An eight-member fact-finding team arrives in Dhaka on Monday to investigate 15 types of human rights violations including incidents of crime against humanity and extrajudicial killings to suppress the movement of students in July and August during previous Awami League government's tenure.
The investigation report might be submitted to the interim government in the last week of November.
"The UN team will carry out an investigation independently. They will stay for around a month. The UN fact-finding team will give the report to the government before making it public. But any view of the government won't be reflected in the final report of the fact-finding committee," Interim government's foreign adviser Md Touhid Hossain told the media on Tuesday.
However, the investigation will officially start today (Wednesday). The committee asked the people to provide them with the evidence that they collected on their own.
According to the UN officials, the UN team will work jointly with government officials, security and law enforcement officials. It will also discuss with student movement leaders, representatives of private organisations and human rights activists. Moreover, the UN delegation will also discuss with victims and witnesses and other organisations for the sake of verifying information.
"They won't just depend on primary sources, rather will take into account medical records, inquest reports, unpublished videos and pictures and other digital elements," officials said.
A source of the UN said it won't just depend on primary sources, rather will take into account medical records, inquest reports, unpublished videos and pictures and other digital elements.
Following Sheikh Hasina's government fall, on 8 August, the interim government was formed. After assuming office, the interim government decided to investigate the incidents of human rights violations in Bangladesh in July and early August. To this end, the interim government's chief adviser Muhammad Yunus wrote a letter to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk.
Earlier during August 22-29, a three-member UN exploratory team led by Rory Mungoven, chief of the Asia Pacific region at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva, visited Bangladesh. The team held at least 40 meetings with several advisers, senior government officials, politicians, student movement leaders and victims during its 8-day stay in Bangladesh. The exploratory team set the modalities of their work based on those discussions.
Several sources of the foreign ministry said Volker Turk is sending the team under his own jurisdiction at the request of chief adviser Dr Mohammad Yunus who requested the UN rights chief to start investigation within quickest possible time in the letter on August 25. The chief adviser wrote that the government wants to ensure accountability by carrying out an independent and impartial investigation by the UN for the human rights abuse during the student-mass uprising and post-uprising (July 1 to August 15).
According to the UN report published on August 16, at least 650 lives were lost in Bangladesh between July 16 and August 11.
A senior official of the UN told a local daily that the fact-finding team will visit the places where violence took place during the time. It has selected Dhaka and some adjacent areas and at least eight divisional and district towns outside the capital including Chattogram and Rangpur for collecting testimony and data.
