By R. Suryamurthy
The true measure of a democracy is rarely found in the grandeur of its elections or the eloquence of its constitution. It is found instead in the silence of its prison cells, the transparency of its police stations and the restraint exercised by those empowered to deprive citizens of their liberty. Every constitutional democracy confers extraordinary powers upon the state—the authority to arrest, detain and prosecute—but those powers derive their legitimacy from one indispensable condition: that the state itself remains bound by law. The moment a detainee dies without trial, without judicial determination of guilt and while entirely under state custody, the state ceases to function merely as an investigator and begins to resemble judge, jury and executioner.
It is against this backdrop that the Global Center for Democratic Governance (GCDG) report, Death Without Trial in Bangladesh, documenting 101 custodial deaths between September 2024 and June 2026, deserves to be viewed not simply as another human rights publication but as a troubling assessment of the health of Bangladesh’s justice system at one of the most consequential moments in its political evolution. The report’s significance lies not merely in the number it records but in the uncomfortable questions it raises about institutional continuity, accountability and the capacity of democratic transition to produce genuine reform.
Numbers, by themselves, often conceal more than they reveal. Yet sometimes they expose patterns too persistent to dismiss. One hundred and one documented custodial deaths over twenty-two months averages more than four deaths every month. The report identifies July 2025 as the deadliest month with ten recorded deaths, while nearly every other month witnessed between two and nine fatalities. This is not the statistical profile of isolated administrative failures. It suggests an enduring institutional phenomenon that transcends individual officers, particular prisons or singular political events.
Equally revealing is the composition of those who died. The report lists former ministers, members of parliament, freedom fighters, district-level political leaders, lawyers, local government representatives, businessmen, students, garment workers, fishermen, transport workers and ordinary citizens. Many belonged to the Awami League and its affiliated organisations, reflecting the political upheaval that followed the events of 2024, while others possessed no apparent political affiliation at all. Such diversity complicates any attempt to reduce custodial deaths to partisan retaliation alone. Instead, it points towards a broader institutional failure whose reach extends beyond political rivalry into the ordinary functioning of law enforcement and detention systems.
Bangladesh’s recent political transition generated understandable optimism. Around the world, political change is frequently accompanied by promises of institutional renewal, judicial independence and security-sector reform. Yet history repeatedly demonstrates that governments can change much faster than institutions. Police organisations inherit operational cultures developed over decades. Prosecutorial practices survive electoral cycles. Prison administrations function according to bureaucratic habits rather than political slogans. Unless structural incentives change, institutional behaviour often remains remarkably constant irrespective of which party occupies the corridors of power. That appears to be the larger lesson emerging from the GCDG report.
The debate surrounding custodial deaths is often reduced to questions of individual culpability—whether a particular officer used excessive force or whether a particular detainee suffered from pre-existing illness. Such questions are important, but they are insufficient. The more fundamental question is systemic: why do deaths continue to occur inside institutions where the state exercises complete control over every aspect of an individual’s existence? Once a citizen enters police custody or prison, the state determines movement, medical access, food, security, interrogation schedules and physical conditions. Responsibility therefore becomes virtually absolute. Every custodial death, regardless of its immediate cause, becomes a test of institutional competence and accountability.
The report itself recognises that its figures may understate reality. It argues that restrictions on media freedom, censorship and intimidation of journalists and human rights defenders have constrained independent documentation, meaning that the 101 documented deaths should be regarded as a minimum rather than a definitive total. Whether one accepts that assessment or not, the observation highlights another institutional challenge. Democracies require independent scrutiny precisely because official institutions cannot credibly investigate themselves without public confidence. Transparency is not an inconvenience to governance; it is governance’s principal safeguard.
What makes custodial deaths uniquely corrosive is that they invert the relationship between citizen and state. Criminal law exists to ensure that punishment follows conviction, not accusation. Due process exists because democratic societies deliberately rejected the proposition that governments may punish merely on suspicion. Every custodial death therefore weakens not only confidence in policing but confidence in constitutionalism itself. If detention increasingly carries the risk of death before trial, the distinction between arrest and punishment begins to disappear.
The consequences extend far beyond the courtroom. Bangladesh today seeks to attract greater foreign investment, expand exports beyond traditional sectors, negotiate deeper economic partnerships and strengthen its position as one of South Asia’s fastest-growing economies. Yet investors increasingly evaluate governance alongside growth. Credit rating agencies examine institutional resilience. Global manufacturers assess legal certainty before committing long-term capital. International development partners measure judicial effectiveness as closely as fiscal discipline. Rule of law has become an economic asset, while institutional opacity has become an investment risk.
Countries seldom lose international credibility because of a single human rights report. They lose it when successive reports begin describing similar institutional deficiencies without corresponding evidence of reform. Perceptions then harden into reputations, and reputations eventually influence capital flows, diplomatic engagement and strategic partnerships.
Bangladesh would be mistaken to view this issue solely through the prism of international criticism. The greatest cost of custodial abuse is ultimately domestic. Public trust is among the most valuable forms of political capital any state possesses. Citizens comply with laws not merely because governments possess coercive authority but because they believe institutions will act fairly. Once confidence in impartial justice begins to erode, legal compliance gradually gives way to fear, cynicism and political polarisation. Democracies cannot indefinitely govern through coercion alone.
Nor is this challenge unique to Bangladesh. Democracies from the United Kingdom to India, South Africa and Brazil have struggled with allegations of custodial abuse. The difference lies in institutional response. Independent custodial death inquiries, mandatory judicial inquests, forensic transparency, body-worn cameras, CCTV monitoring inside detention facilities, stronger legal aid systems and genuinely autonomous police complaints authorities have all emerged internationally because governments recognised that internal disciplinary mechanisms rarely command sufficient public confidence. Accountability has increasingly become institutional rather than discretionary.
The GCDG report therefore presents Bangladesh with an opportunity as much as a challenge. The appropriate response is neither outright dismissal nor unquestioning acceptance of every allegation. Democratic maturity requires something more demanding: independent investigations whose credibility rests upon evidence rather than political convenience. Every custodial death should automatically trigger judicial scrutiny, independent forensic examination and public disclosure of findings. Families should not spend years seeking basic information about how relatives died while under complete state control. Accountability delayed is accountability denied.
Ultimately, the issue extends beyond statistics. Whether the number is 101 or significantly higher, each documented death represents a constitutional failure because it occurred after the state assumed responsibility for protecting life. Democracies are not judged by how they treat the powerful, the popular or the politically connected. They are judged by how they treat those whose liberty has already been taken away.
Bangladesh stands at a pivotal moment in its democratic journey. Political transitions offer rare opportunities to reform institutions before old habits become entrenched under new administrations. If custodial deaths continue to be treated as unfortunate but inevitable by-products of law enforcement, they will gradually erode the legitimacy of every institution charged with administering justice. If, however, they become the catalyst for genuine police reform, stronger judicial oversight, transparent investigations and a renewed commitment to constitutional rights, then the lives already lost may yet compel the creation of institutions capable of ensuring that no citizen again dies before the law has spoken.
For no democracy can claim to uphold justice if its prisons become places where verdicts are delivered not by courts, but by custody itself. (IPA Service)
