Bangladesh medics arrested over death during 2024 revolution

By AFP
January 20, 2025
People gesture near smoke as protesters clash with Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) and the police July 19, 2024. — Reuters

DHAKA: Five Bangladeshi health workers have been arrested on murder charges after a social media post accused them of failing to provide aid to a man who died during last year´s revolution, a prosecutor said on Sunday.

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The case, which has generated widespread attention after the Facebook post resulted in criticism online of the medics, concerns the death of a rickshaw puller, Mohammed Ismail.

Hospital workers say the five are innocent and that they risked their lives repeatedly to help wounded protesters.

More than 800 people died in the student-led demonstrations that culminated in the ouster of Sheikh Hasina´s government on August 5, according to the interim authorities who subsequently took power.

Ismail was shot in the head on July 19, 2024 during a police crackdown in the Rampura suburb of the capital Dhaka, local media reported at the time.

A Facebook post showed his bloodied body on the entrance steps of the Delta Health Care Hospital.

“We saw a post on social media,” chief prosecutor Mohammad Tajul Islam, from Bangladesh´s International Crimes Tribunal (ICT), told AFP.

The five -- doctor Sadi Bin Shams and four others including nurses -- were arrested late on Friday.

“These individuals allegedly denied Ismail access to treatment, leaving him unattended for four hours,” Islam said.

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