Dhaka, July 24 (IANS) Bangladesh’s Awami League strongly condemned the custodial death of another party leader, Bablu Mia, in Sirajganj District Jail, alleging that the incident once again exposed the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) government’s “violent political retaliation” carried out within state detention facilities.
The remarks came after 52-year-old Bablu Mia reportedly died at a hospital in Sirajganj on Thursday, a day after he fell ill in jail, according to prison authorities.
Speaking to Bangladeshi newspaper The Daily Star, Bablu’s daughter, Meem Khatun, said her father was arrested on June 21 in connection with a violence case.
“A case was filed against my father in 2025 over an incident from 2023, and he was arrested in that case. My father was completely fine when he was arrested,” she said.
The Awami League noted that “this is not an isolated incident but part of a systematic campaign of elimination carried out with state patronage.”
“Ignoring the rule of law and the judicial process, opposition leaders and activists are allegedly being arrested on political grounds and subsequently driven toward death through neglect and abuse while in custody,” the party stated.
Questioning the circumstances surrounding Bablu’s death, it said: “When Bablu Mia was arrested in a politically motivated case, he was reportedly in good physical health. How, then, did he suddenly die after spending just one month in prison?”
The party further alleged that the BNP has been using “old and fabricated cases” to imprison political opponents, with the objective of “mentally and physically” crippling them – or ensuring their deaths – thereby turning the legal process into a tool of political repression.
“Ensuring the safety and medical care of political detainees is both a legal and moral responsibility of the state and prison authorities,” it noted.
Raising alarm over the “repeated deaths of political leaders and activists in custody without any judicial process”, the Awami League said that such incidents demonstrate that “prisons have now been turned into killing grounds for suppressing political opposition” under Prime Minister Tarique Rahman-led BNP government.
Earlier this month, the party expressed grave concern over the reported deaths of 61 inmates in prisons across the country during the first six months of 2026, claiming that the trend bears a striking resemblance to the prison death toll recorded during the BNP-Jamaat-e-Islami alliance government between 2001 and 2006.
–IANS
scor/ksk/dan