Taslima Yasmin

Almost a year ago, the Indian government announced its plan to deport “all illegal immigrants” including approximately 40,000 Rohingya refugees estimated to be living across India. In August 2017 in a letter sent to each of the state governments, India's Ministry of Home Affairs issued an order to “identify and deport all illegal immigrants”, including Rohingya refugees. The home ministry as well as leaders of the ruling BJP insisted that there were links between illegal migrants and threat to national security as they were perceived to be more vulnerable to potential recruitment by terrorist organisations.

More than four million people in Assam are possibly no longer Indian citizens as per the recently published draft of the National Register of Citizens (NRC), a process meant to identify and delist those who are “illegal migrants” living in this northeastern state of India.

It is often the case that rape victims prefer to remain silent or "settle" the matter through informal village mediations, instead of resorting to the formal legal system.

The courts in the subcontinent including our Supreme Court had held in a number of decisions that in case of sexual offence there is no illegality in convicting the accused on the sole testimony of the victim. But in reality, the courts have hardly applied this rule in a rape prosecution, particularly in Bangladesh.

The current definition of rape in our Penal Code was formulated in 1890 back in colonial times.

The law of enemy property has a long and complex history in Bangladesh. Although it originated from the emergency laws