HRW calls for independent probe

Salahuddin Ahmed

Human Rights Watch yesterday urged the Bangladesh authorities to immediately order an independent investigation into the “enforced disappearance” of BNP Joint Secretary General Salahuddin Ahmed.

The New York-based rights body in a report published on its website said, “Ahmed was last seen on the evening of March 10, 2015 when, according to an eyewitness, he was taken away by men identifying themselves as belonging to the Detective Branch of the police.”

The government has denied involvement or knowledge of his whereabouts.

Meanwhile, Hasina Ahmed, a former BNP lawmaker and wife of Ahmed, yesterday told this newspaper that she would write to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina today seeking the PM's intervention in tracing her husband.

Brad Adams, Asia director at HRW, said the Bangladesh government has a history of failing to investigate the “enforced disappearance” of opposition members.

“Despite complaints to the police by Ahmed's family members and the filing of a case with a court by his wife demanding that the government produce him in court, Ahmed has not surfaced,” read the report.

On March 16, the inspector general of police, responding to a Dhaka High Court order, reported that various security services under his control had not detained or arrested Ahmed, added the global rights watchdog. The court has adjourned the hearing until April 8.

Adams called for a credible and independent investigation into Ahmed's disappearance. “This should happen urgently, since by April 8 it could be too late.”

According to the report, the HRW and other groups have documented “enforced disappearances” in Bangladesh, largely by members of the security forces since at least 2007.

In 2012, BNP leader Ilias Ali also went missing, and the authorities have failed to determine his fate. In May 2014, the Bangladesh authorities ordered investigations of members of the Rab for their role in the abduction and apparent contract killing of seven people in Narayanganj, but only because of intense media scrutiny, said the rights body.

“Rab officials had earlier denied their role, but were exposed after the corpses, drowned in a lake, accidentally floated up.”

Ahmed's “disappearance” comes in the midst of an ongoing violent stand-off between the government and opposition parties, which began in early January this year, the report mentioned.

Since then, over 150 people have died and several hundred have been injured, largely when defying opposition enforced blockades known as hartals, it added.

“Many enforced disappearances have been well documented as carried out by the authorities, yet there is little and in many cases no evidence that the government has investigated these cases,” said Adams. “No members of the security forces have been held to account for their role despite public pledges by the government.”

The current prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, came into power in 2009 promising an end to security forces' excesses, but there has been no difference in the culture of impunity that plagued Bangladesh before her tenure in office, the report said.

ONE DETAINED

Police detained a man in front of BNP chairperson's Gulshan office yesterday afternoon when he was protesting the missing incident of BNP leader Salahuddin Ahmed.

Suman, 35, went there around 11:30am and held up a collage of newspaper clippings on the incident. 

Law enforcers detained him around 1:00pm, said Sayrul Kabir Khan, a staff of BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia's press wing.

Before being picked up by cops, Suman told reporters that he was not involved in politics. “Nobody is raising their voice against such state-sponsored abduction of people. That's why I am here to register my protest.”