• Source:JND
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The passports of 97 people, including ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, were cancelled by Bangladesh's Department of Immigration and Passports on Tuesday due to their suspected involvement in enforced disappearances and murders during the July–August student demonstrations last year.

Azad Majumder, Deputy Press Secretary to the Chief Adviser, said during a press conference at the Foreign Service Academy that 22 of the cancellations were explicitly related to charges of enforced disappearances, according to The Daily Star. He went on to say that the remaining 75 passports, including Hasina's, had been withdrawn owing to suspected involvement in the horrific events of the uprising, which killed hundreds of people.

This follows the issuance of Bangladesh's second arrest warrant by the International Criminal Tribunal (ICT) on Monday, targeting Sheikh Hasina and 11 other individuals, including former military generals and a former police chief, for their alleged involvement in enforced disappearances. A prosecution plea prompted the warrant to be issued by the tribunal's chairman, Justice Md Golam Mortuza Mojumdar.

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According to a report by news agency PTI, an ICT official said that the Inspector General of Police has been directed to detain the 12 people and bring them before the tribunal on February 12. Complaints of hundreds of coerced disappearances are the basis for the case. The suspects include former Inspector General of Police Benazir Ahmed, who is reportedly absconding, and Major General (Retired) Tarique Ahmed Siddique, the former Defense Advisor to the deposed PM and presently in detention.

ICT Chief Prosecutor Mohammad Tajul Islam accused Hasina's government of creating a culture of state-sponsored enforced disappearances, including rewards for those engaged. Key players in these operations, according to him, include the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI), the Detective Branch (DB) of the police, the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), and the Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit.

The ICT has directed law enforcement agencies to turn in the investigative report or a progress report by February 12. Hasina fled India after her Awami League administration collapsed due to massive anti-government rallies in August 2023, and Dhaka formally requested her extradition from India this month. While acknowledging the plea, New Delhi refrained from commenting further.