The International Crimes Tribunal has issued arrest warrants against five individuals, including former Inspector General of Police (IGP) Javed Patwary, in connection with the killing of seven people during a counter-terrorism operation in Gazipur in 2016.

The order was passed on Monday by a three-member judicial panel of Tribunal-1, headed by Justice Md Golam Mortuza Majumder.

According to case records, on 8 October 2016, a team from the Counter Terrorism Unit, assisted by local police, conducted a raid on a two-storey house in Patartek, Noagaon, under the Gazipur City Corporation. Seven people were killed during the operation.

Prosecutor Gazi MH Tamim said that following the incident, the victims were publicly labelled as being involved in anti-state activities. 

However, investigators from the International Crimes Tribunal later concluded that the incident amounted to crimes against humanity, based on preliminary evidence.

The other accused in the case includes former Gazipur Superintendent of Police (SP) Harun-or-Rashid, former chief of Dhaka Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit Monirul Islam, as well as the then SP and ASP of Bogura.

Separately, the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has launched surveillance into allegations that Javed Patwary and 122 others received money and apartments in connection with the publication of the late President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s book The Unfinished Memoirs.

SMS/