You want to know what absolute power looks like? It looks like this: your government kills 44 people in custody, and then passes a law saying nobody can do anything about it. Not a clarification. Not an amendment. A full, blanket, iron-clad legal shield that made murder legal retroactively.
That’s what the Joint Drive Indemnity Act 2003 was. And it happened in Bangladesh under BNP-Jamaat rule.
Let me walk you through it.
The Setup: Operation Clean Heart
On October 16, 2002, the BNP-Jamaat government launched “Operation Clean Heart.” The name itself was a masterpiece of propaganda — who could oppose a “clean heart”? The stated purpose was restoring law and order. The army, navy, police, BDR, and Ansar — the entire security apparatus — were deployed across the country.
Over 24,000 army personnel and 339 navy personnel, along with BDR, police, and Ansar members, swept through Bangladesh. They arrested 11,245 people. They recovered 2,028 firearms and 29,754 bullets.
On paper, it looked like a crackdown on crime.
In reality, it was a crackdown on everything — including human life.
What Actually Happened
During the 86 days of Operation Clean Heart (October 16, 2002 to January 9, 2003), people died in custody. Not one or two. Not a handful. According to the writ petition later filed in the High Court, 57 people died in custody and hundreds more suffered injuries from torture.
The government’s response? They claimed only 12 people had died, and — you cannot make this up — they said every single one of them died of “heart attack” in hospitals after being handed over to police.
Heart attacks. All of them. Young men picked up by security forces, thrown into custody, and every single one of them coincidentally had a fatal cardiac event. In a country where heart disease kills people in their 60s and 70s, these healthy young men in their 20s and 30s were apparently just dropping dead from bad luck.
Nobody believed it. Not Amnesty International. Not Human Rights Watch. Not a single credible international human rights organization.
Amnesty International issued a report titled “Bangladesh: Time for action to protect human rights” in 2003, specifically documenting the custodial deaths and torture during the operation. They condemned what was happening in the strongest terms.
Human Rights Watch made submissions to the UN’s Universal Periodic Review highlighting the extrajudicial killings and the culture of impunity.
The Asian Human Rights Commission documented case after case.
But none of it mattered. Because the government was about to make sure none of it could ever be prosecuted.
The Midnight Law
On January 9, 2003 — the very day Operation Clean Heart ended, mere hours before the troops stood down — the BNP-Jamaat government promulgated the Joint Drive Indemnity Ordinance 2003.
Think about that timing. The operation ends, and the same day, the government rushes out an ordinance giving blanket immunity to everyone involved. Not after an investigation. Not after a review. The same day. As if they knew exactly what had happened and needed to bury it immediately.
Parliament wasn’t even in session. So the government used presidential powers under the Constitution to push through an ordinance — a mechanism meant for genuine emergencies, not for shielding killers from accountability.
When Parliament reconvened on February 24, 2003, the BNP-Jamaat coalition majority rubber-stamped it into law as the Joint Drive Indemnity Act 2003.
What the Law Actually Said
The Act was breathtaking in its scope. It provided that:
No suit, prosecution, or other legal proceeding could be initiated or continued against any person for acts done in connection with Operation Clean Heart.
Read that again. Not “reasonable acts.” Not “acts within the scope of duty.” Any acts. During the entire operation period. By anyone connected to the joint forces or acting under their authority.
The law also barred courts from entertaining any complaints or petitions regarding deaths, injuries, or damage caused during the operation. Courts. The very institution designed to deliver justice was told: you are not allowed to even hear these cases.
A father whose son was tortured to death in custody? No case. A wife whose husband came home with broken bones and internal injuries? No case. A family that lost their breadwinner to a “heart attack” in a detention cell? No case.
The law didn’t just deny justice. It made justice illegal.
The Legal Justification — and Why It Was Nonsense
The government relied on Article 46 of the Bangladesh Constitution, which allows Parliament to enact indemnity laws. And technically, yes, Article 46 exists. It was written into the original 1972 Constitution as a compromise measure in a young nation.
But here’s what the BNP-Jamaat government conveniently ignored: Article 46 does not override fundamental rights. Part III of the Constitution guarantees the right to life (Article 32), equality before the law (Article 27), and protection of law (Article 31). These are not suggestions. They are constitutional rights that no law can erase.
The government essentially argued: “We have the power to pass indemnity laws, so we passed one. End of discussion.”
But the Constitution is not a menu where you pick the articles you like and ignore the ones you don’t. The fundamental rights chapter is the backbone of the entire constitutional framework. If Parliament could simply pass a law saying “the government can kill you and you can’t do anything about it,” then the Constitution would be meaningless.
This wasn’t just bad law. It was an attack on the constitutional order itself.
The Context Nobody Talks About
Here’s what makes this even more damning: the Joint Drive Indemnity Act 2003 was only the second indemnity law in Bangladesh’s history. The first was the infamous 1975 Indemnity Ordinance, passed by Khondker Moshtaque Ahmed after the assassination of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. That ordinance shielded the killers of the founding president and his entire family from prosecution.
Let that sink in. The BNP-Jamaat government reached for the same legal tool that was used to protect presidential assassins. The same constitutional mechanism that shielded the men who murdered Bangladesh’s founder was now being deployed to protect soldiers and police officers who killed ordinary citizens in custody.
The 1975 Indemnity Ordinance was eventually repealed in 1996 by the Awami League government under Sheikh Hasina — allowing the Bangabandhu murder trial to finally proceed. But the damage had been done. For 21 years, the assassins walked free.
The BNP-Jamaat government was apparently comfortable following that exact playbook. Kill. Shield. Wait.
The Fight to Kill the Law
For over nine years, the Indemnity Act sat on the books, untouchable. Families of the victims had no legal recourse. The security forces operated with total impunity. The “heart attack” narrative was never challenged in court because courts weren’t allowed to hear the cases.
Then, in June 2012, Supreme Court lawyer ZI Khan Panna filed a writ petition challenging the constitutionality of the Act. He argued — correctly, as it turned out — that the law violated fundamental rights including the right to life, equality before the law, and protection of law.
On July 29, 2012, the High Court issued a rule asking the government to explain why the Act should not be declared void and why a compensation fund of Tk 100 crore should not be established for victims.
The government’s response was staggering. The home ministry informed the court that the government had no information that anyone died of torture in the joint force’s custody during the operation.
No information. Zero. Fifty-seven people dead, international human rights organizations documenting every case, and the ministry responsible for the security forces claimed they had no information.
This was either breathtaking incompetence or breathtaking dishonesty. Given that the same government had passed the Indemnity Act the same day the operation ended, you can draw your own conclusions about which one it was.
The Verdict: The Law Dies
On September 13, 2015, a High Court bench of Justice Moyeenul Islam Chowdhury and Justice Md Ashraful Kamal delivered their verdict.
They declared the Joint Drive Indemnity Act 2003 unconstitutional, void ab initio — dead from the moment of its birth.
The court’s reasoning was devastating in its clarity:
“Parliament cannot enact laws that contradict the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution.”
The Act violated Articles 27, 31, and 32 of the Constitution — equality before the law, protection of law, and the right to life.
“All citizens are equal before the law and nobody, including members of law enforcement agencies, is above the law. Therefore, there is no scope for giving wholesale indemnity to the individuals or members of joint force or law enforcement agencies.”
The court said that any form of torture of citizens in custody was illegal. That law enforcers could not take the law into their own hands. That by doing so, the joint force had infringed the rule of law.
The court specifically noted that hundreds of people had reportedly been injured and maimed and thousands of their family members suffered and were deprived of earnings due to the actions of the joint force.
And crucially: the court ruled that victims and their families were entitled to pursue legal remedies through both criminal and civil courts. The legal door that had been slammed shut for 12 years was finally kicked open.
The court declined to order a general compensation fund — an understandable judicial restraint — but made clear that individual victims could seek redress through the courts.
The HC bench thanked ZI Khan Panna for filing the writ petition. It was a small but meaningful gesture — acknowledging that one lawyer’s persistence had taken down a law that an entire government had built to shield killers.
The Pattern: BNP’s Playbook of Impunity
The Indemnity Act wasn’t an isolated incident. It was part of a systematic pattern under BNP-Jamaat rule:
The Shamsunnahar Hall raid (July 2002): Police and JCD cadres assaulted 200+ female students in their dormitory. The government blamed the Vice-Chancellor, who was forced to resign. The Home Minister who ordered the raid — Lutfozzaman Babar — was never touched. A one-man commission whitewashed the incident.
The August 21 grenade attack (2004): 24 people killed, 500+ injured. The government fabricated the “Joj Mia” story — a petty criminal tortured into confessing to a crime he had nothing to do with. The real perpetrators, connected to Hawa Bhaban, were shielded for years.
The crime scene wash-up: After the grenade attack, the entire crime scene on Bangabandhu Avenue was washed with water and detergent. Recovered grenades were deliberately destroyed. This wasn’t incompetence. It was a cover-up directed from the top.
The Justice Joynal Abedin Commission: A one-man judicial probe into the grenade attack that produced a sham report blaming “foreign and local enemies.” Two years later, Abedin was elevated to the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court. The Daily Star called him a “shame” for the judiciary.
RAB: The same government created RAB — the elite death squad responsible for 600+ extrajudicial killings. RAB operated with complete impunity, branding every killing as “crossfire” or “gunfight,” a fiction that nobody in the government ever challenged.
The Indemnity Act was the legal architecture of this entire system. It was the formal, statutory expression of what the BNP-Jamaat government practiced every day: the state can kill you, and you cannot do anything about it.
The Bigger Question: What Happened After the Verdict?
The High Court’s 2015 verdict was a landmark. It established that no law — not even an indemnity law passed by Parliament — can override fundamental rights. It restored the possibility of justice for the families of the 57 who died.
But here’s the uncomfortable truth: as of 2026, no member of the joint forces has been prosecuted for the custodial deaths during Operation Clean Heart.
The legal door was opened. But nobody has walked through it.
The families of the dead — the mothers, fathers, wives, and children who lost loved ones to “heart attacks” in custody — are still waiting. Some of them have been waiting for over 23 years.
The verdict said they could file cases. But filing a case against the security forces in Bangladesh requires resources, courage, and a legal system that functions. For poor families in rural Bangladesh — the same people who bore the brunt of Operation Clean Heart — those resources don’t exist.
The law was struck down. The principle was established. But justice? Justice is still pending.
Why This Matters Now
In 2026, BNP is back in power. The same party that passed the Indemnity Act, that created RAB, that presided over custodial deaths and then made them legally untouchable, is now running the government again.
And the same patterns are already visible. The Great Acquittal — the systematic overturning of every BNP-era conviction after the July 2024 uprising — is the 2026 version of the Indemnity Act. Different mechanism, same goal: make state violence legally untouchable.
The 2003 Indemnity Act said: you can’t sue us. The 2024-2026 acquittals say: you can sue us, but we’ll be acquitted. Different path, same destination.
The lesson of the Indemnity Act isn’t just about 2003. It’s about what happens when any government decides that its power is above accountability. The High Court struck down the law in 2015. It took 12 years. In those 12 years, the families suffered without recourse.
Today, we’re watching the same movie again. The names change. The faces change. The party in power changes. But the impulse — to use the law as a shield for state violence — that stays the same.
The Numbers
- 44 to 57 people killed in custody during Operation Clean Heart (government claimed 12, all “heart attacks”)
- 11,245 people arrested
- 2,028 firearms and 29,754 bullets recovered
- 24,023 army and 339 navy personnel deployed
- 86 days of operation (October 16, 2002 to January 9, 2003)
- 12 years the Indemnity Act was in force before being struck down (2003-2015)
- 57 families still waiting for justice as of 2026
- Zero prosecutions of joint force members for custodial deaths
- 1 lawyer (ZI Khan Panna) who had the courage to challenge the law
Sources:
- Wikipedia: Joint Drive Indemnity Ordinance, 2003
- The Daily Star: “Indemnity law illegal: HC” (September 13, 2015)
- Prothom Alo: “HC declares Joint Drive Indemnity Act unconstitutional” (September 13, 2015)
- Amnesty International: “Bangladesh: Time for action to protect human rights” (2003)
- Amnesty International: “Bangladesh: Indemnity Bill — A Human Rights Challenge for Parliament” (January 24, 2003)
- Human Rights Watch: UPR Submission on Bangladesh (2008)
- Asian Human Rights Commission: AHRC-SPR-005-2015-Bangladesh (2015)
- bdnews24.com: “Lawyer challenges indemnity for Clean Heart operation” (June 14, 2012)
- bdnews24.com: “Full High Court verdict scrapping Operation Clean Heart indemnity law published” (September 14, 2015)
- New Age: “HC allows Operation Clean Heart victims to sue army-led joint force” (January 2, 2017)
- Daily Sun: “Indemnity Act — The most draconian law in the history of Bangladesh”
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