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The United States on Friday declared former Rapid Action Battalion director general Benazir Ahmed, now the inspector general of police, ineligible for entry to the country and sanctioned the battalion’s five other serving and former officials as the country slapped sanctions on officials and entities of eight countries for human rights abuse.

The other sanctioned people are the battalion’s director general Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun, additional director general Khan Mohammad Azad, and former additional directors general Tofayel Mustafa Sorwar, Mohammad Jahangir Alam and Mohammad Anwar Latif Khan.

‘Today, the US Department of State has announced visa restrictions under Section 7031(c) of the FY 2021 Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programmes Appropriations Act on Benazir Ahmed due to his involvement in gross violations of human rights, making him ineligible for entry into the United States,’ said the US Department of Treasury release posted on its website.

‘Widespread allegations of serious human rights abuse in Bangladesh by the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) — as part of the Bangladeshi government’s war on drugs — threaten US national security interests by undermining the rule of law and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, and the economic prosperity of the people of Bangladesh,’ the release said.

‘RAB is a joint task force founded in 2004 and composed of members of the police, army, navy, air force, and border guards seconded to the RAB from their respective units. Its mandate includes internal security, intelligence gathering related to criminal activities, and government-directed investigations. NGOs have alleged that RAB and other Bangladeshi law enforcement agencies are responsible for more than 600 disappearances since 2009, nearly 600 extrajudicial killings since 2018, and torture. Some reports suggest these incidents target opposition party members, journalists, and human rights activists,’ it read.

‘RAB is designated pursuant to EO [executive order] 13818 for being a foreign entity that is responsible for or complicit in, or has directly or indirectly engaged in, serious human rights abuse,’ the release said.

Sanctioning the six officials, the release said that the six individuals ‘are designated pursuant to EO 13818 for being foreign persons who are or have been a leader or official of RAB, an entity that has engaged in, or whose members have engaged in, serious human rights abuse relating to their tenure.’

According to the Executive Order 13818, ‘All property and interests in property that are in the United States, that hereafter come within the United States, or that are or hereafter come within the possession or control of any United States person’ of the individuals declared foreign person ‘are blocked and may not be transferred, paid, exported, withdrawn, or otherwise dealt in.’

Timed for International Human Rights Day and supported in part by Britain and Canada, the sanctions took aim at officials accused of abetting the crackdown on anti-coup protestors in Myanmar, the oppression of Muslim Uyghurs in China’s Xinjiang region and political violence in Bangladesh under the guise of a war on drugs.

‘Our actions today, particularly those in partnership with the United Kingdom and Canada, send a message that democracies around the world will act against those who abuse the power of the state to inflict suffering and repression,’ the US Treasury Department said the release.

In a parallel move, the US State Department on Friday imposed ban on the entry of 12 officials from Bangladesh, China, Uganda, Belarus, Sri Lanka, and Mexico ‘for their involvement in gross violations of human rights.’

RAB spokesperson and legal and media wing director Commander Khandaker Al Moin told ¶¶Òõ¾«Æ·, ‘We have heard this from different media. Still we have not received any official letter. We will take necessary steps after receiving an official letter.’