Right to life and personal liberty are the most appreciated and vital fundamental human rights around which other rights of the individual rotate.

Article 31 is the famous provision of the Constitution of Bangladesh and occupies a unique place as a fundamental right.

It guarantees right to life and personal liberty to citizens and aliens and is enforceable against the State.

`Right to life` and `personal liberty` is the contemporary name for what have been usually known as `natural right`. It is the primeval right necessary for the development of human personality.

It is the moral right which every human being everywhere at all times ought to have simply because of the fact that in contrast with other beings, he/she is lucid and moral.

It is the fundamental right which enables a man or woman to plan his/her own life in the manner he/she likes best. Right to life and personal liberty is one of the rights of the people of Bangladesh preserved by its Constitution.

Despite having the most appreciated and pivotal fundamental human rights guaranteed in our Constitution, it has been widely reported in Bangladesh that in the last few years there has been a pattern of extrajudicial killings going on in the name of “crossfire”, “gunfights” or “encounters”, even though we live in a democracy and our Constitution protects and ensures fundamental rights for every individual in our country.

Until recently a new term has been improvised, a new culture of enforced disappearances has developed, which is alarming and this adds to the disrespect for human rights and thus the long practice of impunity and a weak criminal justice system common in Bangladesh.  

We are deeply worried that the present government has not done enough to efficiently address the extrajudicial killings and the recent spate of killings and disappearances, and that this inaction has led to a culture of impunity in which even more killings and human rights violations can take place.

Although the authorities in Bangladesh have announced an inquiry into a recent epidemic of killings and disappearances, no positive steps have been taken yet by the authorities to investigate the spate of recent disappearances.

So, this kind of study is a demand of the time.

The objective of this research is to describe a real picture of human rights situation.

In our country if somebody is killed government does not want to investigate it spontaneously. Our objective is to draw attention of the government about this fact.

If we look at the Indian judiciary we will see that judiciary is well established that the State/Government has a positive obligation to investigate any matter regarding extrajudicial killing by law enforcing agencies of the State.

Very recently the Andra Prodesh High Court in India in the police encounter case have held that, every time a person is killed by a police officer or any member of law enforcing agencies, if a complaint is made, an FIR must be registered and once an FIR is registered, an investigation must be launched.

Main objective of this study is to make our general mass aware of Right to life and personal liberty in Bangladesh with special reference to extra judicial killing.

Through this study national and international people related to law making and fundamental right will be able to know our present situation.

We have just celebrated our 42 years of independence and almost 22 years of democracy, still the State has not yet fulfilled its legal duty to take reasonable steps to prevent extrajudicial killings and disappearances and use all means to carry out serious investigation of alleged cases.

It is now time for the governments concerned authorities to do something, to conduct independent investigations and to impose appropriate punishment and to ensure victims adequate compensation.

In order to bring an end to extrajudicial killings and disappearances, the respect for the rule of law and effective and independent judiciary is necessary.

The writer is a lawyer and M.Phil researcher, email: [email protected]