Some conjecture the death of a dear one as a subtraction, and some see it as an infinite void; but those who bewail for their dear ones subjected to enforced disappearance are the most awful sufferers as they keep on waiting and hoping against hope if a miracle happens and the vanished one comes back. But that is not to be. A considerable number of opposition BNP senior leaders have become victims of enforced disappearance by law enforcement agencies—-Ilyas Ali, Chowdhury Alam, Salahuddin Ahmed et al. The list is too long.
Hence teardrops keep on rolling down the cheeks of bereaved mothers, wives and children who have been hoping for long that the government and the state law enforcing agencies will act with all due seriousness to find out the victims of enforced disappearance. The delay has been inordinate since they were abducted, but precious little has been done by the government so far. What else can the wretched lot do except wailing and weeping, or again, hoping against hope?
None can perceive or empathize with the torment of the bereaved members of the families who are yet to know whether their ‘disappeared’ loved ones are alive. Worse still, if in a rare stroke of luck they return at all, whether they will be alive. This year too, bereaved families repeated pleas with the authorities that went in vain after their loved ones had allegedly been picked up by law enforcers in 2012 and 2013. But they have clutch on to the anticipation that the 20 victims of enforced disappearance would return to them if the Prime Minister intervenes in this matter, which is what they demanded at a press conference at the Jatiya Press Club in Dhaka on 05 December 2016.
Sajedul Islam Suman, who was the general secretary of ward-38 of the BNP’s Dhaka city unit, was held along with five others in the Bashundhara residential area in Dhaka on December 4, 2013, said Suman’s family. None of them came back and their families don’t know their whereabouts. Suman’s elder sister Afroza Islam at the conference said the family had gone to government high-ups and law-enforcement agencies, seeking help to get him back. “I no longer want to go anywhere,” said a sobbing Afroza, demanding return of her brother. The authorities should realise the agony the victims’ families have been through since they went missing, she added, reported the Daily Star.
Nineteen of the victims were picked up from different places in the capital and its adjacent areas between November 28 and December 11, 2013, according to their families. Another person was picked up in 2012. Some of the victims were students while some leaders and activists of the BNP and its affiliated bodies.
Surprisingly, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said, “There is no such thing like enforced disappearance.” While addressing an event in the capital, he said guardians made allegations of enforced disappearance but their sons might have gone into hiding. “They have been hiding for many reasons,” he said, adding that it was seen in the past that such “victims” did return.
There is nothing for us to comment.
Source: Weekly Holiday
