The government’s draft regulation for digital, social media and OTT platforms will be a threat to freedom of speech and people’s basic rights, experts said yesterday.

Three alleged criminals are killed in separate reported incidents of “gunfights” with law enforcers in Cox’s Bazar, Magura and Natore districts.

To this writer the expression “extra-judicial killing” is an apt illustration of the term “oxymoron”— that is, words put together which contradict each other. The expression has most likely been coined by journalists, and perhaps social scientists and rights activists, and curiously is not found in the legal lexicon. One could ask if there is actually anything like a judicial killing and if not, how could there be sense or meaning in the expression “extra-judicial killing”?

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein condemns the alleged extra-judicial killings of suspected drug offenders in Bangladesh and urged the authorities to ensure that these serious human rights violations are immediately halted and perpetrators brought to justice.

An alleged robber is killed in a “gunfight” between his cohorts and police in Madarganj upazila of Jamalpur last night.

At last there is acknowledgement from the government party members that innocent people do get killed in “crossfire”. One wishes it had come sooner.

Of late, an influen-tial ruling party MP has registered his contempt for the latest rounds of extra-judicial killings by the RAB in Bangladesh.