New era or false dawn? Rebuilding Bangladesh's democracy after Sheikh Hasina | 101 East Documentary

[Music] She was the world's longest serving female leader, hailed internationally for lifting millions out of poverty. Foreign media even dubbed her the mother of humanity. But to many Bangladeshies, Sha Cassina was a mother of evil.

She turned into a monster. I think she's a psychopath. Is a zombie.

Her regime stands accused of stealing hundreds of billions of dollars from this impoverished country. Her security forces allegedly kidnapped and executed thousands. Every night I was mentally prepared that I'll not see another day.

In July 2024, students rose against her, finally storming the residence where she ruled Bangladesh like an absolute monarch. She fled in a helicopter and escaped to India. Today, the once sumptuous residence of Sha Cassina is in ruins along with her reputation.

In this special investigation, we're going to look at how a leader once hailed as an icon of democracy became someone people here call a monster. And we'll ask, can Bangladesh rise again from the wreckage of her rule? For any outsider, the capital Dhaka is an assault on the senses.

More than 20 million people live in this noisy, pulsating, gridlocked [Music] city. Dhaka University is as close as you'll get to a quiet oasis, a place to study, to think, and to sometimes change history. Okay, the famous student leaders.

How are you? Thank you for meeting us. I've come here to meet four of the students who took on a dictatorship and won.

Mitu Akair, Abdul Khad, Meera, and Rifat Rashid braved weeks of gunfire from security forces that killed hundreds of protesters. So you all saw friends killed around you. There is a lot of people killed in this movement and that was the terrible experience.

The campaign they fought is now etched in murals around the university. Unarmed idealists facing bullets and armored combat vehicles in hope of a better future. [Music] It started with simple protests over a government quotota system which students believed the regime was using to reserve jobs for its supporters.

But after mass arrests and mass killings, it turned into a nationwide uprising to oust Shaker. [Applause] I just know one thing that I have to survive. I have to achieve peace.

I have to achieve the equal rights. I'm fighting for this right. For most of their lives, Shaker Cena had been their only ruler.

Embraced by world leaders, she reveled in the moniker of Asia's Iron Lady. Determined to drag her country from poverty and bring equality to women. At least that was the image her regime created.

By 2024, much of Bangladesh's Gen Zed had a different view. She is the mother of fascin. But to many in their parents' generation, Sha Cassena had been a tragic heroine.

Her father was Bangladesh's founding president, Muji Borakama. He came to power in 1971, leading a war of independence from Pakistan. 4 years later, while Shikina was visiting Europe, he was murdered in a military coup.

The rebel soldiers also slaughtered most of her family. My father, the then president was brutally murdered. Not only him, my mother, my three brothers, my two sister-in-laws, my uncle alltogether 18 members were killed and then the power was captured by the Maldi dictator.

After six years of exile in India, she returned to fight for democracy, leading her father's Awami League party. In 1996, at the age of 48, she was elected to her first term as prime minister. I feel it's a people's victory.

People fought for their voting right. But from the outset, this professed Democrat had little tolerance of opposition. something many attribute to the murder of her family.

It must have been the most incredible horrifying psychological trauma for Shik Hassina to have experienced the massacre of their closest family members. It would be difficult to not have a very heightened consciousness of your own insecurity. Sarah Hussein is a human rights lawyer whose father was once a close comrade of Shaker Cena's father.

Do you think it did lead her to see all opposition in the same terms as the people who killed her family as as traitors as as evil as anti-Bangladesh? Exactly. Yes.

That explains in a way why she went from being someone who was very much a survivor of a human rights violation to someone who became an authoritarian who then perpetrated gross violations and with impunity and allowed others to do that. In her second term as prime minister, security forces were locking up opposition figures without trial. Among them, a popular official with the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, Sajidul Islam Summon.

In December 2013, eyewitnesses say he and five friends were taken by authorities and never seen again. They were not criminals. They were activist strong organizers for opposition party.

Sajidul's sister Sanjida Islam Toule is haunted by the day he disappeared. I was thinking why I was not there to stop the car why I could not save him then. So that was killing me always inside every day from then.

I know for sure if it was happened to me, my brother would have saved me. Her mother, Hazera Hatun, went to the authorities every day for 2 years, pleading for information. They told her nothing.

After Sha Casino won the 2014 election, the number of reported disappearances skyrocketed. Sanjida and her mother began a support group for families of the missing. They started with eight families.

Now there are more than a thousand. Every day, every night, they pray for their son, for their husbands, for their father's return. They want them alive back.

The group is called Maya Duck, meaning mother's call. Families meet in Sanjida's home to share information. Their sadness is never far from the surface.

Every family member have the same pain. we are passing through each day is heavy and it is killing us. When we see Hassina, we just only see that killer.

Among today's gathering is Humam Kadir Chowry, the son of a prominent opposition leader who was hanged in 2015 by Hena's regime. 9 months later, Humam was abducted and locked in a windowless cell. Yeah.

7 months in isolation in a cell and yeah that was that was just the beginning you know um the trauma doesn't end with you coming out I mean it's something that kind of stays with you forever and fortunately I I got the support that I needed from these guys here um other survivors other families that still waiting for their loved ones to come back so yeah her mom was held in a notorious secret detention center called the house of mirrors It was run by GGFI, the Defense Intelligence Agency that reported directly to Shaker Sena's office. To be honest, it seems um quite odd that it's called the House of Mirrors because that's one place where you don't have a reflection. Um this is one place where you kind of lose yourself.

This is a place where you don't have an identity anymore. Um it's somewhere where that's actually beaten out of you. Um you are no longer human.

And you were beaten and tortured. Yes, on multiple occasions they come in, they pick you up and take you in for interrogations and beatings whenever they like. So, it's it's a mental torture.

That's that's actually the worst part. And did they ever tell you what you were supposed to have done wrong? None.

Nothing. Nothing. The interim government that replaced Sheina has formed a commission to investigate the disappearances.

Human rights activist Muhammad Noan is one of its members. Foreign speech. Foreign speech.

Foreign speech. in the days after Shaker Cena fled. Some of the disappeared were suddenly released.

Abdullahil Amanazmi was dumped on a country road on August 7th after eight terrifying years in the House of Mirrors. What' you do? It was 69,794 hours.

Unbelievable. Tormenting days. I never slept at night.

I could never sleep at night. Every night, anxiety, worry, any little sound, I was scared. Are they coming to take me away?

Just eagerly waiting for the dawn because from they wouldn't take me out at dawn and kill me. Once a decorated brigadier general in the Bangladesh army, he was dismissed without explanation in 2009. Then 7 years later jailed without charge.

You are not allowed to talk to anybody. Every time this handcuffed blindfolded the mask on the doors and windows all closed and black painted. I did not see natural light, no sun, no moon, sky, cloud, nothing.

He had once lived in the officer's quarters near defense intelligence at Daka's main military complex. He eventually worked out he was imprisoned on the same base. They put me in joint interrogation cell.

This cell is in case any armed forces personnel gets involved in any serious crime and which cannot be proved in normal investigation, they send there for interrogation if need be torture and find out the truth. His sudden release returned him to his family and the children he last saw as infants. One was almost 10, another little 11 and a half.

Mhm. I I feel so bad that I couldn't see them growing up. The worst thing that has happened is I lost my mother.

She was not my mother. She was my best friend in my life. Many of the disappeared never emerged.

Investigator Muhammad Noah fears the fates of hundreds of missing people may never be [Music] known. for despite the alleged attempts at cover up. He is certain he knows who carried out the abductions.

You see their vehicles all over Dhaka and elite paramilitary force called the rapid action battalion. All rapid [Music] action. The Rapid Action Battalion was set up in 2004 as a counterterrorism force with training and technical support from the US and Britain.

It grew to 12,000 officers, most seconda from the police and armed forces, but it was deployed as a death squad. target practic. The disappearances helped crush the main opposition group, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party.

In 2018, the regime jailed its leader, Khaled Zaya, on what many called trumped up charges. Anyone who opposed Jay Kasina would be seen as an not only an antiational or an anti-state element but a terrorist and be branded as that. Not only would they be prevented from operating politically but they couldn't operate their businesses, they couldn't conduct their professions.

Their family members couldn't work. They would be smeared. They would be intimidated.

Lawyer Rajon Bapari helped publish a book pointing out flaws in the Hala trial. The day after it was published, he was waiting for a taxi in this busy street and was kidnapped at gunpoint. He was driven around for what seemed like hours, losing any sense of where he was.

He was taken to a room where he was kept blindfolded for days. [Music] for they asked over and over about the book. Day after day, the torture intensified.

They forced him to balance over 2-in nails. After a week, they told him they were going to shoot him. I could crossfire you and that's when the nightmare turned surreal.

The next day, instead of being executed, he was paraded at a press conference at the Rabb Media Center. The Bangladeshi media dutifully reported this. Rajong claims he recognized a Rabb Company commander Mahudin Farooqi as one of the kidnappers who'd grabbed him off the street.

The US imposed sanctions on Rab in 2021, but Britain and the Netherlands continued to provide equipment and training. In December, the Commission of Inquiry into disappearances found Rabb to be responsible for kidnappings. Its interim report accused Shikena of direct involvement in ordering them.

Despite the repression at home, Shikina continued to be showered with international prizes. Last year at the age of 76, she must have felt untouchable. Nobody imagined a fight with university students could be her downfall.

In June, students learned that nearly a third of civil service jobs would be reserved for grandchildren of independence fighters. Facing an already bleak job market, Gen Zed took a stand. After graduation, we will get a good job, government job.

The demonstrations spread throughout the country under the banner students against discrimination. But rather than negotiating, the regime attacked. The Awami League student wing beat up protesters.

And then next to the police shooting on earth there are many students got attacked and uh everywhere was just blood. You hear the sound of grenade, the sound of shooting. They shoot from the helicopter too.

Shut up. The carnage was so great that bodies started being buried in this mass grave in the main cemetery. The slaughter was meant to stop the protests, but it backfired.

The students fought on even harder and outraged Bangladeshies who'd been watching from the sidelines joined them. Students were on the street at the age of my kids. My daughter's at university.

My son's out of school. you can see that that's who was being killed and I was just like what is going on? What power is important enough for you to carry on doing that?

So I think that was a sentiment that was really broadly shared. On August 5th, protesters surrounded Shaker Cena's residence. [Music] The army chief of staff, General Wakarus Saman had just been appointed by Shik Casina and is married to her cousin.

But to the surprise of many, he resisted calls to crush the protests. In this his first ever television interview, he explains his reason. We don't shoot uh at the civilian.

is not in our culture. We wanted that things should happen very peacefully. The peaceful transition, less of bloodshed, less of chaos and confusion, less of destruction of property.

All this with the army holding back, the seemingly impregnable regime fell like a house of cards. Students stormed the residence after news broke that Shaker Cena had fled. I I can't even feel the feeling in words.

The feeling was unbelievable. We win. We finally win and that's why we feel proud and we feel strong.

We are the uh people of Bangladesh and uh we have that courage and this time there was no military coup to fill the power vacuum. We believe that uh military should not engage in politics. So we did not intervene.

This is not our cup of tea. At the students urging the Bangladesh president invited Nobel laurate Muhammad Eunice to form an interim government. [Music] The celebrations ran for days.

Students had achieved the impossible. But for those tasked with rebuilding the country, the work had just begun. Hi there.

Hello, sir. How are you here? Very well.

Thank you very much for talking to us. I know you're probably the busiest man in Bangladesh right now. Muhammad Eunas is not a politician.

He's a humanitarian who won the Nobel Peace Prize for pioneering microloans for impoverished families. That is the hot seat there. Leading Bangladesh is not a role he asked for or expected.

There's students who called me up and uh I was I said no not me. I I don't want to get involved with running the country. You're much capable people in Bangladesh.

You find them out. So I don't know. Everybody says you have to be there.

Islam who led the student protests told him there was no one else. So at the time Dr Eunice had been in Paris avoiding one of the regime's frequent attempts to jail him. People were saying don't come back because things are getting very hot here.

Don't come back because the moment you land you'll be end up in jail. Ever since he won the Nobel Prize in 2006, Shaker Cena displayed an almost obsessive hatred of [Applause] him. Authorities accused him of everything from sabotage to corruption.

I'm a terrorist. I'm a blood sucker. People wonder why does she do that?

What does he get out of it? As it turned out, Dr Ununas did return to replace her. In August 2024, the 84 year old was sworn in as chief adviser to the interim government.

He chose a cabinet of technocrats and idealists, including Nahid Islam, who weeks earlier had been under arrest and beaten by authorities. There are times Dr Ununas wonders what he's got himself into. Everybody has an idea what needs to be done.

But when you get here, so kind of suddenly you get numb. How do you do it? So you try to overcome the numbness and get activated and so on.

So we're learning on the job. International fame only gets you so far in a former dictatorship. Along with his new ministers and their staff, he's found that telling the bureaucracy what to do doesn't mean they're listening.

It's very difficult. You don't know whether the person that you are giving your instructions is going to follow it or turn it around against you. The way the country used to be run was a mix of bureaucratic self-interest and corporate plunder.

The interim government estimates ministers, regime cronies, and other corrupt associates were siphoning $16 billion a year out of Bangladesh. It was at the brink of a free fall. We have drawn down the reserves from 48 billion to 18 billion.

It would have lasted few more months. So this government might have fallen even without this revolution. Dr Asan Mansour is a former IMF economist who's been brought in to run the central bank.

He says Shaker Cena's regime and its cronies were literally robbing banks. directing them to give billions in loans to sometimes fictitious companies. I have never seen in my 28 years of IMF career in any country this level of state intervention with private sector oligarchs to take over the whole banking system not to control those banks only control and rob take the money out of the country.

So that's a systematic uh state sponsored fraudulent activities to investigate allegations. Much of the money allegedly ended up in luxury property in London where one of Shakerina's senior ministers had become a property magnet. Hello.

Hello. The former land minister, Cyu Zaman Chowry, had a salary of less than $15,000 a year, but he'd built up a property portfolio worth half a billion dollars. How many properties you have in London?

In 2023, Al Jazer's investigative unit secretly filmed him at his $14 million London home. Nice penthouse, but I also want a villa. It's only one of more than 350 properties he owns in Britain with even more worldwide.

This my neighbors. This is my wife. I love this house.

He boasted of his love of expensive shoes. I bought £3,000 each. Each £3,000.

Very nice. I'm born and his passion for buying suits. I love suits.

Super 200, Super 180, Super 200 cost £6,000. He said Shena was aware he had money on the side. She knows I have a business here.

Investigators have found a trail of properties owned by Hena's cronies stretching from London to Dubai, Singapore, and New York. It's very unfortunate and disgusting. No question about it.

It is pathetic. It is painful. It is shameful.

And we as a country, I think we must not allow that to happen again. That central bank will flag us. Mr Chowry insists his wealth comes from honest investments outside Bangladesh and that the accusations against him are politically motivated, but he's one of the figures the interim government is investigating to try to claw back the country's missing money.

We're talking at least tens of billions of dollars, not just billions of dollars. So we we hope that we can create the biggest asset recovery effort ever seen in the world. In the months after Shaker Cena fled, more senior regime figures tried to move their assets abroad.

I see coming down. Britain's anti-corruption minister at the time was none other than Shaker Cena's niece. And let me make one thing clear.

We have legislation in our country to make sure we do not let people enter who are not conducive to the public good. Chulip Sadi is the daughter of Shikena's younger sister Rahana. One of the few to escape the massacre of Hena's family in the 1975 coup.

Miss Sadi was born in London and worked as a European lobbyist for Sha Cassina's party, the Awami League. In 2015, she became a Labor MP, thanking a Wami League supporters in Britain for her victory. After Labour came to power in July 2024, she was put in charge of stopping elicit finance and money laundering.

Did it surprise you to see a close relative of the former leader appointed to such a position by the British government? I would have expected they did a better vetting before making that appointment. Tulip Sadik had remained close to Sha Casino, meeting her on visits to Britain.

Before becoming an MP, Miss Sadik joined her in the Kremlin for the signing of a nuclear deal that's now being investigated for massive kickbacks. She says she had no involvement in the deal or any discussions and was just visiting her aunt. Wondering what your reasoning is for stepping down today.

Do you still insist that you haven't done anything wrong? She resigned as economic secretary after Bangladesh's Anti-Corruption Commission or ACC began investigating her amid claims she had ties to London properties bought by her Cena's allies. She should resign sooner.

But she insists the allegations are baseless and politically motivated, saying the ACC didn't respond to her denials or provide any evidence to support the [Music] claims. Earlier, Britain's independent adviser on ministerial standards cleared her of impropriy. Few in Bangladesh can afford expensive properties, suits or designer shoes.

Many are struggling to buy food stables like rice and fish. Nothing functions anymore. Financial system didn't work.

Banks suddenly you see this is not a bank. It's a robbery outfit. People get very frustrated.

One is the expectation level. Other side is the damage level that we are dealing with. People are also hungry for justice.

The months since the revolution have brought ever more disturbing allegations of police and military involvement in forced disappearances. The kidnapping, torture, and murder of Shakesina's real or imagined opponents. In February, Dr Ununas visited the notorious House of Mirrors detention center that had been run by military intelligence.

Former Brigadier General Abdullahil Amanazmi showed where he'd been held illegally for eight years. This was one of a network of secret prisons and torture centers. We have to make sure that it's not repeated in future.

No way. Nowhere near it. This is the worst ever in the whole world possible.

He's promised those responsible will be punished no matter their rank. There are several 22 major generals and other high officials. Their passports have been seized.

We made it clear justice is justice. We are not going to u go slow on anybody. But Sanjida Islam Toule who represents victims families says the government is moving too slowly.

We know Hassina fled the head of the regime. She fled. But the rest of the structure, the body is still there whom we have allegation against who did all those enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killing.

Um still there in uniform. The most infamous security force, the rapid action battalion or RAB is still operating today. For the first time, its director general has agreed to be interviewed by foreign television.

Hello, sir. Eric Campbell. Korea police officer Shahidor Rakman has been appointed to clean up the paramilitary force whose officers allegedly took part in kidnappings, torture and executions.

I am really very shocked and uh this is disgusting for us this sort of that we have to bear this sort of allegation on us. We are trying to rebuild uh our reputation and rebuild our web and uh we are now uh strictly following the rules and regulations the laws the human rights issues and what is happening to the officers who've been accused of these crimes. uh those who have been accused they are under investigation and they will have to face the music what they did earlier.

Are there still some serving in RAB now who have been accused of these crimes? Uh we are not sure about the but uh uh I'm not sure whether they are here or not they are still there serving definitely people are still scared. That's the trauma for the victim families.

The government commission investigating the disappearances says the rapid action battalion should be disbanded. The challenge is that some other law enforcement groups are barely functioning. During the uprising, mobs attacked and burned police stations and vehicles.

Thousands of police fled. Much of the anger stemmed from the security forces violent crackdown on the protests. The UN Human Rights Office estimates up to 1,400 people were killed, including 180 children with thousands [Music] wounded in this military hospital in Dhaka.

Many are still fighting to recover. They have spinal injury, paraplegia, or we call in medical term quadriplegia or paraplasia. Yeah.

How many patients have you had from the protests in total? In total 2,6 13 2613 and the majority have been gunshot workers. It's not the whole number of injured protesters.

There's other hospitals who victims. Yeah. All over the country.

All over the country. Victims included a 10year-old child. Imran was shot in the head on August 5th, the day Shaker Cena fled to India.

So he also joined the protest and unfortunately he was hit by the bullet. He was shot by the police, a young boy in a protest. Unfortunately, no, he's very brave for his mother, Irene.

It has been an unending nightmare. [Music] What was your reaction when you found that police had shot your little boy? for you.

Show us the scans. But for this family, at least there is hope. Imran, now 11, has made a near miraculous recovery from a gunshot that should have killed him.

Wow, that is a massive head wound. Mass massive head injury. Despite UN findings that soldiers also shot at protesters, the army has assumed some police duties like street patrols and protecting public buildings.

[Music] Chief of Staff General Waka Wuzan says it's not a role the army wants. We are not trained for this. It is a challenge since civil administration is not properly functioning.

I must say the police is not properly functioning. Uh so is a huge void, huge task. In this city of 20 million people, we've been trying to find someone to speak in defense of Shaker Cena's record.

She wouldn't comment, nor would any former ally we approached. The Awami League headquarters itself is deserted after having been trashed by protesters. It's as if the revelations of plunder and mass murder have sent everyone ducking for cover, leaving Shaker Cena just one powerful supporter.

India. Bangladesh's giant neighbor has not only given her sanctuary, it's ignored the government's demands to extradite her for crimes against humanity. as long as she's away uh people of Bangladesh every one of them will feel that uh justice is not done.

India supported her regime as a counter to its arch rival Pakistan. Shikina also promised that this majority Muslim nation would never be ruled by Islamic hardliners, a stance that won her strong support with the large Hindu minority. Naveen Mushid is a political scientist specializing in India Bangladesh relations.

This is exactly the narrative that she had put forward with her Indian counterparts right that you know keep supporting us because if you don't keep supporting us this country is going to become an Islamist country is going to become the new Afghanistan and so on. Further chaos and may laying out on the streets of Bangladesh. Why have the temples been attacked?

Since Shakerina was overthrown, Indian news and social media have vilified the new Bangladesh, claiming Hindus who make up about 8% of the population are living in terror. Have a look at these visuals. Atrocities being carried out against Bangladeshi minorities.

A genocide of Hindus, quote unquote, by Islamist extremists. The wave of terror against this community. While such claims are false, some Hindus have experienced violence.

In December, arsonists burned this familyrun temple on the edge of Dhaka. Ratan Kumar Gosh is the temple custodian. Opportunistically, uh, Hindu homes were targeted, but not in the sense that the Indian media would want us to believe.

Most attacks after the regime's collapse appear to have been political payback. They are not looking for Hindus. There were people were attacking followers of Hass and Hindus happened to be the followers of Hina.

So one of my first address to the nation was we are a family. We are a family with many religions, many beliefs, many political followers. Uh we disagree with each other.

Uh but that doesn't mean you fall apart. But many Hindus and secular Muslims fear hardliners are trying to fill the power vacuum. Even this family kite festival has caused alarm.

Every January, residents of Old Ducka fly kites and shoot fireworks for the Shakrin Festival, marking the beginning of a new harvest season. Religious conservatives have long objected to their rooftop parties with DJs, dancing, and sometimes alcohol. This year, they felt emboldened to stop them.

Before the festival began, young Islamic activists came through this neighborhood asking people not to take part in this festival. Now, by all accounts, they were quite polite, but residents got the message. As the sun goes down, most of the rooftops are quiet.

The only rocker celebrations, in fact, the only fireworks are in the mainly Hindu buildings. Most Muslims are watching from behind their windows. This was a typical rooftop party last year.

This year, the same rooftop is empty. downstairs, young men march against the festival, uploading their protest to social media. The following day, to Dr Ununice's disquappointed committee recommended removing secularism from the constitution.

If you are a democratic country, I think secularism go with it. So uh you cannot divide uh people in different segments and have a democratic country. Shena's old electoral rival the Bangladesh Nationalist Party is demanding elections by December.

[Applause] Dr Ununas wants to hold off until the middle of 2026 to try to lock in democratic reforms. What I'm trying to do kind of build the consensus before we go to the election, sign off with the declaration that we agree on these basic principles of the government. All these blood shed for the new Bangladesh as we call it.

Uh it's not just to hold an election. is to make sure this is really new Bangladesh. Will the Awami League be able to take part in that election?

It's up to their decision. We have not banned it. So our league is to decide whether they want to contest the election.

I think if there are elections today, it's the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, the BNP that would come to power, right? Uh that might be a good thing, that might not be a good thing. there is that kind of a risk that uh things would just go back to how they were in you know under shino's regime because the BNP is not very different from the almidi you know it's it's the you know uh two peas in a pot some of the student protesters don't trust any establishment politicians in February 2025 Nah Islam resigned from the interim government to launch a new studentbacked You [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] must from India.

Shina has also called for a new beginning. In an audio message devoid of self-reflection or apology, she urged Bangladeshies to rise up against Muhammad Ununas. Angry students torched her abandoned family home in retaliation.

In this volatile climate, a fragile and temporary government is trying to lay the foundations for a genuine democracy. For decades, this young country has been ruled by dark forces. Bangladeshies are now waiting to see if this really is the start of a new era or a false story.