THOSE who are currently students at universities in Bangladesh came of age during the autocratic rule of the now fallen prime minister Sheikh Hasina (2009–2024). They never had a taste of democracy; they never saw any credible election in their country. All they saw was political repression and corruption at every tier of the government and at every level in society. They saw banks of their country plundered and their money siphoned off to foreign countries through capital flight. Quietly they observed the helplessness of their fellow country people. Their country under Hasina’s rule was tainted by gross human rights abuses including gangland-style thuggery of ruling party people, extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances and large-scale police harassment through the weaponization of the legal system.
Thanks to the 15-year misrule, the term aynaghar (mirror house) — a symbol of the horrors of the Hasina regime — has now entered Wikipedia. The freely-accessible online encyclopaedia defines aynaghar as ‘a secret internment centre run by the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence, DGFI, Bangladesh’s defence forces’ intelligence branch.’ Unfortunately, the glory of our defence forces has been tarnished by their association with this torture centre on Hasina’s watch.
The 15-year long Hasina regime also deserves credit for enriching our linguistic repertoire with the phrase gayebi mamla or lawsuits against unnamed people. She sought to subdue dissent voices and people from the opposition through fictitious cases based on 100 per cent fabricated and made-up charges.
Our student population saw all such hallmarks of autocracy.ÌýÌý
What is more, at campuses and dormitories in their own country, our students were regularly battered and harassed by members of Hasina’s self-styled student organisation named Chhatra League. What made the situation even more intolerable was that there was a design of Hasina’s government to rob students of their future through discrimination in public sector jobs in the name of a quota system.
Bangladesh’s student community had enough and couldn’t take Hasina’s autocracy anymore.
They rose against it and took to the streets. Hasina misread their pent-up anger; she failed to understand the depth of their rage and exasperation under her rule. She equated them with opposition party people whom she contained using brutal force. She applied her habitual, ruthlessly oppressive strategy to suppress the anti-discrimination student movement. Hasina wanted to scare students and other young people away by killing some of them. She misapprehended the nature of this student movement, as she failed to measure the extent of anger she continued to cause among the young people of the country.Ìý
English literature student of Rangpur’s Begum Rokeya University, Abu Sayeed and his friends around the country exhibited a high level of courage and bravery — beyond anything that Hasina had ever imagined and enough to defeat her authoritarianism. Her autocracy was eventually ended by the resilience, agility and optimism that exemplify the character of our brave students.
The images of point-blank and broad daylight killings of Abu Sayeed and other students in our streets shocked but failed to frighten the student population of our country. Two days after Abu Sayeed’s violent death, on July 18, 2024 the beautiful heart and smiling face of 25-year-old Mir Mahfuzur Rahman Mugdho became another victim of Hasina autocracy. He was distributing water among the worn-out protesters in the streets of Dhaka. As the exhausted and weary Mugdho paused for rest on a pavement, a bullet from the security forces snatched away his life. He was taken to the hospital dead. His twin brother Mir Mahbubur Rahman Snigdho hugged his dead body and shed tears.
Only during the weeks leading to Hasina’s fall and flight, state-orchestrated violence stained our streets with the blood of young people and caused over a thousand deaths in the country. Tens of thousands were injured, and students are still dying due to bullet injuries. Many of them have been maimed.
Gruesome images stirred a unique heroism among the students that arose from a strong resolve to end tyranny in their land. The unshaken courage that Bangladesh’s students exhibited in the streets has rejuvenated the spirit of, and has given hope to, the oppressed around the globe.
I heard descriptions of the gruesome murders of Abu Sayeed and other students. I watched part of one video clip and couldn’t bring myself to continue watching. The images of acts of cruelty and scenes of dreadful carnage are distressing and unbearable.
On the afternoon of August 8, 2024, Nobel laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus arrived at Dhaka airport from Paris to take the helm of Bangladesh upon request from the students. At the airport, he spoke to the media and remembered the ultimate sacrifice that Abu Sayeed made for his country. Perhaps because of the gruesomeness of Abu Sayeed’s brazen daytime murder, Professor Yunus became emotional. At one point, his voice shook. He halted and was holding back tears.
The death of Abu Sayeed has caused feelings of horror because its grisly ghastliness was recorded and made available online. However, security forces during Hasina’s 15-year rule killed innumerable other people in comparable circumstances and using comparable methods. Abu Sayeed, Mugdho and hundreds of their friends were killed in broad daylight. But Sheikh Hasina’s forces murdered many other beautiful souls in the darkness of the night or in the confines of torture cells.
We don’t have video recordings of the killings of 74 citizens including 57 bright army officers during the Pilkhana massacre of February 25-26, 2009. And the mass slaughter of unnumbered peaceful madrasa teachers and students during the Shapla Square massacre on May 5-6, 2013 happened in the darkness of the night. But those killings were no less gruesome. Bereaved family members had no choice but to maintain a hushed silence. Their tears are perhaps dried and the bruises have disappeared; all that is left is scars in the heart.
In other words, unlike Abu Sayeed’s and Mugdho’s, those deaths were not recorded live. Many victims died violent deaths at the hands of security forces and Hasina’s political hooligans; but they were buried quietly and their bereaved family members shed tears quietly. They feared further attacks from Hasina’s men; they were apprehensive of police reprisals and further victimization from a hostile regime. Many of those who were injured by ruling party violence or police brutality couldn’t go to the hospital for treatment, as making arrests from healthcare facilities was a common practice under Hasina’s rule.
In addition to direct victims of Hasina’s autocracy, there are tens of millions of other Bangladeshis who lived in fear and shed tears in silence, as they saw their country sliding into a failing state. Then there were the tears of Bangladeshi diasporas whose dream of a prosperous Bangladesh was shattered by Hasina’s abuse of power.
Professor Yunus’ eyes hold the tears of all Bangladeshis who suffered under Hasina’s iron-fisted autocratic regime. I hope he and his colleagues who are now running Bangladesh will continue to remember all the sacrifices people in Bangladesh and in the diaspora made to facilitate a new beginning for us. One major way to do justice to the tears of tens of millions of us is to bring the perpetrators of human rights violations to book and to strive to have a just country — a Bangladesh free from repressive and corrupt practices.
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Dr Md Mahmudul Hasan is professor in the department of English Language and Literature, International Islamic University Malaysia.
