2 hours ago
A Bangladesh tribunal sentenced three police officers to death over two killings during the 2024 student-led protests. The ruling deepens accountability proceedings tied to the July Uprising and the fall of Sheikh Hasina's government.
Dhaka,UPDATED: Jun 28, 2026 17:12 IST
A special tribunal in Bangladesh on Sunday sentenced three police officers, including former Dhaka police chief Habibur Rahman in absentia, to death over the killing of two people during the 2024 student-led street protests that led to the fall of prime minister Sheikh Hasina's government.
The Bangladesh Crimes Tribunal also gave life imprisonment to a police sub-inspector and a 20-year prison term to an assistant sub-inspector, the only accused who faced trial in person. Announcing the verdict, tribunal chairman Mohammad Golam Mortuza Mozumder said: "They will be hanged by neck until their death."
The three-judge tribunal convicted former Dhaka Metropolitan Police commissioner Habibur Rahman, additional deputy commissioner Rashedul Islam and former officer-in-charge of a Dhaka police station Mashiur Rahman. The case related to the killing of two people, including a young man who was shot while hanging from a building cornice during the violence.
The student-led protests, later called the July Uprising, spread through July and August. Sheikh Hasina fled to India on August 5, 2024, and the Muhammad Yunus-led interim government took charge three days later. A UN rights office report in 2025 estimated that up to 1,400 people were killed between July 15 and August 15 during the uprising, as Hasina's government ordered a wide security crackdown on protesters.
According to the prosecution, the police officers convicted on Sunday used lethal force against students and civilians beyond their assigned jurisdictions on the orders of Hasina and senior officials. Three of the five convicts are believed to be absconding in Bangladesh or abroad. Under the tribunal law, they can challenge the verdict in the Appellate Division of Bangladesh's Supreme Court only after surrendering or being arrested.
Earlier, on November 17, 2025, the tribunal sentenced Hasina and her former home minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal to death in absentia, holding them responsible for crimes committed in the attempt to suppress the protests. On the same day, it sentenced former inspector general of police Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun to five years in jail after he turned approver, or state witness, in the case.
Trials of several senior politicians are also under way at the tribunal, which is due to deliver its verdict on June 30 in the case against Hasanul Haque Inu, president of the left-leaning Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal and a former information minister in Hasina's now disbanded Awami League-led alliance government. At the same time, a case challenging the legal basis and legitimacy of the amended tribunal law is pending before the High Court after senior Supreme Court lawyer Mohammad Mohsen Rashid filed a writ petition on June 24, 2026.
The tribunal was set up in 2010 by Hasina's government to try collaborators of Pakistani troops during Bangladesh's 1971 Liberation War. Six people, including a leader of the now ruling Bangladesh ist Party, were executed after tribunal trials, while the other five were leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami, now the main opposition party, which had opposed Bangladesh's 1971 independence. The Yunus-led interim government later amended the law to allow the tribunal to try leaders and officials of the Awami League government for crimes against humanity.
The verdict on Sunday adds to a series of tribunal cases linked to the 2024 uprising, with the court punishing police officers over killings during the protests and wider legal proceedings continuing against former top political and security figures.
With PTI Inputs
- Ends
Published By:
India Today Web Desk
Published On:
Jun 28, 2026 17:12 IST
