Ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina told Nitor doctors neither to treat those injured in the July uprising nor to release those who were hospitalised, said Chief Prosecutor Mohammad Tajul Islam at the International Crimes Tribunal.

He said this yesterday after a judge of the tribunal asked about the post-mortem reports and death certificates of those killed during the uprising.

Prosecutor Shahidul Islam said that hospital authorities often failed to provide documents. In several cases, no post mortem was done because of pressure from the administration.

Tajul said death certificates of gunned down protesters falsely stated that the cause of death was suffocation or something else because the doctors were forced to lie.

The judge asked, "Isn't a post-mortem an important document?"

Tajul replied that crimes against humanity were so rampant in July that hospitals struggled to treat patients, and the deceased had to be buried quickly. In that situation, the authorities did not even make post-mortem reports.

The lack of such reports itself is evidence of a crime against humanity, he said.

Prosecutors went to the National Institute of Traumatology and Orthopaedic Rehabilitation (Nitor) and interviewed doctors, he said.

The doctors told prosecutors that Sheikh Hasina went there in July and ordered them not to treat the protesters, Tajul said at the court.

People injured during the uprising also said this, he added. "We have evidence of this information," he said.

The tribunal asked prosecutors to submit the probe report on April 22 in a case filed over crimes against humanity in the capital's Chankharpul during the student-led July-August mass uprising.

In another case, the court ordered authorities to interrogate constables Arshad Hossain on March 2 and Imaj Hossain the next day.

The tribunal also placed Chanchal Kumar Sarkar, a sacked assistant sub-inspector of police, on a one-day interrogation. He will be quizzed on February 27.

Footage of Arshad gagging a protester near the Supreme Court and Chanchal shooting a student hanging from a building's ledge in Rampura sparked outrage across the country.

The three-member tribunal led by Justice Md Golam Mortuza Mozumder passed the orders.