Mob justice replaces courts in Bangladesh under Yunus government: Report

Dhaka, Aug 22 (IANS) Lynching has supplanted trial and vengeance masquerades as justice in Bangladesh which has been gripped with violence since the ouster of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in August 2024, a report cited on Thursday.

Highlighting data from several rights groups, the report mentioned that 174 people have been killed in mob violence between August 2024 and May 2025, with victims ranging from political workers to small vendors.

“At Dhaka University, student Tofajjal was killed; at Jahangirnagar, Masud met a similar fate. Shohagh was crushed under a rock as his killers danced on his chest in broad daylight. Court premises themselves were not spared, as mobs stormed judicial complexes, beating accused persons in custody. Judges, fearing for their safety, hesitated to sit. The robe, once a symbol of dignity, became a garment of risk,” the ‘Northeast News’ report mentioned.

“Justice did not merely delay — it deserted. This breakdown of judicial authority naturally engulfed the legal profession. Lawyers aligned with the fallen regime were targetted: chambers torched, bar associations fractured, over 150 practitioners jailed, and dozens remanded. Some fled abroad; others melted into anonymity. A new group styling itself as ‘anti-fascist lawyers’ declared themselves guardians of the revolution, but professional solidarity collapsed,” it added.

The report asserted that under the Yunus regime, opposition activists languished week after week in jail, while those aligned with the new order, including the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, Jamaat-e-Islami, and students associated with the National Citizen Party, secured bail with ease.

In a horrific move, it stated, the Muhammad Yunus-led interim government, even granted them indemnity for the crimes committed during last year’s July protests. Moreover, the report stated that Yunus himself was controversially acquitted of labourer exploitation charges soon after taking office as Chief Advisor, which the critics aptly termed “selective justice.”

“The irony was cruel: those who once defended war criminals were now appointed prosecutors, while the country’s longest-serving Prime Minister was arraigned without counsel of her choice, fairness, or due process,” the report stated.

According to the report, the Constitution of Bangladesh came under threat after a half-baked document styled the ‘July Charter’ or ‘Declaration’ was brandished as an alternative constitution—a misleading and conceptually flawed manifesto riddled with romantic promises.

“The so-called ‘July Revolution’ was sold as emancipation, but many came to see it as misconceived, fraudulent in its promises, and reckless in its haste. To discard a Constitution born of a Liberation War is no mere academic folly; it imperils the very identity of the state,” the report noted.

–IANS

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