Dhaka: A case of enforced disappearance was filed on Wednesday against Bangladesh’s deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina and several others, including former ministers of her cabinet, on the charge of kidnapping a lawyer in 2015.
The case is the second to be filed against 76-year-old Hasina since she resigned and fled to India on August 5 following widespread protests against her Awami League-led government over a controversial job quota system.
The victim of the forced disappearance, Supreme Court lawyer Sohel Rana filed the case application, The Daily Star newspaper reported.
The court of Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Farzana Shakila Sumu Chowdhury ordered the allegations to be accepted as a case.
Other accused in the case include senior ministers of Hasina’s cabinet, former Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan, former Law Minister Anisul Haq, former Inspector General of Police (IGP) Shahidul Haque, former Director General of Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) Benazir Ahmed, and 25 unidentified members of the RAB.
“On 10 February 2015, I was detained from Sector 5 in Uttara and forced into a vehicle. As soon as I was inside the car, I was nearly made unconscious by electric shocks to my ears and genitals,” the report quoted Rana as saying.
“After enduring various forms of brutal torture over time, I was eventually released in August in Godagari, Rajshahi,” he said.
On Tuesday, a murder case was lodged against Hasina and six others over the death of a grocery shop owner during last month’s violent clashes that led to the fall of her government.
Over 230 people were killed in Bangladesh in the incidents of violence that erupted across the country following the fall of the Hasina government on August 5, taking the death toll to 560 since the anti-quota protests first started in mid-July.
An interim government was formed after the fall of the Hasina-led government, and its Chief Adviser, 84-year-old Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, announced the portfolios of his 16-member council of advisors last week.
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