UPDATE - UN team to visit Bangladesh to set up probe of killings during student protests

UPDATES WITH PROBE AGAINST BANGLADESH'S EX-PREMIER IN GENOCIDE CASE; REVISES DECK; EDITS THROUGH

By SM Najmus Sakib

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AA) - A UN fact-finding team will visit Bangladesh next week to set up a probe of hundreds of deaths during recent student-led protests which led the prime minister to step down, UN officials announced on Thursday.

An independent inquiry commission will be funded and led by the UN, said Gwyn Lewis, the UN resident coordinator in Bangladesh, after a meeting in the capital Dhaka with Md Touhid Hossain, foreign policy advisor in the country’s transitional government.

The time frame and an action plan will be finalized soon, Lewis added.

Earlier on Wednesday, the UN human rights chief, Volker Turk, made a phone call to Bangladesh Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus and said a UN-led investigation would be launched very soon to probe the killing of the protesters.

“A team of UN experts will soon visit the country to set up an investigation,” Turk was quoted as saying by Yunus’ press office.

During the call, Yunus sought UN cooperation for rebuilding the country and helping it uphold human rights.

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus, 84, last week was tapped to lead a 17-member transitional administration after Former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina fled to neighboring India under the pressure of weeks of anti-government protests.

From mid-July until Hasina fled, the student-civilian uprising resulted in at least 580 deaths.​​​​​​​

- Probe against Hasina in genocide case

The International Crimes Tribunal, a local court, has started a probe against Hasina and nine others for genocide and crimes against humanity.

The investigation agency of the tribunal has accepted the case and the developments would be conveyed to the petitioners, lawyer of the plaintiff Gazi MH Tanim told reporters in Dhaka on Thursday.

On Wednesday, the father of Alif Ahmed Siam, a ninth-grade student who was shot by police on Aug. 5 and succumbed to his bullet injuries, filed the suit through his lawyer.

The tribunal was formed by the then-Awami League government of Hasina in 2010 to prosecute those who had opposed Bangladesh's war of independence in 1971.

A total of five cases, including four murders and an abduction, were filed against Hasina, since she fled India in student-civilian uprising on Aug 5.