The International Crimes Tribunal-1 on Sunday ordered newspaper advertisements to notify deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina, former home minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, and four former senior officials of Dhaka Metropolitan Police to surrender before the tribunal in a crimes against humanity case.
The case is linked to the alleged detention and torture of 10 people in secret cells of the metropolitan police’s Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime unit in July 2016 and a staged anti-extremist raid in the capital’s Kalyanpur that killed several madrassah students and pious youths in the same month.
The tribunal, chaired by Justice Golam Mortuza Mozumder, set March 8 for compliance with the order.
The four absconding former senior DMP officers are former additional commissioner Sheikh Muhammad Maruf Hasan, former joint commissioner Abdul Baten, former joint commissioner Krishna Pada Roy, and former CTTC chief Monirul Islam.
Detained former inspector general of police AKM Shahidul Haque and former DMP commissioner Asaduzzaman Mia were produced before the tribunal in the case.
The tribunal issued the order as the police failed to arrest the accused following arrest warrants issued against them on January 29.
According to the prosecution, senior DMP police officials, along with their forces, carried out a so-called block raid at a house in Kalyanpur on July 26, 2016.
The police abducted madrasa students and pious youths during the Kalyanpur raid, detained them in a building, and later staged a fake extremist operation that killed several victims.
One survivor was allegedly forced to file a false case in this connection, according to the prosecution.
Hasina and Asaduzzaman were earlier sentenced to death on charges of superior command responsibility during the 2024 July crackdown, and are facing in-absentia trials in a number of cases over the July mass uprising.
Hasina was also jailed for varying terms in corruption cases after her ouster and fleeing to India on August 5, 2024 amid the student-led mass uprising.
