Odhikar publishes a list of persons who were killed extrajudicially by the security forces on 5 and 6 May 2013 in Dhaka and outside Dhaka centring around the Hefazate Islam rally at Shapla Chattar in Motijheel, Dhaka.
In 2013, Odhikar conducted a fact-finding mission into that massacre committed by the security forces and published a report with 61 deaths. Due to publishing that report, the Awami League government filed a case against the then Odhikar’s Secretary Adilur Rahman Khan and the Organisation’s sitting Director ASM Nasiruddin Elan under section 57 of the draconian Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Act, 2006 (amended 2009).
The fascist Awami League government had commenced heightened forms of repression on Odhikar and its leaders since 2013 through persecution, surveillance, harassment by the authorities and smear campaigns by pro-government media outlets. After more than a decade of judicial harassment, on 14 September 2023, the Dhaka Cyber Tribunal judge AM Zulfikar Hayat pronounced the judgement and sentenced Adilur Rahman Khan and ASM Nasiruddin Elan to two years in prison with BDT 10,000 fine each, under the ICT Act, for publishing a fact-finding report on extrajudicial killings. After 31 days of incarceration in Dhaka Central Jail, Keraniganj, on 15 October, both were released on bail granted by Justice Md. Emdadul Haque Azad of the High Court Division of the Supreme Court.
Odhikar urges the interim government immediately form an independent inquiry commission headed by a Supreme Court judge and conduct an impartial investigation into the extrajudicial killings committed on 5 and 6 May 2013 and bring the perpetrators to justice.
