Hint against foreign players :::: Sheikh Hasina's foreign minister Mahmud addresses rare press conference, flays Yunus regime

 Former Bangladedh foreign minister Hasan Mahmud addressing a rare press conference in Delhi on Saturday, said that many of those who were killed in 2024, died of sniper fire, by agents who used guns of a calibre which the Bangladesh security forces did not have.

This was a bring hint that foreign or enemy elements may have been behind the shootings to present the then Hasina regime in poor light. 

"Our last hope was the UN, but we were failed in this... Usually a UNHCR report is done after a resolution by the UN Security council," he said.

 Howwever, in this case UNHCR chief Volker Turk, whom Bangladesh's interim chief advisor Mohammad Yunus describes as a friend, "went ahead with a report merely on the request of the Yunus government."

He alleged that no stakeholders were consulted and that there was no clear provenance for the data. According to him, several individuals listed as having been killed in official gazettes issued by the Yunus administration were later found to be alive.

Mahmud, who was speaking along with Golam Maruf Majumdar Nijhoom, head of the legal team of the International Crimes Research Foundation, also said that the Awami League was in the process of compiling a comprehensive account of killings under the incumbent Yunus regime.

The former foreign minister also pointed out that "hundreds of journalists have been arrested on flimsy charges, newspaper offices and cultural organisations have been attacked, some one lakh Awami leaguers are in jail and minorities have been systematically attacked and killed after the new, illegal regime took over".

Mahmud also criticised the elections which are poised to be held next month in Bangladesh, calling it "one-sided" as Awami League which he claimed has a support of nearly 60 per cent of the population is being denied a chance to fight it. 

"It is an arranged election and hardly free or fair," Mahmud alleged.

Accusing the UNHCR of overlooking violence against members of the Awami League and security forces, Mahmud alleged that the report failed to account for the killing of thousands of police personnel during the unrest. 

He claimed that nearly 3,000 policemen were killed and cited an incident in which an entire police station, with about 40 officers inside, was set on fire.

Ends