How could we have descended to such depravity?
We congratulate Prof Yunus's government for joining the UN treaty on enforced disappearances. We also welcome the formation, last Tuesday, of an inquiry commission to investigate extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances and to report within 45 days. Headed by a retired high court judge, the commission will investigate the activities of the police, Rapid Action Battalion (Rab), Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), Criminal Investigation Department (CID), Special Branch (SB), National Security Intelligence (NSI) and the military's Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI). Instead of working for the protection of the state, government, or society, these intelligence agencies became extensions of the government's policy of quelling dissent, obliterating the opposition and controlling the independent media.
This is one of the most urgent, important and pro-people initiative that the interim government could have taken, and we congratulate the relevant adviser or advisors for this initiative. We, from the media and this particular newspaper, wish the commission resounding success. We need not only to do justice to the victims but also ensure that it does not reoccur.
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It is the latter task that engages us more. The practice of using security agencies to extend ruling party domination and especially to destroy the opposition is, sadly, not something that was started by Awami League. Although it can be said to have reached its zenith with the widespread practice of enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killing under Sheikh Hasina's rule, it began with the entry of the armed forces into direct politics when Bangabandhu was assassinated. We know for a fact that when BNP was being organised in the late seventies, several security agencies were used to cajole, convince and compel politicians and civil society members to join it. This was followed by Gen Ershad's nearly decade-long rule, during which he also used them to form his party and control the opposition. We all expected that this notorious practice would cease with the restoration of democracy and representative government in 1991.
Regrettably, this practice continued under the elected governments of both BNP and AL, reaching its most ignominious apex in the attempted assassination of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on August 21, 2004, in which security agencies were clearly and elaborately involved. A total of 23 people, including the head of AL's women wing, were killed.
Thus, over the last three decades—since 1991, when we expected transparent, people-centred politics to replace behind-the-scenes manipulation—the involvement of security agencies increased in proportion to the political leadership of the day losing public trust. Sheikh Hasina's 15-year rule stands as a lesson in how a political party of AL's legacy, reach and organisation became increasingly dependent on security agencies. This dependency included allowing them into the inner workings of party operations, such as vetting candidates for nearly all tiers of the party, to the extent that aspiring leaders at the union and district levels sought the blessings of security agencies to achieve their ambitions.
Many factors contributed to Sheikh Hasina's downfall, but perhaps the most heart-wrenching was, especially after 2010, the practice of picking people up from their homes and streets and then making them disappear for months or years without the slightest need to inform anyone—including their families—about their fate. Sometimes, their dead bodies would appear in the most unlikely places. Sometimes, they would return home but remain silent for fear of further repercussions. But most often, they would just disappear for weeks, months, or years, never to return.
Just imagine the agony of their loved ones. Death, however cruel, draws the curtain on a tragedy. But disappearances represent a continuous suffering mixed with hope that one day the family will open the door and find their loved one—father, husband, son, friend—miraculously returned. Each knock on the door became both a flicker of hope and a sense of deep disappointment. Imagine this going on for years.
One of the fundamental responsibilities of a modern state is to ensure the safety of life and property—we are leaving aside the question of liberty for the moment. This assurance was not provided in Bangladesh under Sheikh Hasina's regime, especially since 2010. According to Odhikar, a human rights organisation that maintained a well verified record of disappearances—despite facing significant challenges, including jailing of its chief, who is now an advisor in Prof Yunus's cabinet—there were a total of 708 victims of enforced disappearances between 2009 and June 2024. Of these 708 victims, 57 percent returned alive, 13 percent were found dead and nothing has been known about the remaining 30 percent. The practice of "picking up" victims from homes or streets was carried as follows: 31 percent by Rab, 30 percent by the Detective Branch (DB), 22 percent by DGFI (mostly accompanied by Rab) and 14 percent by the police.
According to a report by Zyma Islam, published on August 30, 2022, at least 522 individuals became victims of enforced disappearances between 2009 and 2018. Most survivors who returned home never spoke about their experiences for fear of reliving their hellish ordeals. However, a few who did speak confirmed our worst fears. One said, "They attached two crocodile clips to my two ear lobes and when switched on, sent electric shock damaging my eardrums during interrogation." Another said his hands were cuffed behind his back throughout his detention, which varied from two months to two and a half years. According to the detainees, the cells were 2.5 feet wide, 4 feet long and 5 feet high—too small to lie down or stand up. It was always half-sitting or half-lying. Such cruelty resembles medieval torture. Despite being underground, dark and without windows, the detainees were blindfolded throughout their captivity, except for basic needs and showers.
The stories of "Aynaghar" (House of Mirrors) represent another level of torture and cruelty that we have recently been exposed to. These constitute gross violations of human rights and reveal the existence of secret prisons that are completely unmonitored and devoid of legal oversight. They were run totally arbitrarily and at the whims of their officers. A retired army officer and a Supreme Court lawyer were kept in such secret prisons for eight years and would likely have remained there if not for the fall of the regime. Mikel Changma, a leader from the Chattogram Hill Tracks area, did not see sunlight for five years (2019-2024) of his confinement.
While the inquiry commission on disappearances is expected to reveal its report within 45 days, immediate steps should be taken to allow families and rights activists to visit all 23 prisons that the DGFI has committed to opening to the public. All those who have been cruelly and illegally detained must be returned to their families immediately.
We must never fall into such depths of cruelty and inhumanity again. Enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings are a shame on our dreams from the Liberations War and must be eradicated forever. Too much power and arbitrariness have been allowed to security agencies in the name of fighting extremism. We hope the commission will lay down a clear legal framework so that nobody is made to suffer as we saw in the last 15 years.
Mahfuz Anam is the editor and publisher of The Daily Star.
Views expressed in this article are the author's own.
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