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Death Toll In Bangladesh ‘Anti-Drugs’ Crackdown Rises Above 50

  Shootouts across Bangladesh left nine alleged drug dealers dead Thursday, police said, as authorities stepped up a crackdown that now has claimed at least … Continue reading Death Toll In Bangladesh ‘Anti-Drugs’ Crackdown Rises Above 50


A Bangladeshi relative of a victim killed in the Rana Plaza building collapse reacts as she and others mark the fifth anniversary of the disaster at the site where the building once stood in Savar, on the outskirts of Dhaka, on April 24, 2018. Hundreds of people staged protests and tearful tributes on April 24 at Rana Plaza, scene of one of the world’s worst industrial disasters when the complex of clothing factories collapsed and killed at least 1,130 people. Munir UZ ZAMAN / AFP
A Bangladeshi relative of a victim killed in the Rana Plaza building collapse reacts as she and others mark the fifth anniversary of the disaster at the site where the building once stood in Savar, on the outskirts of Dhaka, on April 24, 2018.
Munir UZ ZAMAN / AFP

 

Shootouts across Bangladesh left nine alleged drug dealers dead Thursday, police said, as authorities stepped up a crackdown that now has claimed at least 52 lives in 10 days and drawn criticism from rights groups.

The campaign comes as Bangladesh struggles to contain a surging drugs trade, particularly in methamphetamine pills known as “yaba”.

However, human rights groups say many of the deaths are the result of extra-judicial killings.

Two of the nine were killed in gun battles between rival drug dealers in Magura, district police chief Ilias Hossain told AFP.

Four people died in southeastern Feni and Comilla and a further three were killed elsewhere, officials said.

In Chittagong on Wednesday a son and a daughter held a press conference to accuse the elite Rapid Action Battalion police unit of killing their father.

The unit — which authorities say has so far killed 19 drug dealers during the crackdown — has denied the allegations, but the campaign has caused widespread disquiet.

Even the state-run National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) this week expressed “grave concern” at the anti-drug drive, saying it does not support “any extra-judicial killings”.

Huge numbers of the “yaba” pills have crossed into Bangladesh from neighbouring Myanmar, a major producer. Authorities last year seized a record 40 million pills but said an estimated 250-300 million others entered the market.