Who ordered shooting from helicopter?
Using a helicopter during the recent protests started when police personnel were rescued after being stranded at the Canadian University of Bangladesh complex at Badda in the capital on 18 July.
But soon after, protesters claimed that bullets were shot from the copter. In the next few days, shots were fired from the helicopter on a number of occasions in various parts of Dhaka and Narayanganj which killed a number of people, including ten children.
The elite force Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), however, denied the allegations of using firearms from their air wing chopper and claimed that only gas and sound grenades were used to enable law-enforcers to reach certain places to save lives and properties.
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The then prime minister Sheikh Hasina said the helicopter was used for spraying water to put out fires and not for firing at students.
The RAB air wing uses the Bell 407 helicopter, which is a four-blade, single-engine, soft-in-plane design rotor with composite hub developed for the United States Army's OH-58D Kiowa Warrior.
The air wing of RAB has two Bell 407s.
One copter was non-operative for some time now due to technical glitches. The operative one was used during the student protests and people saw the helicopter flying during the day, even in the late evening, and during the entire protest period.
The first use of the copter to rescue police cops from a private university complex is incidentally linked to former state minister for Information and Broadcasting Mohammad A Arafat. He was chief advisor of the board of trustees of the Canadian University of Bangladesh.
On 5 August, Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled from the country and since then, the use of helicopters against mass protests has been facing a legal fight.
A case has been filed in this regard with a Dhaka court accusing Sheikh Hasina, a number of her ministers as well as top brasses of police, RAB and RAB's air wing.
Also, a High Court bench issued a rule as to why an international investigation will not take place against the use of helicopters to kill innocent children who were at their homes, rooftops or verandas.
A United Nations investigation as well as an international probe are currently underway.
According to the Chief Advisor Dr Yunus' office, the United Nations is sending a UN fact finding team next week to probe atrocities committed during the student revolution in July and early this month.
UN human rights chief Volker Turk announced the move when he called Chief Adviser Professor Muhammad Yunus late Wednesday, according to the press wing of the CA office.
According to a UN official, this will be the first time the UN is sending a fact finding mission in Bangladesh since its independence in 1971 to investigate widespread human rights abuses in the country.
