Former army chief (retd) Iqbal Karim Bhuiyan on Monday testified before International Crimes Tribunal-1, calling for the abolition of the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence and Rapid Action Battalion.

He said if RAB cannot be abolished, the army should be withdrawn from the battalion.

He said DGFI had lost its legitimacy after creating a ‘bad culture’ of secret detention centres, known as Aynaghar.

Iqbal said that during his tenure he learned that some individuals from India’s intelligence agency RAW regularly visited DGFI offices under the patronage of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s defence adviser, retired major general Tarique Ahmed Siddique.

He said RAW officials were allowed to use one of seven rooms at DGFI headquarters.

‘They used to prepare lists identifying some people as extremists and supplied those lists to DGFI,’ he said, adding that he did not know whether DGFI acted on the lists.

The three-judge tribunal, chaired by Justice Md Golam Mortuza Mozumder, adjourned the hearing until February 18 as his cross-examination remained incomplete. Iqbal testified for second day in the enforced disappearance case against former major general Ziaul Ahsan who was former addition director general of the RAB.