When nine people mysteriously go "missing" from two villages of the same upazila in less than a month, including three members of the same family, and when the authorities claim they know nothing about it – even though, as per eyewitnesses, they were picked up by men alleging to be Rab officials – what recourse is available to the families of the missing? What remains of a community's sense of safety and security?

According to villagers in Faridpur Upazila of Pabna, the incidents occurred over the killing of local Jubo Dal leader Saiful Islam Liton on February 3. Of the nine, three were accused in the Liton murder case.  If the allegation of the victims' involvement in the murder is true the matter should be investigated and the accused tried under the legal system following proper criminal procedures, not made to disappear.

If it was not the Rab who picked them up, as the agency would like us to believe, doesn't the onus fall upon them to go after the alleged impostors and rescue the victims? In the last four months alone, at least 25 more people have been abducted, as per human rights watchdog, Ain O Salish Kendra. In barely any of the cases has any progress been made or the fate of the missing persons determined. 

Such disappearances infuse fear in the minds of the citizens. The administration have to provide satisfactory account of what happened to the victims and probe into allegations to determine the facts.