The International Crimes Tribunal’s chief prosecutor Mohammad Tajul Islam on Sunday claimed that the deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina had issued a ‘no treatment, no release’ directive to a hospital in Dhaka during the July-August uprising.
She gave the directives to officials of the National Institute of Traumatology and Orthopaedic Rehabilitation when she visited the hospital a few days before she was ousted from power on August 5, 2024.
The directives were given to apply for the injured people in the uprising to prevent medical care for them and discharging them from the NITOR, Tajul said at a press briefing at the prosecution office in Dhaka after submitting the information to the tribunal.
The chief prosecutor said that he had told the tribunal that the prosecution had gathered substantial evidence to prove Hasina’s directives.
The prosecution has submitted its findings to the three-member tribunal led by its chairman Golam Mortuza Mozumder as part of its ongoing investigation into the July uprising, he said.
‘She ordered the on-duty doctors and hospital authorities not to treat the injured or allow them to leave the hospital,’ Tajul said.
‘When we visited NITOR, the injured people and their family members informed us that Hasina visited them before fleeing the country. It was during this visit that she gave the ‘no treatment, no release’ order. Doctors at the hospital also corroborated the information,’ he said.
According to the chief prosecutor, the Hasina administration also obstructed postmortem examinations and inquests for those killed during the uprising.
‘Authorities were not allowed to conduct inquests on the bodies, and many families faced obstacles in obtaining death certificates,’ Tajul said.
‘In cases of gunshot fatalities, doctors were pressured to list respiratory issues or fever as the official cause of deaths instead of bullet wounds,’ he claimed.
When asked about the absence of postmortem or inquest reports, Tajul attributed it to the scale of the alleged crimes.
‘Crimes against humanity were committed on such a large scale that victims had to be buried hastily, leaving no time for proper documentation. This is why those reports were never issued,’ he explained.
The tribunal on Sunday set April 22 as the deadline for submitting the investigation report against former Shahbagh police station inspector Arshad Hossain and constables Imaz Hossain Pramanik and Sujan Hossain for alleged crimes against humanity committed in the capital’s Chankharpool area.
The tribunal also granted a one-day remand for Arshad Hossain on March 2 and for Imaz Hossain on March 3 for interrogation in the custody of the investigation agency at Dhanmondi.
In a separate case, the tribunal also approved a one-day remand for Chanchal Kumar Sarker on February 27 in connection with alleged crimes against humanity committed in the capital’s Rampura area.
