Legitimizing Extrajudicial Killings: A Discursive Study on the Law Enforcement Agency and the Violations of Human Rights in Bangladesh

Abstract: This study aims to understand the construction process of legitimizing extrajudicial killings through analyzing text from print and electronic media and how they have been portrayed to the audience. It puts an effort to understand how Bangladesh government legitimize extra-judicial killings within a democratic framework of a country. Extrajudicial killing is a threat to modern societies. It has adverse effects on the country's development. Violation of human rights practices by the law enforcement agencies in Bangladesh has been created lots of debates and criticism. Van Leeuwen's method of understanding legitimacy has been used to analyze text from different sources. Government and the authority legitimize extrajudicial killings through texts which have been portrayed to the mass population. A post-colonial theoretical perspective had been used to explain the situation from a post-colonial idea of domination. The status of the rule of law in Bangladesh does not comply with the practice of violation of human rights through the practice of extrajudicial killings.