As Activists Emerge from Detention, a Look at Bangladesh’s Dark Legacy of Disappearances

Arka Bhaduri

After Sheikh Hasina fled Bangladesh on August 5, the morning of August 6 brought a surprise to the anti-regime activists in and around Bangladesh. Michael Chakma, an indigenous activist and political leader from Chittagong hills of Bangladesh, was released after five years of complete disappearance.

Hasina’s stealthy departure was followed by a number of people, forcefully ‘disappeared’ at various points in time during the Awami League regime, being released from a secret detention centre maintained by the Director General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI).

Any fascist regime operates with the help of its own oppressive machinery, and the recently-ended regime of Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh was no exception. Numerous activists, journalists, and opposition party leaders or workers had been abducted and tortured in the name of protecting the state’s integrity. Worse, all the while the government in power had portrayed itself as the purest flag-bearer of the liberation war of 1971. The Awami government has consistently denied allegations of enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings of civilians. Hasina had even claimed that abductions and murders of civilians was a practice started by Ziaur Rahman.

Michael Chakma, who went missing in April 2019 on his way from Dhaka to Narayanganj and could never be traced since, was a minority rights activist and the central general secretary of the United Workers’ Democratic Front (UPDF). He compared his stay in the detention centre with breathing alive inside a grave, never having looked at the sky in five years. The loneliness of the detention cells alone was enough to drive someone mad. The government came with a poetic name – mirror house – perhaps to indicate how the detainees could see or talk to none other than themselves during their long and lonely incarcerations.

Former army officer Lieutenant Colonel Hasinur Rahman, who was dismissed from the army on charges of treason and was detained in Aynaghor once in 2011 and again in 2018, gave a detailed description of it in his interview with Bonik Barta. He was released from Aynaghor in February 2022 but was constantly chased by the police afterwards and was forced to live outside for two years without using any phones. According to him, the detention centre was originally the Joint Interrogation Cell of the Pakistan era. An old building in Kachukhet housed an interrogation room and a torture room which had rarely been used after independence. It was revitalised after Sheikh Hasina came to power and a new building with 10 cells was built in 2009. A new floor with 10 more cells was constructed after 2020.

Both Michael Chakma and Lt. Col. Hasinur Rahman reported that the rooms had no fans. Instead, an extremely noisy exhaust fan would whirr in the veranda outside the cell so that the screams of the detainees would be lost in the loud noise. There were no windows in the cells but high-powered light bulbs made them extremely hot. The cells had cameras fitted in them and the guards would also keep an eye on the prisoners through small holes on the doors.

Enforced disappearances and extra-judicial killings had become trademark weapons to silence dissenting voices in Bangladesh during Hasina’s regime. Internationally acclaimed photojournalist Shahidul Alam, for example, was abducted from his home by 30-35 police officers in plain clothes after he documented the government’s violent response to the 2018 road safety protests. Later, he described how mercilessly he was tortured in police custody.

It is important to note that abduction and murder were not only used for political reasons but often also with motives of extortion. Often, people were detained in secrecy without subjecting them to any legal procedures.

Human rights organisation Odhikar, meaning ‘rights’ in Bangla, has reported in their three-month report of April to June 2024 that “a total of eight persons were allegedly disappeared after being picked up by members of law enforcement agencies…a total of four persons were reportedly killed extra-judicially. Of these four people, three were killed by the police, one by RAB. It is also alleged that among the four killed, two were tortured to death, one was shot to death and one was beaten to death.” The report details each incident. Two victims of the reported extra-judicial killings were women, it finds.

In 1996, Kalpana Chakma, a 23-year old woman advocating for the rights of the indigenous people of the Chittagong Hill tracts, was abducted from her home and never found again. The people of these hills have suffered brutal torture by law enforcement at various points.

According to Odhikar, over 320 people including criminals, militants, and opposition members have disappeared in the hands of law enforcement agencies like DGFI, Rapid Action Battalion and the Detective Branch since Hasina took office in 2009. Of these, at least 50 were killed, dozens are without trace, and the rest were either released or formally arrested. 2016 and 2018 witnessed the highest rates of forced disappearances, over 90 in each of the two years. The ruling Awami League, however, kept on denying such charges. Two human rights activists and leaders of the Odhikar organisation, Adilur Rahman Khan and Nasiruddin Elan, were sentenced to two years of imprisonment in 2023.

In the 20 days preceding Hasina’s fall, officially 400 and unofficially over 1,000 students and civilians had been killed in the government’s attempt to suppress the uprising. Multiple complaints were filed with the International Criminal Court against Sheikh Hasina, her key ministers and other state officials. Businessman Amir Hamza Satir filed a similar case internally in the capacity of a conscious citizen of Bangladesh.

Meanwhile, advocate Soheil Rana filed a case with the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court against the former PM for making him disappear in February 2015 for 185 days. He has accused the law enforcement of torturing him with electric shocks.

According to Business Standard, Hasina was facing at least 53 cases as of August 25, including 44 murder cases and seven for crimes against humanity and genocide. The BNP secretary general has already requested India to extradite Hasina so she can face trials, and calls for her extradition are growing stronger.

The last days of the regime saw the ultimate form of this regime’s cruelty, with law enforcement killing unarmed students.

Arka Bhaduri is a journalist and researcher.