Gen Zia confessed involvement in Pegasus purchase, 2013 Hefazat crackdown, Aynaghor: Police claim

Former Bangladesh Army official Ziaul Ahsan has confessed to being involved in the 2013 crackdown on Hefazat-e-Islam members in Dhaka’s Shapla Chattar, purchasing Pegasus spyware, and setting up “Aynaghor”, the police have claimed.

He made the confession during an initial interrogation, the police claimed in an application to the Dhaka Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court seeking a 10-day remand of the former Army official.

However, during the hearing of the application today (16 August), Gen Zia denied the allegations in court.

In the remand application, the police claimed that Gen Zia had confessed to Bangladesh buying Israeli spyware Pegasus, developed by the Israeli cyber-arms company NSO Group that is designed to be covertly and remotely installed on mobile phones running iOS and Android.

However, when asked in the court, he said, “There is nothing called Pegasus. I did not track any phones.”

The police also claimed that the former director general of the National Telecommunication Monitoring Centre (NTMC) was also involved in the “Aynaghor” concept, a secret prison for victims of enforced disappearances and political prisoners.

But in court, he said, “I am not involved with any murder, enforced disappearance. Ask anyone who has been freed from the Aynaghor to say that I held them there.”

Countering police claims, the former Army officials alleged that he was picked up from his home by DGFI members on 7 August and kept at Aynaghor for the last eight days.

According to the police’s remand application, General Ziaul also confessed to playing a key role in the violent suppression of Hefazat-e-Islam members at Shapla Chattar in Dhaka on 5 May 2013, which reportedly killed dozens of protesters.

Ziaul was arrested in the capital’s Khilkhet area last night based on a tip-off, according to Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP).

He was arrested in a case filed with the New Market Police Station over the killing of Shahjahan Ali, a hawker, in the Science Lab area of the capital during the recent student movement.

Earlier, Salman F Rahman, former adviser to the recently ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina, and former law minister Anisul Huq were arrested in the same case. A Dhaka court placed both of them on a 10-day remand each.

Meanwhile, Gen Zia’s claim about being held at Aynaghor or The House of Mirror, a secret prison for victims of enforced disappearance allegedly operated by the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI), also contradicts DGFI’s claims that no one is kept there anymore.

Following the fall of the Awami League-led government, human rights activists visited the DGFI headquarters in the capital’s Cantonment area on 7 August, where an intelligence official claimed there were no detainees in the Aynaghor, TBS reported earlier this month.

“Some representatives of the organisation under the banner of ‘Mayer Dak’ and some human rights activists went to meet DGFI officials who told us that the alleged Aynaghor is currently unoccupied,” human rights activist Dr CR Abrar told TBS in front of the DGFI headquarters, according to the report.