Audio tapes link ex-Bangladesh PM Hasina to 2024 protest crackdown that killed over 1,400
Srinagar, July 9: Audio recordings reviewed by the BBC reportedly implicate Bangladesh’s former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in ordering a violent crackdown on mass protests in 2024—allegations that are now the subject of an ongoing trial.
According to United Nations estimates, as many as 1,400 people were killed during the July–August 2024 unrest, when government forces attempted to suppress a nationwide protest movement amid Hasina’s disputed hold on power.
Now 77, Hasina fled to India following the peak of the student-led uprising and has refused to return to Dhaka. Her trial in absentia, on charges that include crimes against humanity, began on June 1.
The BBC Eye Investigations team analysed audio alleged to be of Hasina – and which forms a key plank of the evidence for the prosecution – which was leaked online.
In the recording, dated July 18, 2024, a voice alleged to be Hasina is heard authorising security forces to “use lethal weapons” against protesters and that “wherever they find (them), they will shoot”.
Protests erupted on July 1, 2024, led by university students demanding reforms to Bangladesh’s public sector job quota system. At the time, the idea of unseating Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina—fresh off her fourth consecutive election victory in a vote widely criticized for lacking real opposition—seemed far-fetched.
However, the demonstrations quickly gained momentum, culminating in a violent escalation after security forces launched a deadly crackdown on July 16.
Hasina’s state-appointed legal team, which claims to have had no direct contact with her, has moved to dismiss the charges. Meanwhile, her now-banned political party, the Awami League, has “categorically denied” that the prime minister or senior leadership authorized the use of lethal force during last summer’s unrest.
Instead, the party attributed the fatalities to “isolated breakdowns in discipline among certain members of the security forces responding to violent incidents,” calling the deaths a “regrettable loss of life.”
