Hasina ordered to doctors 'no treatment, no release' : ICT Chief Prosecutor

The ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina had instructed doctors at National Institute of Traumatology and Orthopedic Rehabilitation (NITOR), also known as Pangu Hospital, not to treat protesters injured during the July uprising.

Chief Prosecutor Mohammad Tajul Islam told the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) that the former premier had issued a "no treatment, no release" order, explaining that Hasina had ordered doctors at NITOR not to treat or release injured protesters.

When the tribunal wanted to know about the progress of post-mortem reports or death certificates for the protesters who had been killed, he said the prosecution was struggling to secure documents from hospitals, as the authorities were failing to provide such evidence.

The chief prosecutor also told the tribunal that due to pressure from the administration, there were several cases where no post-mortem examinations were conducted for dead protesters.

Even for those who died of gunshot wounds while under treatment at hospitals, the death certificates often did not mention the actual cause of death. Instead, doctors were forced to write that the cause of death was suffocation.

The court asked, "Isn't a post-mortem an important document?"

Tajul responded that such large-scale crimes against humanity had occurred that the bodies had to be buried quickly, and medical treatment was obstructed. In such a situation, it was not normal to obtain post-mortem reports, and the lack of such reports itself was evidence of a crime against humanity.

"Sheikh Hasina visited NITOR and instructed the doctors not to give any treatment to the protesters. We learned such information by interviewing the doctors recently," Tajul told the tribunal.

Tajul said that when visiting Pangu Hospital, the doctors and patients injured during the July movement revealed that Sheikh Hasina had instructed the hospital authorities not to provide any treatment and not to allow anyone to leave. "We have evidence of this information."