Bloodstained Throne of the Interim Regime

Bangladesh’s interim period, under the self-proclaimed banner of “restoring democracy and stability,” has instead unleashed a climate of lawlessness, one in which even those sworn to protect the nation are not spared. Police officers, tasked with safeguarding citizens and upholding the law, now face assaults, threats, and killings with alarming regularity. Their blood, once meant to defend the nation, has become disturbingly cheap, spilled with impunity while the state stands by in silence.

The scale of these attacks is staggering. Officers are ambushed, cornered, and humiliated, often paying the ultimate price in circumstances that reveal not merely criminal audacity, but a systemic collapse of authority and protection. The institutions meant to uphold law and justice seem paralyzed, incapable, or unwilling to shield those who risk their lives daily.

A haunting question hangs over the nation: when those who defend the law are left defenseless, who then remains protected? And more importantly, why has the blood of those sworn to uphold justice become so expendable in a country that claims to value law and order?

Blood on the Badge: The Horror Behind the Numbers

The scale of violence against police officers during Bangladesh’s interim period is both staggering and unprecedented, yet the state’s response has been alarmingly muted. Between 20 July and 14 August 2024, the streets, police stations, and even the very precincts meant to protect the nation became hunting grounds for merciless attacks, claiming the lives of at least 44 officers. On 5 August alone, 25 officers, constables, sub-inspectors, and frontline officers were beaten, hacked, hanged, or disposed of in ways that defy comprehension, all while performing the duties the state entrusted them with. These were not abstract numbers; they were men and women, families, and communities ripped apart by orchestrated brutality.

The horrific nature of these killings paints a grim picture of lawlessness. In Baniachang, Officer Santosh Chowdhury was dragged from his own station, beaten to death, and his body hung from a tree. In Sirajganj’s Enayetpur, OC Abdur Razzak and 15 other officers were hacked to death, their bodies either hanged or dumped in local ponds, a grotesque display of defiance against law enforcement. At Jatrabari Thana, four officers were beaten to death, followed by arson at the very police station they were defending. In Netrokona’s Durgapur, Shafiqul Islam was stabbed with a sharp weapon, a violent end that underscores the impunity with which perpetrators act.

Yet despite the scale and savagery, the contrast in state response is both damning and deafening. While the deaths of protesters dominated headlines and social media, the killings of police officers were buried in silence, their names erased from public memory, their families left to grieve alone. Even the Police Headquarters admits it cannot confirm how many cases have been filed, investigated, or even acknowledged. Investigations, if they exist, crawl at a glacial pace, offering no assurance that the perpetrators will face justice.

From August 2024 to the present, police officers across Bangladesh continue to face targeted attacks, harassment, and outright killings, yet the government has consistently failed to respond with the urgency or seriousness the crisis demands. Officers, who risk their lives daily to enforce the law, are left exposed and vulnerable, as if the very state that swore to protect them has abandoned its responsibility. Cases are rarely filed in a timely manner, investigations languish without progress, and arrests of perpetrators are sporadic, insufficient, or entirely absent. The result is a climate in which attackers act with impunity, knowing that the machinery of justice moves so slowly, or not at all, that their crimes are effectively sanctioned by silence.

Meanwhile, the families of the slain officers are left to navigate grief and uncertainty alone. Widows and children, many of whom have lost their sole breadwinners, struggle to survive without support, while promises of compensation, pensions, or government assistance are delayed, reduced, or completely withheld. Mothers, wives, and siblings recount the pain of official indifference, noting that no one from the state reaches out to offer condolences, explanations, or accountability. In this void, their loss is not just personal; it is institutional, a stark reflection of a system that prioritizes appearances over justice.

The state’s silence sends a message as cruel as the attacks themselves: the blood of those sworn to uphold law and order is cheap, expendable, and forgotten, valued far less than political optics or fleeting narratives of public unrest. In a country where the very guardians of law are being slaughtered with impunity, one question hangs over every citizen, every officer, and every family touched by this tragedy: if those who defend the law are abandoned, if their sacrifice is ignored, and their killers go unpunished, who, truly, remains to protect the people?

The Government’s Double Standard

The stark contrast between the treatment of civilians and police officers during the interim period reveals a disturbing double standard at the heart of Bangladesh’s governance. While the state proclaims to uphold law and order, its actions, or lack thereof, tell a far different story. Between 15 July and 8 August 2024, the government issued a directive declaring that no cases, arrests, or harassment would be pursued in connection with the so-called “July uprising.” This blanket immunity applied even in instances of police killings, arson attacks on stations, and assaults on law enforcement personnel.

The message could not have been clearer: while the lives of protesters are amplified, defended, and given public sympathy, the blood of police officers is effectively devalued. Families of fallen officers, like Constable Abdul Majid’s widow Shahjadi Begum, have been left in isolation, forced to navigate grief, bureaucratic inertia, and the absence of justice, while their loved ones’ killers remain uninvestigated. Despite filing official murder cases, officers’ families have seen no progress, no arrests, and no engagement from government authorities.

Even when arrests are eventually made, such as the three individuals in Noakhali’s Sonaimuri, implicated in brutal attacks against police, they are framed as exceptions, not the rule. The Ministry of Home Affairs’ selective immunity, intended to protect participants of the “movement,” effectively sanctions violence against those sworn to enforce the law. The directive may have been justified as a measure to avoid political unrest, but its consequences are lethal and deeply unjust. It prioritizes political expediency over human life, granting perpetrators impunity while abandoning those who risk everything to uphold justice.

This double standard is not merely bureaucratic negligence; it is state-sanctioned devaluation of law enforcement lives. From Noakhali to Sirajganj, Dhaka to Netrokona, police officers are left exposed, their protection sacrificed on the altar of political calculation. Meanwhile, perpetrators exploit this silence, emboldened by the knowledge that the government has effectively drawn a line between whose deaths matter and whose do not.

In a nation that claims to honor the rule of law, the interim government’s actions, or inactionseveal a chilling truth: the state does not equally protect its citizens; it chooses whose lives are worth defending, and those sworn to defend it are counted among the expendable.