Arafat explains Sheikh Hasinaโ€™s stance in July riots, bins BBC, Al Jazeera documentaries

Former State Minister Mohammad A Arafat has reiterated that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina never authorised the use of lethal force against student protesters.

โ€œWe have located an audio clip circulating online allegedly matching the transcript previously BBC World and later Al Jazeera provided. However, its authenticity remains unverified, and the source cannot be independently confirmed,โ€ he said in an article on X.

โ€œBut importantly, the content of the audio and transcript Al Jazeera & BBC WORLD provided, even if taken at face value, does not support the allegation of unlawful conduct or criminal intent.โ€

The purported phone call of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to the Mayor of Dhaka South City Corporation Fazle Noor Taposh isolates a brief excerpt from what appears to be a longer conversation. The speakers are talking about three distinct groups of people, and it is not evident whether the speakers are referring to student protesters, infiltrated militants, or other hostile actors, Arafat said.

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โ€ข At the 0:19 mark, the female voice references the arrest of certain individuals but offers no indication about the identity of these individuals.

โ€ข At the 0:50 mark, the male speaker mentions a group “moving toward Mohammadpur Police Station.” The subsequent reference to the potential use of lethal weapons appears to be associated with the profile of the people who could move towards the Police Station.

There is no basis to assume that the individuals referenced were student protesters, as it is unlikely that peaceful demonstrators would be advancing toward a police station. This is helpful to remember that during the protest, police officers and hundreds of police installations came under armed attack.

This interpretation is further supported by the later portion of the audio:

โ€ข At the 1:14 mark, the female speaker explicitly states that she had barred the use of lethal force up to that point precisely because students were present and their safety needed to be safeguarded.

Taken in its entirety, the available audio references the possible arrest of certain individuals and a discussion concerning the conditional authorization of lethal force against a specific group that may have been approaching Mohammadpur Police Station, which may have warranted heightened security measures.

Notably, the only group explicitly identified in the audio is student protesters, in relation to whom the female speaker expressly prohibited the use of lethal weapons. Her explicit concern for studentsโ€™ safety and arresting perpetrators directly contradicts any interpretation that lethal force was intended indiscriminately against protesters, as suggested by ICT Chief Prosecutor Tajul Islam.

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Furthermore, it is important to note that the deployment of lethal force, in legal terms, does not necessarily imply intent to kill; it may involve the use of proportionate force aimed at neutralising imminent threats and protecting lives, without resulting in fatal outcomes.

As for the use of lethal weapons, under Section 153 and 153A of the Police Regulations of Bengal (1943), and sections 96-106 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (1860), law enforcement officers are legally permitted to use firearms when necessary to protect the lives and the properties of themselves and others.

The authority to make such determinations lies solely with senior police officers or magistrates on the ground. The Prime Minister and other senior political or executive officials are not part of the chain of command governing operational decisions related to the use of firearms.

Arafat reiterated that none of the audio recordings circulating online or the transcript BBC world or Al Jazeera provided have been verified. โ€œWe reaffirm that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has never authorized the use of lethal force against student protesters.

โ€œWe maintain the position that presenting material that may be under judicial custody as evidenceโ€”while simultaneously offering subjective interpretationsโ€”risks prejudicing the ongoing trial. If you still choose to reference the audio recording, we strongly urge you to avoid selective or out-of-context excerpts and to present what is unambiguously clear: the speakers expressed concern for the safety of student protesters and explicitly prohibited the use of lethal force against them.โ€

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Responsible and unbiased reporting would be refraining from imposing speculative or inferential interpretations regarding which group is being referenced in relation to arrest or authorisation of force, particularly when such references are not clearly established within the audio itself.

He added that a fair and impartial account should also make clear, within the main body of any documentary or publicationโ€”shouldn’t have relegated to endnotesโ€”the distinction made in the audio between three different groups: those subject to possible arrest, those potentially warranting the use of force, and the student protesters, in whose case lethal force was explicitly prohibited.

Use of helicopters

The Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) has denied allegations that it employed lethal firearms from helicopters during operations. This position has remained consistent even under the current government and new RAB leadership, which has adopted an adversarial stance toward the previous administration.

According to official disclosures, RAB deployed 738 tear gas shells, 190 sound grenades, and 557 stun grenades from helicopters, but confirmed that no rifle or shotgun rounds were discharged from aerial platforms.

The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) reported reviewing multiple video recordings that appear to show RAB and police personnel deploying tear gas from helicopters using launcher-type devices, which may resemble rifles or shotguns from a distance.

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However, the OHCHR further stated that it had not obtained any footage clearly showing rifle or shotgun fire from helicopters.

How it escalated

Arafat explained that from the very beginning, the position of the government and the student protesters regarding the abolition of the quota system in public recruitment was fundamentally aligned. It was the Sheikh Hasina administration that initially abolished the quota system in government jobs through an executive circular in 2018.

On June 5, 2024, the High Court declared that circular is unconstitutional and reinstated the quota system. This judgement was the result of a writ petition filed by private citizens. The government immediately responded: within one working day, on June 9, 2024, it filed an appeal challenging the High Court’s judgement.

Subsequently, on July 10, 2024, the Appellate Division issued a status quo order on the High Court verdict, thereby reinstating the quota-free system introduced in 2018. From that day forward, there was no quota in effect in Bangladesh.

Moreover, during the interim period between the High Court judgment (June 5) and the Supreme Courtโ€™s stay order (July 10), the government did not issue any circulars implementing the quota nor recruit a single individual under the quota framework.

On July 16, 2024, the government further pursued legal recourse by filing a leave to appeal before the Appellate Division. Then, on July 21, 2024, the Supreme Court ruled that 93% of recruitments would be based on merit, with 7% reserved under specific provisions.

This is evident that the government not only respected judicial procedures but also did everything within its constitutional and legal limits to uphold the studentsโ€™ demand. Given that the matter was sub judice and that the quota system was not in force after July 10, there was no justification for violent protests or nationwide blockades.

The escalation of violence during this period cannot be credibly attributed to the quota issue. Evidence strongly suggests that third-party infiltrators and insurgent groups co-opted the movement as a cover to destabilize and overthrow a legitimately elected democratic government. These actors misled students, instigated violence, and attempted to provoke an insurgency under the guise of student activism.

Several key figures involved in the protest movement have openly admitted that their primary objective was not reform of the quota system, but the removal of the elected government. One of the original architects of the studentsโ€™ nine-point demand publicly acknowledged that they deliberately framed the demands in a way that would be unacceptable to the government, expressing concern that the government might accept them and thereby defuse the protest momentum.

Mahfuj Alam, a self-described strategist of the movement and an advisor to the government, also admitted that the protest activities from July 5 to July 18 were not spontaneous but rather carefully planned and strategically executed. His remarks confirm that the protest was orchestrated with clear political intent from the outset.

In summary, the government acted within its sovereign responsibility to preserve national security, protect public safety, and prevent institutional collapse. The application of legitimate state force was directed exclusively at containing insurgent violence, not at peaceful student demonstrators. As established, the governmentโ€™s stance on the quota issue has remained consistent with the original student demand since 2018, Arafat concluded as saying.

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