Cumilla crossfire death demands fair investigation

We felt a sense of relief in the last four months as deaths in the so-called crossfires stopped, coincidentally after the US imposed sanctions on Rab for its alleged human rights violations. There has been no news of such extrajudicial killings, although according to Ain o Salish Kendra (ASK), three people did die between January and March due to physical torture by law enforcement agencies, while an accused died of a heart attack in Rab custody. The brief lull has apparently come to an end, as a man was reportedly shot dead in what Rab said was a gunfight between officers and armed gang members in the Golabari area of Cumilla on April 17.

Though the description of the incident as presented by Rab is slightly different, we have heard such narratives in the past. As such, we have to ask: Is there nothing for Rab to learn from such occurrences? From Rab's own account of the altercation in Cumilla, it almost sounds like they walked into a trap. When one criminal is shot dead and the others manage to flee, what is the net result? No matter which angle this is looked at from, it does not seem to be a professionally executed job. And besides giving rise to natural doubt as to what really happened, even if one was to believe Rab's version of the events, it should call into question why the mission was executed so poorly. Whatever happened to gathering intelligence before walking into a situation?

The person killed by Rab conveniently happened to be a wanted criminal—who, nonetheless, deserved to face trial. Even if this is accepted, given the questions that have been raised over Rab's past record and how it has affected the image of the country internationally, there should be an independent inquiry into the matter to see if there was any foul play.

In Major Sinha murder case, we saw how certain law enforcement members tried to use the excuse of crossfire to get away with killing a man in cold blood. After the uproar that followed Sinha's murder, there was a period when we didn't get any report of crossfire deaths. Unfortunately, that did not last for very long. We hope we are not entering into the same state of affairs. Normalising crossfire deaths again would not help restore public trust in our law enforcement agencies and the rule of law, nor would it help with our image in front of the world.