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innocent, he said, while calling for an independent police enquiry commission.

Khalilur Rahman Khan, director of the NGO Affairs Bureau, suggested exploring private investigations into police torture as the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898 allows individuals other than magistrates to conduct probes.

The conference also shed light on state violence during the uprising, enforced disappearances, and extrajudicial killings by police and state forces during the previous Awami League regime.

Ruhul Amin from Satkhira described how police shot him in the leg in 2014, leading to amputation. Relatives of border killing victims, including Felani Khatun’s father Nurul Islam and Mursalin’s brother Yasin Mia, also spoke.

Rights activist Sazzad Hossain said 1,353 Bangladeshis have been killed by India’s Border Security Force’s gunfire since 2000.

Armed attacks on unarmed individuals at the border are a gross violation of international law, said Saifuddin Ahmed, professor of the University of Dhaka’s Department of Peace and Conflict Studies.

More than 1,500 complaints were submitted to the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances, said its former member Nur Khan Liton.

The July uprising’s aspirations will remain unfulfilled if the pattern of repression does not change, said Liton, chief adviser of the Human Rights Support Society.

Ensuring state accountability requires impartial investigations following international guidelines such as the Istanbul Protocol, said Justice Moyeenul Islam Chowdhury, former president of the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances.