Dhaka, May 29: Bangladesh today criticised as "one-sided" an Amnesty International report which said the authorities here frequently resorted to torture and failed to investigate reported custodial killings. Foreign secretary Shamser Mobin Chowdhury said the report, released yesterday was "one-sided (and) incomplete in its information."
"This report unfortunately does not reflect everything that is a reality on the ground," he told reporters.
Asked if Dhaka was rejecting the report, Chowdhury said the government was yet to receive it officially.
"Any report has to be objective and it has to be unbiased it has to take everything into consideration," he said.
In the annual report on 2002, the London-based rights group said 38 people "reportedly died after torture in army custody and eight after torture in police custody" and despite international appeals, independent investigation was not carried out into these incidents.
The reported deaths in army custody came after Prime Minister Khaleda Zia ordered tens of thousands of troops onto the streets in October in a three-month crackdown on crime.
The government contends the army drive reduced Bangladesh's rampant street violence, but the United States and the European parliament said they had seen evidence of human rights abuses.
Amnesty said the authorities had tortured common criminals and members of the opposition and that a number of journalists were arrested, including five people who were filming a documentary for Britain's Channel 4 television and Shahriar Kabir, who was reporting on attacks against the Muslim country's Hindu minority.
Bureau Report