Bangladesh Defense
Saif
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Date of Event:
Feb 10, 2026
Ex-army chief for DGFI, RAB abolition
RAW officials used meeting room at DGFI headquarters as office, he tells ICT-1
Staff Correspondent 09 February, 2026, 15:50
Iqbal Karim Bhuiyan. | File photo
Former army chief and retired general Iqbal Karim Bhuiyan on Monday testified before International Crimes Tribunal-1, calling for the immediate abolition of the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence and the Rapid Action Battalion.
If RAB cannot be abolished, the members of the army should be withdrawn from the elite force.
The three-judge tribunal, chaired by Justice Md Golam Mortuza Mozumder, adjourned the hearing until February 18 as his cross-examination remained incomplete.
Iqbal was testifying for the second day in the enforced disappearance case against former major general Ziaul Ahsan, a former additional director general of the RAB.
He said that the DGFI had lost its legitimacy after creating a ‘bad culture’ of secret detention centres, known as ‘Aynaghar’, and subjecting individuals to inhumane torture in the name of interrogation by keeping them detained for an indefinite period.
Iqbal said that, during his tenure, he learnt that some individuals from Indian intelligence agency, RAW, used to vist DGFI offices regularly under the patronage of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s defence adviser, retired major general Tarique Ahmed Siddique.
He said that RAW officials were allowed to use one of seven meeting rooms at DGFI headquarters as an office.
‘They prepared lists identifying some people as extremists and supplied those lists to the DGFI,’ he said, adding that he did not know whether DGFI acted on the lists.
He said that some people thought that he was taking a position against the army, but he explained that the army became ‘polluted’ by extrajudicial practices.
He narrated that a junior officer who returned from RAB told him that he was involved in killing six people, of whom two were directly killed by him.
The army officer said that he received Tk 10,000 and donated it to a mosque, which Iqbal said showed guilt.
He also mentioned that a major who killed suspects accused of raping and killing a woman while she was on her way to home from workplace at night.
He said that the officer justified the killings by claiming that the suspects had no right to live as they were involved in anti-social activities.
Iqbal said that he had later seen the officer posing with Colonel Ziaul Ahsan in a social media post and the incident frustrated him.
‘My serving period was very painful due to RAB’s activities,’ Iqbal said.
‘The pain of my failure to do anything over RAB activities used to obsess me,’ he said and added that time had come to complete those which he could not.
RAW officials used meeting room at DGFI headquarters as office, he tells ICT-1
Staff Correspondent 09 February, 2026, 15:50
Iqbal Karim Bhuiyan. | File photo
Former army chief and retired general Iqbal Karim Bhuiyan on Monday testified before International Crimes Tribunal-1, calling for the immediate abolition of the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence and the Rapid Action Battalion.
If RAB cannot be abolished, the members of the army should be withdrawn from the elite force.
The three-judge tribunal, chaired by Justice Md Golam Mortuza Mozumder, adjourned the hearing until February 18 as his cross-examination remained incomplete.
Iqbal was testifying for the second day in the enforced disappearance case against former major general Ziaul Ahsan, a former additional director general of the RAB.
He said that the DGFI had lost its legitimacy after creating a ‘bad culture’ of secret detention centres, known as ‘Aynaghar’, and subjecting individuals to inhumane torture in the name of interrogation by keeping them detained for an indefinite period.
Iqbal said that, during his tenure, he learnt that some individuals from Indian intelligence agency, RAW, used to vist DGFI offices regularly under the patronage of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s defence adviser, retired major general Tarique Ahmed Siddique.
He said that RAW officials were allowed to use one of seven meeting rooms at DGFI headquarters as an office.
‘They prepared lists identifying some people as extremists and supplied those lists to the DGFI,’ he said, adding that he did not know whether DGFI acted on the lists.
He said that some people thought that he was taking a position against the army, but he explained that the army became ‘polluted’ by extrajudicial practices.
He narrated that a junior officer who returned from RAB told him that he was involved in killing six people, of whom two were directly killed by him.
The army officer said that he received Tk 10,000 and donated it to a mosque, which Iqbal said showed guilt.
He also mentioned that a major who killed suspects accused of raping and killing a woman while she was on her way to home from workplace at night.
He said that the officer justified the killings by claiming that the suspects had no right to live as they were involved in anti-social activities.
Iqbal said that he had later seen the officer posing with Colonel Ziaul Ahsan in a social media post and the incident frustrated him.
‘My serving period was very painful due to RAB’s activities,’ Iqbal said.
‘The pain of my failure to do anything over RAB activities used to obsess me,’ he said and added that time had come to complete those which he could not.
