Menon, Qamrul, several police officials charged with crimes against humanity

The prosecution of the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) today filed formal charges in two cases involving crimes against humanity against two political leaders and several former senior police officials.

In the first case, charges were brought against Workers Party of Bangladesh President Rashed Khan Menon and former food minister Advocate Qamrul Islam for their alleged roles in killings and other atrocities during the July 2024 student-led mass uprising.

In a separate case, the prosecution accused 10 individuals, including two former inspectors general of police (IGP), over a 2016 incident in Gazipur in which seven young men were killed.

Former IGPs AKM Shahidul Hoque and Mohammad Javed Patwary; former Dhaka Metropolitan Police commissioner Asaduzzaman Mia; former Counter-Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit chief Monirul Islam; and former Detective Branch chief Harun-or Rashid are among those against whom charges were pressed in the case.

Prosecutors alleged the 2016 operation was staged as an anti-militancy raid but was in fact a planned execution, constituting crimes against humanity.