organizations, usually the military or police.

Throughout the country, RAB is organized in battalions.  Initially composed of seven battalions, the home ministry added three battalions in September 2005, and two more in mid-2006.⁴⁹  Five of the current battalions operate in Dhaka.  Their areas of responsibility and commanders of the twelve battalions, as of October 27, 2006, are:⁵⁰

• RAB-1  Dhaka (Uttara, Airport, Turag, Gulshan, Khilkhet, and Badda)

     Commander:  Lt. Col. Asif Ahmed Ansari

• RAB-2  Dhaka (Tejgaon, Hazaribagh, Dhanmondi, New Market, Mohammadpur, and Adabor)

     Commander: Additional DIG Md. Akbar Ali⁵¹

• RAB-3  Dhaka (Ramna, Khilgaon, Sabujbagh, Motijheel, Paltan, Araihajar, Rupgonj, and Shonargaon)

     Commander: Wing Cmdr. Sultan Mohammad Nurani

• RAB-4  Dhaka (Pallabi, Mirpur, Shah Alibag, Cantonment, Kafrul, Mohammmadpur, Kamrangirchar, Karanigong, Dohar, Nobabgong, Pollobi,  Manikgonj, Kafrul, Munshigonj, Saver, and Dhamri)

     Commander: Lt. Col. Md. Badrul Ahsan

• RAB-5  Rajshahi district

     Commander: Md. Shamsuzzaman Khan

• RAB-6  Khulna district

     Commander: Lt. Col. Md. Shams-Ul-Huda

• RAB-7  Chittagong district

     Commander: Lt. Col. Md. Hashinur Rahman

• RAB-8  Barisal district

     Commander: Lt. Col. Md. Ershad Hossain

• RAB-9 Sylhet district

     Commander: Lt. Col. Nurul Momen Khan

• RAB-10 Dhaka (Kamrangirchar, Lalbagh, Demra, Shutrapur, Shampur, Kotoali,  Demra, Sutrapur, Narayangonj, Sadar, Bandar, Siddhirganj, Futtalla, and Kotwali)

     Commander: Lt. Col. Md. Manikur Rahman

• RAB-11 Narayanganj district

     Commander: Lt. Col. Md. Humayun Babir

• RAB-12 Sirajganj district

     Commander: Additional DIG Aftab Uddin Ahmed