The Hindu : Dhaka promises action against militants

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Dec 23, 2003

International

International

Dhaka promises action against militants

By Haroon Habib

DHAKA Dec. 22. Bangladesh has promised prompt action if the presence of any militants' camp in its territory is brought to its notice.

The Bangladesh Foreign Minister, M. Morshed Khan, told presspersons on Sunday that insurgents had set up camps in Bhutan over the years and it had gone in for the ongoing crackdown without any outside help. But ``the case of Bangladesh is completely different. Not to speak of any camp, we don't even have any tent of terrorists in our territory.''

Mr. Khan said the Bhutanese Foreign Minister, Khandu Wangchuk, had called him up on December 18 and spoken about the operation. The authorities were maintaining a `strong vigilance' along the Bangladesh border so that any terrorist, flushed out from Bhutan, could not sneak into Bangladesh.

Mr. Khan said he had requested his Indian counterpart, Yashwant Sinha, during the Commonwealth summit in Abuja earlier this month to make sure that no insurgent entered Bangladesh from Bhutan.

`Rights abuses'

The United States' State Department has criticised the Bangladesh Government for `innumerable' human rights abuses and extra-judicial killings last year. ``The Government's human rights record remained poor and it continued to commit numerous serious human rights abuses,'' the report observed, alluding to extra-judicial killings by torture and abuse during police or army detention.

According to the report, released here at the American Culture Center on Sunday, 83 persons were killed due to lethal force by police and other security forces during the year.

Fifteen of the deaths occurred during the army-led anti-crime drive `Operation Clean Heart' that began on October 16 last. As many as 148 persons died in custody, 31 of them following arrest and interrogation by the army during the operation.

The report points out that the Government's initial explanation for such killings was ``heart-attack'' and ``drowning while trying to escape'' and that the principal information officer on November 18 claimed that there had been no deaths in army custody. Extra-judicial killings by security forces more than doubled in 2002.

However, the State Department praised Bangladesh for allowing its citizens to freely practise their religion of choice, but criticised its police force for often being ``slow to assist'' members of religious minorities who were victims of crimes.

The report gives numerous detailed accounts of torture and eventual deaths in custody.

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