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Published : 09 Feb 2026, 02:06 PM
Former Bangladesh Army chief Iqbal Karim Bhuiyan has called for the dissolution of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) and the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI), accusing the two agencies of involvement in enforced disappearances and killings.
Iqbal, widely known as IKB, made the remarks on Monday while giving evidence to the International Crimes Tribunal-1 in a crimes against humanity case linked to alleged disappearances and killings by the DGFI.
He told the tribunal that the RAB should be disbanded immediately. If that was not possible, serving military personnel should be withdrawn from the force and returned to the Armed Forces, according to him.
He also said the DGFI should be dissolved, arguing that the agency had “lost its legitimacy to exist” after fostering a culture of killings.
Iqbal served as army chief from Jun 25, 2012, to Jun 25, 2015, during the previous Awami League government.
His testimony in the case began on Sunday. After he concluded his evidence on Monday, prosecutors carried out a partial cross-examination. The tribunal has scheduled further questioning for Feb 18.
In earlier testimony, Iqbal described how soldiers are trained to be “dehumanised”, gradually losing the habit of seeing people as human beings and instead referring to them as targets. He said firing at human-shaped targets was intended to remove the psychological barrier to killing.
For that reason, he said, the military should never have been combined with civilian policing.
He said this principle was violated in 2003 with the creation of RAB, calling it a “grave and dangerous” decision. According to him, the training given to soldiers was not suitable for deployment in the force.
He told the tribunal that a number of extrajudicial killings took place between 2003 and 2006. He also said many killings had occurred earlier during Operation Clean Heart.
Operation Clean Heart was a joint forces campaign carried out between Oct 16, 2002, and Jan 9, 2003, after the BNP-Jamaat alliance came to power.
The operation was later granted legal immunity under the Joint Operation Indemnity Act, passed on Feb 24, 2003. More than a decade later, the High Court ruled the law unconstitutional and struck it down.
