SUMMARY

The Government of Bangladesh has repeatedly engaged in one-sided violence, often in the context of suppressing protesters, communal tensions, or border security. These events are characterized by the disproportionate use of force by state security forces, including the military, police, and paramilitary units.

The Government of Bangladesh first became active as a one-sided actor with the Logang massacre on 10 April 1992, which resulted in 138 fatalities and remains the single largest episode of one-sided violence in Bangladesh recorded in UCDP data since 1989. In the village of Logang, Bangladeshi troops, supported by Bengali settlers, launched a large-scale attack targeting members of the tribal population. The violence was reportedly triggered by an incident in which a tribal man assaulted a Bengali girl. While official government accounts initially framed the event as a clash with Shanti Bahini rebels resulting in 13 deaths, later investigations and eyewitness testimonies point to a death toll far exceeding these early reports. Additional reports describe the systematic destruction of homes and widespread panic among the local population. While some estimates claim fatalities as high as 1200, these higher figures lack sufficient corroboration.

While one-sided violence carried out by the Government of Bangladesh has not been active since 1992, isolated incidents have occurred since then, including cases where police killed peaceful protesters and border guards shot civilians. Government attacks on civilians also occurred in relation to the July–August unrest in 2024, during which widespread protests were met with force by state forces. While various estimates suggest that the total number of fatalities during this period was significantly higher, many of these deaths fall outside the scope of UCDP data. Much of the violence involving state forces took place during violent protests and is therefore excluded. These incidents primarily involved state forces killing civilians in the course of suppressing demonstrations. Furthermore, the sheer scale of the violence, combined with the complexity of determining whether protesters were acting violently or peacefully, and reports of state forces concealing or destroying corpses complicate efforts to accurately assess the extent of one-sided violence during this period.