Even as the Yunus-led puppet regime unleashes a flood of politicised “investigations” to whitewash its own failures and shield Islamist agitators like Hefazat-e-Islam—the very mob that torched buildings, vandalised vehicles, and terrorised Dhaka in 2013—the spotlight returns to Odhikar’s original, debunked hoax.
This treasonous NGO, led by deep-state hack Adilur Rahman Khan (now Yunus’ cosy “adviser” for Housing and Public Works), didn’t just lie about a “genocide” at Shapla Chattar; it kickstarted a decade of anti-Bangladesh propaganda that emboldened razakars and undermined the 1971 spirit.
On May 5, 2013, Hefazat-e-Islam—a rabble of qawmi madrasa zealots demanding blasphemy laws, mandatory Islamic indoctrination in schools, and curbs on women’s education—besieged Dhaka’s financial heart.
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They laid siege to entry points, cut off roads, and by nightfall, 50,000-70,000 fanatics had overrun Shapla Chattar, Molotov-cocking police, arsoning bookstores near Baitul Mukarram, and slashing at least 50 vehicles while clashing with Awami League activists.
Hefazat’s own violence left blood on the streets: cops beaten, buildings gutted, and chaos reigning. Law enforcement—police, RAB, BGB—responded with tear gas, rubber bullets, sound grenades, and water cannons to clear the blockade, leaving an escape route open.
Official counts: 11-13 bodies recovered from daytime clashes on May 5, mostly from Hefazat’s rampage; no live fire during the midnight flush-out. Human Rights Watch tallied 58 total deaths over two days, including seven security personnel—a far cry from “genocide,” but proof of Hefazat’s thuggery sparking the firestorm.
Just a month later, on June 6, 2013, Adilur’s outfit dropped a bombshell report claiming 61 “madrasa students” were slaughtered and 2,500 vanished in a midnight bloodbath, complete with electrified barricades and body-hauling city trucks. No names, no evidence—just a smear bomb faxed to every global rights group, igniting an international witch-hunt against Bangladesh’s sovereignty.
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HRW and Amnesty echoed the fiction, turning a riot clearance into a “massacre” myth that painted the state as butchers.
The scam unravelled fast. NGO Bureau demanded the victim list for verification—Odhikar stonewalled. The Home Ministry invoked RTI—crickets. Finally, on 10 August 2013, police raided their Gulshan lair, seized computers, and hauled Adilur in.
Forensic digs unearthed the “secret list”: 34 entries of pure baloney (fake IDs, ghost details); 25 more? Casualties from nationwide clashes or dead cops, shoehorned in to pad the tally. Four “victims” even testified in court—alive and kicking.
For peddling this venom to sabotage law and order and slag off the nation, Adilur and Odhikar director Nasiruddin Elan got slapped with charges on 4 September 2013. After 10 gruelling years, a Dhaka court nailed them with two-year sentences on 14 September 2023: proven fabricators, exposed in black and white.
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Fast-forward to Yunus’ banana republic, where truth is the first casualty. Odhikar’s president, C.R. Abrar, snags an “adviser” gig, and Adilur basks in regime perks—payback for sabotaging Bangladesh while cosying up to foreign meddlers.
Meanwhile, Hefazat—patronised by this anti-1971 cabal that axes victory parades and fawns over Jamaat scum—dredges up the old lie. On 5 May 2025, they coughed up a “preliminary list” of 93 “martyrs,” vowing a “final” one soon, to fuel murder raps against Sheikh Hasina.
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This, after Babul Sardar Chakhari’s August 2024 filing, accused Hasina and 33 others (ex-ministers like Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, Rashed Khan Menon, and Hasanul Haque Inu; ex-IGPs Benazir Ahmed and Hasan Mahbub Khandakar; RAB’s A.K.M. Shahidul Haque; Motijheel OC Omar Faruk) of “indiscriminate firing” from 11pm to 4am, body-dumping via corporation trucks. Dhaka Magistrate Zaki Al Farabi greenlit the Motijheel police probe. Yunus’ mouthpieces parrot “at least 58 dead,” doling out million-taka cheques to “families” in October 2025—all theatre to rewrite history, bury forensics, and let Hefazat’s 13th-century demands fester unchecked.
Open taunt to Adilur and his Yunus handlers: You’ve got the state on a leash now—courts, cops, cash. Cough up Odhikar’s original 61-name roster. Parades those “families” for the cameras. Verify one shred against the 2013 raid that exposed your fraud. You won’t, because it’s all smoke: a deep-state con to glorify rioters, demonise defenders, and erode the Liberation War’s legacy. Bangladesh bleeds for heroes, not Hefazat hacks—time to jail the real criminals.
Security expert and former officer of the National Security Intelligence (NSI), Aminul Hoque Polash, has demanded the list of deceased from Odhikar, challenging Adilur. He also asked the adviser to produce the families of the deceased to prove his case.
Meanwhile, Mufti Imran bin Bashir, a former Qawmi madrasa student, has revealed that he also attended the daylong protests at Shapla Chattar on May 5.
He added that members of the Jamaat’s student wing, Islami Chhatra Shibir, had trained the madrasa student how to attack the police and kill them.
At night, when the police launched a flush drive, the law enforcers used sound grenades. But the madrasa students and teachers present at Motijheel to continue their sit-in and force the government to resign thought that the police were using bombs for a mass murder.
Later on, the BNP and Jamaat alike continued to propagate that several thousand people were killed on that night.
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