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Opinion

What do crossfire deaths of key witnesses signify?
***Everyone understands that the law and order situation in Bangladesh deteriorated to such an extent that no one was feeling safe on the street. The government should address this problem in a comprehensive way. RAB is not working the way it was supposed to work according to law, for which the government itself is responsible.***
Muhammad Mohi-us Sunnah
THE term "witness" in its general sense includes "all persons from whose lips testimony is extracted to he used.in nny judicial' proceeding’ iuid In its -legal sense, means "one-who gives evidence in a cause before a court."
The RAB, the so-called elite force of Bangladesh, seems to have successfully captured many key witnesses to various crimes and managed to extract testimony, revealing information regarding locations where further material evidences and/or accomplice wi messes can be found.
Unfortunately, this elite force seems to lack the local knowledge of finding places and, therefore, instead of seeking assistance of local police, they prefer to take help of the witnesses who provided them the information regarding various crimes and criminals to usher them to the location to find evidence and criminals. They do not feel die necessity of ensuring the safety of the witnesses who arc cooperating with them of their own volition in collecting evidence. Consequendy, we see key witnesses are being killed in crossfire between RAB and the people of darkness.
One may wonder why I am calling the persons captured by RAB as "witnesses" instead of criminals. Well, as mentioned above, anyone can be a witness who makes statement which could be used in any judicial proceeding. According to media reports, all these people killed in crossfire have made statement to the RAB officials, and based on such state-
ment they were taken to the spot where they have been killed. Perhaps, this is a big relief for those criminals against whose interest the captured witnesses made statement.
it appears that this elite force-lacks the knowledge of finding places and needs the assistance of witnesses to do their job, does not understand whose assistance they should seek to perform their duty, does not understand its responsi-
bility to ensure the security of witnesses, cannot distinguish between a dangerous and safe place, does not understand the constitutional/fundamentai rights of all person under police custody, etc. Perhaps, lack of professionalism made them elite. If this is the measure for an elite force, one can wonder what would be the quality ofa normal force.
What Is RAB anyway? The Rapid Action Battalion was formed under the Armed Police Battalions (Amendment) Act, 2003. The law empowered RAB to do two additional things as compared to the Armed Police Battalions. These are: to collect (1) intelligence in respect of crime and criminal activities, and to conduct (2) investigation of any offence on the direction of the government.
The law does not permit it to do more than these things. Is RAB keeping its activities within the
bounds of law? Permitting (or forcing) key witnesses to get killed during some so-called crossfire does not seem to vouch for that. Many would like to argue that these people .were killed while the RAB was doing it's-duty. Is It true? Then, 'why the accused or witnesses do not get killed when a normal police perform their duty? Well, they follow the direction of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC). Why does RAB not follow CrPC? Many may
believe that RAB is not required to do that. I think the Law Minister would not agree with such contention.
Let’s see, what the law says. The section 6C of the above-mentioned law says: "(1) An officer of a Rapid Action Battalion shall, while investigating an offence, follow the procedure prescribed in the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898 (ActV of 1898) or in any other law, as the case may be, for the investigation of such offence."
Evidently, RAB is not authorised to bypass CrPC. It is not even doing its job for which it was created. In course of collecting "intelligence in respect of crime and criminal activities" it is seemingly killing the source of intelligence and thereby closing the door for further investigation into the crimes.
The other function it is entrusted with is to conduct "Invcs-
tigallon of any offence on the direction of the Government." The section 6C (2) of the above-mentioned law also put some limitation on how far it can go. The law says: "(2) Notwithstanding anything contained In'the Code of Criminal Procedure, I898'(ActV of 1898) or in any other law for the time being in force, the concerned officer shall, on compleu'on of the investigation of any offence under ^this ordinance, file his report to the
Officer-in-Charge of the concerned police station, and the officer-in-Charge shall, within forty-eight hours of the receipt of such report, forward the same as it is to the competent court or tribunal, as the case maybe."
There are no publicly available statistics which reflects as to the number of cases given to RAB by the government for investigation, nor do we have any information as to how many investigations are completed by RAB and submitted to the respective police station. Clearly, the RAB is underperforming. Getting key witnesses killed during the course of investigation or intelligence collection is an unforgivable underperformance. If an elite force of an independent state performs that badly, anyone can raise the question whether the state is governable or not.
Now, let me reflect on actual
dynamics of the reality. What is actually happening on the ground? On the basis of information provided or direction given by some quarters, RAB is arresting people,and, as^ome say, killing-them- under’'the ap-paTeht assumption that they have committed some heinous crime and that they do not deserve right to life or fair trial.
Killings are justified with a newspaper statement claiming that
the deceased had many criminal cases pending against him. Ministers of the government are publicly supporting such action. Those who support such notion seem to believe that if these people are given a chance to face the judiciary, they would be able to dodge the system and would be able to continue with their criminal activities.
In other words, a large number of the population — including ministers - believes that the state machinery is incapable of bringing criminals to justice under the existing legal system. That is why they have given the ’judicial’ power to RAB, who decides who should live and who should be exterminated. This mind-set reflects a complete mistrust of police, judiciary, and the system of governance. Some ministers have even started their election campaign stating that this is the most popular
thing the BNP government has done.
It is true that the government is incapable of bringing the criminals to justice. There are lapses in the ^system wbi?h needs re-hauling in i noifstfc nidttbdr? But the way the problem’is addressed seems to ignore the very existence of the state. The law is made for one purpose, while die law enforcing authorities are given direction to do something beyond their legal authority. They are tricked to commit crime. One day they will be held responsible for killing people. Even immunities will not be sufficient to save them, as all such immunities will be declared by future courts void ab initio because of their unconstitutionality.
To kill people without due process of law, not only defies the Constitution of Bangladesh, but also undermines the state's responsibility towards the International community in keeping die country a civilised state. The Government of Bangladesh has become party to several international instruments which guide it as to how it will deal with its citizens. Everyone understands that the law and order situation in Bangladesh deteriorated to such an extent that no one was feeling safe on the street. The government should address this problem in a comprehensive way. RAB is not working the way it was supposed to work according to law, for which the government itself is responsible.
Muhammad Mohl-usSunnah is a (raolanca writer.