A case was filed with the International Crimes Tribunal against six Rapid Action Battalion officers on charge of crimes against humanity for reported abduction, enforced disappearance and torture of a physician in 2021.

In the first-ever case filed with the tribunal for reported abdcutionand enforced disappearance, the complainant, physician Israt Rafique Eshita, alleged that the officers abducted her from her house at Kafrul in the capital on July 28, 2021.

The accused officers include the then Squadron Leader Ali Ashraf, IT expert Rakib, and additional superintendent of police Md Akhteruzzaman.

According to Israt’s complaint, she became a victim of enforced disappearance after the battalion officers abducted her and held her in an undisclosed location, where she was subjected to torture. She was produced before the media by the battalion five days later, on August 1, 2021.

On the following day, August 2, 2021, Israt was publicly presented as a ‘fake physician’ and implicated in three narcotics-related cases, which she claimed, were fabricated.

Her case took to 30 the number of cases filed with the tribunal, mostly targeting deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina, since her resignation and fleeing to India on August 5.

In a related development, the International Crimes Tribunal-1 has received two more complaints against Sheikh Hasina, involving allegations of crimes against humanity in connection with the deaths of Dr Sajib Sarkar and Sheikh Ashabul Yamin, both of whom were killed in police firing during the student-people uprising on July 18.

Halim Sarkar, the father of Dr Sajib Sarkar, filed a complaint accusing 71 individuals, including police members, of killing his son.

Sajib, who completed his MBBS from Taherunnesa Medical College in 2020, was shot dead by police at Azampur of Uttara in the capital during peaceful protests.

‘They killed my innocent son, and I want justice,’ Halim Sarkar told the media after filing the case.

In another complaint, Yamin’s uncle, Md Abdullah Al Mun Kadir, accused 78 individuals, including Sheikh Hasina, Awami League leaders Obaidul Quader, Zunaid Ahmed Palak, and Mohammad A Arafat, of genocide and crimes against humanity under the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act of 1973.

Yamin was reportedly detained by police during the student-people uprising in Savar and shot at point-blank range. Disturbing footage of the police dragging Yamin’s body to an armoured vehicle, dropping it on the street, and brutally discarding it on a road divider went viral and shocked the nation. Yamin was rushed to Savar Enam Medical College Hospital, where doctors pronounced him dead.

The allegations against the accused are being pursued under sections 3(2), 4(1), and 4(2) of the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act, as calls for justice intensify following the tragic events of July 18.