Exchange of fires are natural during drug raids, says Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal amid criticism by rights bodies over the deaths since the crackdown began last month.
More than 100 people, who the law enforcers claim were drug dealers, died in ‘shootouts’ in the ongoing anti-narcotics raid. The UN has said it was ‘closely watching’ the situation and urged the government to stop the killings.
Speaking at a discussion on Saturday in Dhaka, Home Minister Kamal said, “Wherever there are drugs, it’s obvious that illegal money and arms will be there. So firing is only natural when raids are conducted.”
On the issue of the death of Teknaf Councillor Ekramul Haque in Cox’s Bazar during the drug raid, he said the matter was being probed. “If any one has made any errors, then he will have to face justice. We are not sparing any one.”
Five days after Ekram was killed on the night of May 26, his family claimed at a news conference on Jun 1 that he was killed in cold blood, not during a shootout as claimed by the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB).
The family distributed an audio clip to reporters of conversation between the slain councilor and his daughter and wife before he died. The audio recorded on a mobile phone also captured sounds of gunshots and groans of a dying man.
The home minister claimed during Saturday’s discussion that out of the 86,000 inmates in the prisons across the country, 39 percent were drug dealers and addicts.
“Which proves that not only gunfights are happening in the raid,” he added.