‘Shoot Wherever You Find Them’: Purported Audio Ties Sheikh Hasina To Bloody Crackdown That Killed 1,400

Dhaka burned. Guns fired. Protesters fell. The voice on a purported tape did not stutter. “Use lethal weapons... wherever they find (them), they will shoot.”

Alleged to be that of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, that voice echoes now across Bangladesh’s broken silence. The BBC has obtained the audio recording, which is said to be from July 18, 2024, where she is heard authorising deadly force against protesters.

She is heard saying that security forces should “use lethal weapons” against protesters and that “wherever they find (them), they will shoot”.

Experts hired by BBC ran forensic checks. They found no signs of editing and synthetic manipulation. The voice, they concluded, is real.

Between July and August 2024, an estimated 1,400 people were killed in a brutal government crackdown. The United Nations flagged the deaths. It called the bloodshed one of the worst episodes of political violence in the country since the 1971 liberation war.

Now 77, Hasina left Bangladesh quietly as the protests swelled. She boarded a helicopter on August 5, moments before thousands of angry demonstrators broke into her official residence in Dhaka. That day was later labelled as one of the deadliest since independence.

The leaked audio emerged as part of evidence submitted in Hasina’s ongoing trial in absentia. The voice in the tape, reportedly a conversation between Hasina and a top government official, is heard issuing shoot-to-kill orders against protesters. The BBC did not name the official. But it made clear that this was not rogue military action, it came from the very top.

This was not the first time Bangladesh saw state violence. But never before has such direct and deliberate language been caught on tape. The tone is cold. The message is clear.

Awami League Defends, Denies, Deflects

Hasina’s Awami League party scrambled to contain the fallout. It denied that she or any senior leader gave orders to use lethal force.

“The Awami League categorically denies and rejects claims that some of its senior leaders, including the prime minister herself, were personally responsible for or directed the use of lethal force against crowds,” the party said in a statement to the BBC.

They pointed fingers elsewhere. Ground commanders. Panic. Confusion.

“Breakdowns in discipline among some members of the security forces on the ground in response to instances of violence led to (a) regrettable loss of life,” the party told AFP.

In another statement, the party said the crackdown was “proportionate in nature, made in good faith and intended to minimise the loss of life”.

The Fall of Hasina

She had ruled Bangladesh for 15 years. She held power like a clenched fist. But the protests that erupted in early 2024 cracked the walls of her government. It began with student anger over civil service job quotas. Then it spread. Teachers, workers, Opposition leaders and common citizens too joined the agitation.

What started as a university campus movement soon swelled into a national rebellion. Demonstrators demanded Hasina's resignation. They got it. But only after rivers of blood soaked the streets.

Her departure did not come with a resignation letter. It came with silence. She fled to India and has not returned since. Her trial began in Dhaka on June 1 without her. She now faces charges related to crimes against humanity.

A Nation Haunted by a Voice

The leaked recording changed everything. It offered something the victims’ families never had – a thread of accountability. The voice may have left the country. But its echoes remain in the charred buildings, bullet-scarred walls and hundreds of graves.

Bangladesh will never forget July and August 2024 – the curfews, the blackouts, the sirens and the gunfire.

And the voice. That voice. Telling the forces to shoot.