Introduction

On January 31, 2022, a local court in Cox’s Bazar, a southeastern coastal town of Bangladesh, sentenced a suspended police inspector, Liakat Ali, and former Officer-in-Charge (OC) of Teknaf Police Station, Pradeep Kumar Das, to death for killing Sinha Mohammad Rashed Khan, a retired Major of Bangladesh Army. Six others sentenced to life terms include three police officers, Sub-Inspector (SI) Nandadulal Rakkhit, constables Sagar Deb and Rubel Sharma. The remainder were police informants Md Nezamuddin, Nurul Amin and Ayaz Uddin. In the verdict the court observed that it was a ‘premediated murder’ (The Daily Star 2022). Sinha Rashed Khan was shot dead by police on Marine Drive of the town on July 31, 2020. Initial press reports informed that he was killed by the local police when his car was stopped without any provocation. He and three of his associates were on their way back after filming a documentary in the area. It became evident from the reports that it was murder, a case of extrajudicial killing by the police. After the incident the local police filed a case against Sinha Rashed claiming that he had ‘prevented them [police] from searching him and his car’ and ‘drew his pistol’, forcing the officer at the checkpoint to shoot him (Chowdhury and Rumi 2022).

The murder of Sinha created outrage and stirred a nationwide discussion about ‘extrajudicial killings’, especially since the so-called ‘war on drugs’ began in mid-May 2018 (Islam 2018). Besides, it was also reported in the press that tension between the army and the police ensued. The top officers of the two forces held a meeting. Subsequently, all the police of a police station in the area were transferred and the OC of Teknaf police station, Pradeep Das, was arrested. He and his associates were later charged and tried. The verdict came on January 31, 2022.

Sentencing a police officer, especially who has received numerous awards including the highest award for a police officer twice, was by itself an unusual event in Bangladesh, but the more important aspect was the observation of the court in the verdict and the information revealed during the prosecution. The 288- page verdict noted that Sinha was the 205th victim of extrajudicial killings perpetrated by Pradeep Das (Islam 2022) and that during the prosecution the public prosecutor had provided authentic and credible information including names and addresses of 104 victims (TBS 2022). What the international and national human rights organizations have been insisting for more than a decade, but repeatedly denied by the government, seems to have been recognized by a local court.

The death of Sinha was neither an isolated event, nor an aberration, but one of the many instances where citizens have become victims of planned death at the hand of the members of state agencies. These are the kinds of killings the law enforcing agencies have been describing as ‘crossfire’, ‘encounter’, or ‘gunfight’ since 2004. As these killings have not been authorized by any legal authority, national and international human rights organizations have described them as ‘extrajudicial killings.’

Considering the frequency of incidents where private citizens have been killed by agents of the state, the Centre for Governance Studies (CGS) launched a project in September 2021 to investigate the nature and pattern of these killings that occurred between January 2019 and December 2021. The project gathered data from several sources. This report highlights the findings of the project.