The state must first recognise that forced disappearances and extra-judicial killings happen in order to stop these, former caretaker government adviser Sultana Kamal said yesterday.

She said the state would take action only when it admitted such incidents took place.

"But we see that the state never admits; it denies," she told a human rights conference at Brac CDM centre in Savar, on the outskirts of the capital.

Around 250 rights activists from different districts attended the conference.