Parliament passes bill to replace RAB with SRB

Bangladesh's Parliament has passed the widely discussed Special Response Battalion (SRB) Bill, 2026, despite strong objections from opposition lawmakers, with the legislation providing for the abolition of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) and the establishment of a new specialised unit under the Bangladesh Police. Speaker Hafiz Uddin Ahmed put the bill to a voice vote during the third session of the 13th Parliament on Thursday, and it was subsequently passed.

The bill was introduced on September 3 and referred to the relevant parliamentary committee for scrutiny; although the committee submitted its report on Wednesday, opposition lawmakers recorded seven notes of dissent, arguing that merely replacing RAB with a similarly structured force would fail to satisfy public and international expectations. They called instead for broad consultations with political parties, law-enforcement agencies, judges, lawyers, human rights defenders and families of victims, while further demanding that RAB's records and evidence relating to enforced disappearances be separately catalogued and preserved before any transfer took place.

Under the new law, the SRB will operate as a specialised unit under Bangladesh Police, headquartered in Dhaka and led by a director general holding at least the rank of additional inspector general; its mandate will encompass public security, terrorism, organised crime, cybercrime, enforced disappearances, land grabbing, human trafficking and drug control, with arrests, searches and evidence seizure required to comply with the Code of Criminal Procedure. The law also introduces disciplinary and punitive measures for misconduct and establishes a special grievance redress committee, while previous provisions relating to RAB will be repealed once the law takes effect, with its assets, bank accounts, funds and records vesting automatically in the SRB.

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Whether this legislative overhaul succeeds in addressing the very concerns that prompted RAB's abolition, however, remains an open question; opposition lawmakers have already warned that the new force risks becoming little more than a continuation of its predecessor under a different name, and the credibility of the transition will likely depend on how rigorously the promised accountability mechanisms are enforced in practice.