Chowdhury Abdullah Al Mamun, former Inspector General of Police (IGP), has testified as a key witness in a case at the International Crimes Tribunal-1, claiming that the use of lethal weapons by police was carried out on the direct orders of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
During his testimony on Tuesday before the tribunal led by Justice Md. Golam Mortuza Mazumder, Mamun said that on 18 July last year, then Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan called him and conveyed that the Prime Minister had instructed the police to deploy “lethal weapons.”
At the time, Mamun said he was at the Police Headquarters, accompanied by Additional DIG Proloy Kumar Jowarder. He added that he informed his colleague about the Prime Minister’s directive, after which the instruction was communicated by Jowarder to the Dhaka Metropolitan Police Commissioner and throughout the country. According to Mamun, the deployment of lethal weapons began immediately following these orders.
In his statement, the former IGP further alleged that several political leaders, including Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, Anisul Haque, Fazle Noor Taposh, Salman F Rahman, Obaidul Quader, Jahangir Kabir Nanak, Mohammad Ali Arafat, Mirza Azam, Hasanul Haq Inu, and Rashed Khan Menon, had encouraged the Prime Minister to approve the use of deadly weapons.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and former Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal are both defendants in the ongoing trial. As of Monday, 35 witnesses had provided testimonies in the case.
