Enforced disappearances and the onus of accountability

There are more reasons than one to feel happy about two news reports appearing weeks apart, though interrelated. And they have to do with enforced disappearance over the 15-plus years of the reviled Hasina regime.

The first I refer to is a statement from an ISPR representative at a press briefing on July 3, assuring the nation that the army would take legal action against any of its members if found to have been involved in enforced disappearances. The second I refer to are comments made a couple of weeks prior to the first referred news, at a press briefing of the United Nations Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances (UNWGEID) in June, as a part of the working group’s final day of a four-day visit to Bangladesh.

The July assurance may be a reaction, appropriate by all means, to a very direct comment of the vice-chairperson of the UNWGEID, made at the June briefing, that if perpetrators remain in positions of authority, there can be no victim-centred prosecution. A related comment that also merits mention was made by a military rep in that briefing to the effect that the army was not involved in enforced disappearances—only a handful of individuals on deputation to the DGFI and Rab were to blame.

The issue of enforced and involuntary disappearances (EID) strikes a very painful chord among all but the most cold-hearted among us. There are two in the cabinet of the present administration who have personally suffered the consequences of enforced disappearances. Reportedly, a total of 629 persons were victims of enforced disappearance from 2007 to 2023. Since then, the bodies of 78 were recovered and 59 persons were released after abduction. And 73 were later shown to be arrested. The rest remains untraced.

What merits mention too is that a senior BNP leader has been a victim of EID. He disappeared from Dhaka and was found one fine morning in March 2015, loitering aimlessly in the vicinity of a police station in Shillong, in the Indian state of Assam. His case is shrouded in mystery.

It also merits repeating that EID tops the list of the worst forms of human rights violations alongside extrajudicial killings—something that the Hasina regime developed a penchant for. This issue has been highlighted regularly in reports emanating from various national and international rights bodies. Yet, more than hundreds have been victims of EID during the Awami League regime—consequence of acts perpetrated by government agencies.

Why the issue must be investigated thoroughly also is because of the likely involvement of forces outside of Bangladesh in the disappearances of Bangladeshis who suddenly materialised across the border in 2012, like one Sukhoranjan Bali. In fact, the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearance publicly announced that the Indian authority’s involvement in Bangladesh’s system of enforced disappearances is a matter of public record, as reported by this daily.

Thus, in the process of holding to account the main dramatis personae of this horrendous act, one of the points that should be considered with due diligence is the one that has been articulated by the UNWGEID vice-chairperson, which is the nub of the issue. How can one expect proper justice if the perpetrators continue to remain in positions of authority?

And this is the core issue that the interim government has not been able to address fully yet. I believe there are other elements that are standing in the way of the interim government’s efforts to “sanitise” the administration and cleanse it of the Awami League ghost.

But a far more sensitive yet important issue that should occupy our mind is the responsibility, culpability, and complicity of the top brasses of the civil and defence institutions in the operation and perpetuation of a despicable and inhuman system as the “Aynaghar” and enforced disappearances, which became a norm of the Hasina regime to deal with the dissenters and recalcitrants. Also, how did the leadership allow a serving officer to remain “disappeared” in violation of the relevant military acts and prevalent laws of the land? While one accepts that there might be grounds for military officers to be turned over to the law, justice demands that they be given the chance to defend themselves.

I believe that loyalty demanded of the superior officers up and down the line to call out for those who reposed their trust and faith in them. It is surprising that some of those directly responsible for EID and running Aynaghar are absconding, and no valid reason has come forth from the relevant authorities. In holding those responsible for EID, I believe that everyone up the chain of command should be asked to account for their action related to the disappearance of serving officers.

What one must also address is the need to redefine the tasks of the forces intelligence, a matter I have flagged several times, particularly in my article in The Daily Star on February 9, 2012, titled “DGFI’s Lakshman Rekha.” Making political use of the DGFI started very soon after the liberation. That practice has continued ever since, and it has now been accused of acts that compare with the acts of SAVAK, Cheka or the NKVD (secret police or intelligence agencies of a former Iranian regime and Soviet Russian, respectively).

One of the urgent tasks of the interim government is to identify the alleged culprits and the enablers of EIDs and “Aynaghar,” dismantle their network, and ultimately bring them to justice. Until that is done, all talks about justice will turn out to be exactly that—all talks.

Brig Gen Shahedul Anam Khan, ndc, psc (retd) is a former associate editor of The Daily Star.

Views expressed in this article are the author’s own.