Bangladesh probes ‘enforced disappearances’ by security forces during rule of Sheikh Hasina
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
A protester vandalising a mural of former Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who fled after weeks of protests forced her to quit.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Follow topic:
DHAKA – Bangladesh’s new authorities on Aug 28 opened an investigation into hundreds of alleged enforced disappearances by security forces during the rule of ousted premier Sheikh Hasina, the Bangladeshi government said.
It includes the notorious Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) paramilitary force, accused of numerous rights abuses, and which was sanctioned by the United States for its role in extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances.
Human Rights Watch in 2023 said security forces had committed “over 600 enforced disappearances” since Ms Hasina came to power in 2009, and nearly 100 remain unaccounted for.
Many of those detained were from Ms Hasina’s rivals, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Jamaat-e-Islami, the country’s largest Islamist party.
Ms Hasina’s government consistently denied the allegations, claiming some of those reported missing had drowned in the Mediterranean while trying to reach Europe.
Ms Hasina fled to India by helicopter on Aug 5
‘Disappearances and torture’
A five-member committee, headed by retired high court judge Moyeenul Islam Chowdhury, will also investigate other paramilitary police units, including the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), a Bangladeshi government order late on Aug 27 said.
The UN rights office says both the RAB and BGB forces have “records of serious human rights violations, including enforced disappearances and torture and ill-treatment”.
The commission, ordered to begin work by the interim Bangladeshi government led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus, has 45 working days in which to submit its report.
Ms Sanjida Islam Tulee, a coordinator of a group campaigning for the release of people detained under Ms Hasina, welcomed the commission.
“Most importantly, the report needs to be published fully and no information is kept hidden,” Ms Tulee, head of the Mayer Daak (meaning “the call of the mothers”) group, told AFP.
Ms Tulee said she wanted the commission to listen to every family without discrimination. She and those who were searching for missing relatives met earlier in August with Dr Yunus, asking for action.
She said they wanted the return of those missing and for those responsible to face justice.
More than 600 people were killed in the weeks leading up to Ms Hasina’s ouster, according to the UN rights team’s preliminary report, suggesting the toll was “likely an underestimate”.
The day after she fled, families gathered outside a military intelligence force building in Dhaka waiting desperately for their relatives.
But only a handful have been confirmed as released. AFP
