It appears that this elite force lacks the knowledge of finding
places and needs the assistance of witnesses to do their job, does
not understand whose assistance they should seek to perform their
duty, does not understand its responsibility to ensure the security
of witnesses, cannot distinguish between a dangerous and safe place,
does not understand the constitutional/fundamental rights of all
person under police custody, etc. Perhaps, lack of professionalism
made them elite. If this is the measure for an elite force, one can
wonder what would be the quality of a normal force.
20/01/2005
What do crossfire deaths of key witnesses signify?
Muhammad Mohi-us Sunnah
The term "witness" in its general sense includes "all persons from
whose lips testimony is extracted to be used in any judicial
proceeding" and in its legal sense, means "one who gives evidence in
a cause before a court."
The RAB, the so-called elite force of Bangladesh, seems to have
successfully captured many key witnesses to various crimes and
managed to extract testimony, revealing information regarding
locations where further material evidences and/or accomplice
witnesses can be found.
Unfortunately, this elite force seems to lack the local knowledge of
finding places and, therefore, instead of seeking assistance of local
police, they prefer to take help of the witnesses who provided them
the information regarding various crimes and criminals to usher them
to the location to find evidence and criminals. They do not feel the
necessity of ensuring the safety of the witnesses who are cooperating
with them of their own volition in collecting evidence. Consequently,
we see key witnesses are being killed in crossfire between RAB and
the people of darkness.
One may wonder why I am calling the persons captured by RAB as
"witnesses" instead of criminals. Well, as mentioned above, anyone
can be a witness who makes statement which could be used in any
judicial proceeding. According to media reports, all these people
killed in crossfire have made statement to the RAB officials, and
based on such statement they were taken to the spot where they have
been killed. Perhaps, this is a big relief for those criminals
against whose interest the captured witnesses made statement.
It appears that this elite force lacks the knowledge of finding
places and needs the assistance of witnesses to do their job, does
not understand whose assistance they should seek to perform their
duty, does not understand its responsibility to ensure the security
of witnesses, cannot distinguish between a dangerous and safe place,
does not understand the constitutional/fundamental rights of all
person under police custody, etc. Perhaps, lack of professionalism
made them elite. If this is the measure for an elite force, one can
wonder what would be the quality of a normal force.
What is RAB anyway? The Rapid Action Battalion was formed under the
Armed Police Battalions (Amendment) Act, 2003. The law empowered RAB
to do two additional things as compared to the Armed Police
Battalions. These are: to collect (1) intelligence in respect of
crime and criminal activities, and to conduct (2) investigation of
any offence on the direction of the government.
The law does not permit it to do more than these things. Is RAB
keeping its activities within the bounds of law? Permitting (or
forcing) key witnesses to get killed during some so-called crossfire
does not seem to vouch for that. Many would like to argue that these
people were killed while the RAB was doing its duty. Is it true?
Then, why the accused or witnesses do not get killed when a normal
police perform their duty? Well, they follow the direction of the
Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC). Why does RAB not follow CrPC? Many
may believe that RAB is not required to do that. I think the Law
Minister would not agree with such contention.
Let's see, what the law says. The section 6C of the above-mentioned
law says: "(1) An officer of a Rapid Action Battalion shall, while
investigating an offence, follow the procedure prescribed in the Code
of Criminal Procedure, 1898 (Act V of 1898) or in any other law, as
the case may be, for the investigation of such offence."
Evidently, RAB is not authorised to bypass CrPC. It is not even doing
its job for which it was created. In course of collecting
"intelligence in respect of crime and criminal activities" it is
seemingly killing the source of intelligence and thereby closing the
door for further investigation into the crimes.
The other function it is entrusted with is to conduct "investigation
of any offence on the direction of the Government." The section 6C
(2) of the above-mentioned law also put some limitation on how far it
can go. The law says: "(2) Notwithstanding anything contained in the
Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898 (Act V of 1898) or in any other law
for the time being in force, the concerned officer shall, on
completion of the investigation of any offence under this ordinance,
file his report to the Officer-in-Charge of the concerned police
station, and the officer-in-Charge shall, within forty-eight hours of
the receipt of such report, forward the same as it is to the
competent court or tribunal, as the case may be."
There are no publicly available statistics which reflects as to the
number of cases given to RAB by the government for investigation, nor
do we have any information as to how many investigations are
completed by RAB and submitted to the respective police station.
Clearly, the RAB is underperforming. Getting key witnesses killed
during the course of investigation or intelligence collection is an
unforgivable underperformance. If an elite force of an independent
state performs that badly, anyone can raise the question whether the
state is governable or not.
Now, let me reflect on actual dynamics of the reality. What is
actually happening on the ground? On the basis of information
provided or direction given by some quarters, RAB is arresting people
and, as some say, killing them under the apparent assumption that
they have committed some heinous crime and that they do not deserve
right to life or fair trial.
Killings are justified with a newspaper statement claiming that the
deceased had many criminal cases pending against him. Ministers of
the government are publicly supporting such action. Those who support
such notion seem to believe that if these people are given a chance
to face the judiciary, they would be able to dodge the system and
would be able to continue with their criminal activities.
In other words, a large number of the population -- including
ministers -- believes that the state machinery is incapable of
bringing criminals to justice under the existing legal system. That
is why they have given the 'judicial' power to RAB, who decides who
should live and who should be exterminated. This mind-set reflects a
complete mistrust of police, judiciary, and the system of governance.
Some ministers have even started their election campaign stating that
this is the most popular thing the BNP government has done.
It is true that the government is incapable of bringing the criminals
to justice. There are lapses in the system which needs re-hauling in
a holistic manner. But the way the problem is addressed seems to
ignore the very existence of the state. The law is made for one
purpose, while the law enforcing authorities are given direction to
do something beyond their legal authority. They are tricked to commit
crime. One day they will be held responsible for killing people. Even
immunities will not be sufficient to save them, as all such
immunities will be declared by future courts void ab initio because
of their unconstitutionality.
To kill people without due process of law, not only defies the
Constitution of Bangladesh, but also undermines the state's
responsibility towards the international community in keeping the
country a civilised state. The Government of Bangladesh has become
party to several international instruments which guide it as to how
it will deal with its citizens. Everyone understands that the law and
order situation in Bangladesh deteriorated to such an extent that no
one was feeling safe on the street. The government should address
this problem in a comprehensive way. RAB is not working the way it
was supposed to work according to law, for which the government
itself is responsible.
Muhammad Mohi-us Sunnah is a freelance writer.
http://thedailystar.net/2005/01/20/d50120020429.htm
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