Retired military official and interim government Adviser Brigadier Sakhawat Hossain has again raised the issue of 7.62-grade arms and sniper rifles being used during the anti-government movement last year. At a program of military officers recently, he said that almost every protester killed last year was shot in the forehead. These were sniper attacks.
Those who lost their eyes were also victims of sniper attacks. There were professional sniper attacks throughout the movement. This was not done by the Bangladesh police. The Bangladesh police do not have sniper rifle training, he added.
Brigadier Sakhawat gave more horrific and explosive information, saying that on August 5, when he and a group of former army officers reached the Shaheen Complex in Mohakhali while walking, he received a call from the army intelligence, who asked him not to approach further since he had already entered the target area of โโthe snipers.
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Earlier last year, while serving as the home affairs adviser, Brigadier Sakhawat wondered how civilians got hold of 7.62-grade military rifles, which were used against the police and Ansar members. As he sought a rigorous investigation into the matter, he was removed from the ministry.
After the fall of the Awami League government, photos and videos on social media showed some people carrying sniper rifles and heavy arms, with some rejoicing in the changeover and brandishing the arms. One of the videos shows a dozen youth, aged between 16 and 25, holding sophisticated arms and rocket launchers on a roof somewhere in Dhaka, posing for a photo.
Security experts also question the death of some bystanders and children looking outside through the windows and balconies on the third and fourth floors, since it is unlikely that the police fired at them. Instead, those killings were the acts of snipers who had taken position on rooftops and killed ordinary people and protesters to destabilise the government.
The death of Mir Mugdho in Uttara is a textbook example of a sniper attack since there were no police members nearby, and none other than a private university student was shot dead.
A female student in Mirpur-2 reported seeing someone from a nearby building kill protesters.
Lately, Brigadier Sakhawat has again demanded an inquiry into the use of snipers and military-grade weapons by civilians when the home adviser, Lt. Gen. (Retd) Jahangir Alam Chowdhury, declared rewards for 32% of the arms and ammunition looted from 460 police stations, prisons, and Ganabhaban.
On August 25, the home adviser offered Tk5 lakh for LMG, Tk1.5 lakh for SMG, Tk1 lakh for Chinese rifles, and Tk500 for every bullet.
Despite the governmentโs special drives to recover the arms, some 1,363 arms looted from the police stations and prisons and 32 sophisticated arms of the Special Security Force (SSF) could not be traced.
Security experts and observers question the delay in announcing the rewards, while law enforcers say the arms have changed hands and are now being sold to professional criminals.
They also criticise the interim administration, led by Muhammad Yunus, for declaring indemnity for attacks on the police stations and the murder of police members and preventing investigation. This indemnity is also creating an obstacle to investigating the incidents of arms looting.
The escape of over 700 prisoners from 17 district jails, including dangerous terrorists and militants, has still been a matter of concern for the countryโs law and order.
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Over the past year, several leaders of the BNP, Jamaat-Shibir, Khelafat Majlish, and Hefazat-e-Islam have publicly admitted to having killed the police members, hanged the bodies in public, and torched government and private establishments during the anti-government movement. Some student leaders even admitted to having trained at least 138 teenage gangs of Dhaka and gave them arms to fight the police.
Some serving and former army officers, including most-wanted jihadist Major (sacked) Syed Ziaul Haque, actively participated in the protests, especially after the Awami League government banned Jamaat-e-Islami and Islami Chhatra Shibir on August 1. On the other hand, two militant groups of PakistanโLashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT) and Jamaat-ut-Dawaโalso claimed that they too had worked to unseat the government.
Yet, these confessions were not considered in any of the murder cases filed with various police stations and the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT-BD). The police also ignored these statements and implicated the Awami League leadership and former police officers in the killings.
Instead, officials of the Yunus-led administration, the UN Human Rights Office and the Jamaat-controlled ICT-BD have solely been blaming Sheikh Hasina, her home minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal and top police officers for ordering the murder of protesters.
Meanwhile, Mohammad Ali Arafat, a former state minister for information and broadcasting, in a post on X, said that the civilians equipped with military-grade weapons were unprecedented because it is strictly illegal for anyone outside of state security forces to possess such arms. Brigadier Sakhawatโs disclosure clearly pointed to a well-orchestrated act of sabotage.
โWho ordered these snipers? Who hired mercenaries to kill students? Who turned a peaceful movement into a bloodbath?
Arafat said that it is clear that a third party deliberately orchestrated these killings to overthrow the Sheikh Hasina government, create a constitutional vacuum, and threaten Bangladeshโs independence and sovereignty. โWe warned the nation then, and we repeat it now.โ
On the issue of seeking an apology, Arafat questioned to whom the party should apologise when the truth remains hidden about who supplied the rifles, who used snipers, and who piled up the bodies for political gains.
He said that the Awami League has always sought the truth. โThatโs why we created an independent judicial commission and invited international experts and the United Nations to ensure a fair, transparent, and credible investigation.
โOur goal was simple: let the truth be revealed. Let justice prevail. Without truth, there is no justice. Without justice, history cannot be written honestly.
โBut after Dr. Yunus came to power, the commission was disbanded. The killers were shielded (given indemnity). The truth was buried. Blame was shifted for political purposes. This was an injustice to history, an insult to the martyrs, and an obstruction to justice. Hiding the culprits and concealing the truth for political gain is not justice.โ
Arafat said that true justice comes only when the truth is revealed, the real perpetrators are known, and history is restored in its rightful form.
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