Last Updated on February 9, 2026 7:03 pm by INDIAN AWAAZ
Zakir Hossain from Dhaka
Former Bangladesh army chief Lieutenant General (retired) Iqbal Karim Bhuiya has called for the disbanding of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) and the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI), citing allegations of enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings under the previous Awami League government.
Bhuiya made the remarks on Monday while testifying on the second day of the trial of former army officer Major General (retired) Ziaul Ahsan at Tribunal-1, which is hearing charges of crimes against humanity. The bench is headed by Judge Md Golam Mortuza Majumdar, with Judge Md Shafiul Alam Mahmud as the other member. The next hearing is scheduled for February 18.
“I believe RAB should be disbanded immediately. If that is not possible, army personnel serving in RAB should be returned to the military,” Bhuiya told the tribunal. “I also want DGFI to be disbanded because this organisation, having given rise to a culture of killings, has lost its legitimacy.”
Known as “IKB”, Bhuiya served as army chief from June 25, 2012, to June 25, 2015 during the Awami League government. His testimony began on Sunday, with partial cross-examination concluding on Monday.
Bhuiya spoke about what he described as the dehumanising nature of military training. “During training, army members are dehumanised so that they gradually forget to see humans as humans and start considering them as targets,” he said. “At firing ranges, they shoot at human-shaped targets to remove psychological barriers to killing. Keeping this in mind, army personnel should never have been integrated with civilian police.”
He described the formation of RAB in 2003 as a “grave and disastrous decision”, arguing that army training was unsuitable for law enforcement roles. He noted that extrajudicial killings occurred between 2003 and 2006 and said similar abuses had taken place earlier during Operation Clean Heart.
Operation Clean Heart was a joint security drive conducted between October 16, 2002 and January 9, 2003 under the BNP-Jamaat coalition government. The operation was later indemnified by the Joint Operations Indemnity Act, 2003, which the High Court struck down as unconstitutional a decade later.
Tribunal-1 ordered the start of Ziaul Ahsan’s trial on January 14 on three charges. The first alleges that on July 11, 2011, three people, including Sajal, were killed in Gazipur Sadar’s Pubail area in Ahsan’s direct presence. The second holds him responsible for the killing of 50 people, including Nazrul and Mallik, in Barguna’s Pathorghata upazila between 2010 and 2013. The third charge also relates to the killing of 50 individuals.
Ziaul Ahsan was placed on remand in the case on December 23, 2024.