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Bangladesh’s dark chapter of abduction and torture
FILE PHOTO: STAR
The term “enforced disappearance” carries with it a harrowing silence—an emptiness that is louder than any scream. Behind the faceless statistics and clinical reports lies an abyss of grief, fear, and unspeakable torment. The interim report by the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances has finally given shape to the shadows, unmasking one of the darkest chapters in Bangladesh’s contemporary history under Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League regime. From 2009 to 2024, a systematic machinery of abduction, torture, and killing unfolded like a grotesque opera of state violence.
The numbers alone are enough to chill the bones—1,676 complaints of enforced disappearances registered over 15 years, with 758 cases reviewed so far. These figures, however, are mere echoes of untold stories. The lives that have been erased or shattered cannot be quantified. What makes this ordeal even more disturbing is its systematic and well-organised nature—an invisible machinery of surveillance, kidnapping, and annihilation, fuelled by political orders and weaponised institutions.
The commission has revealed that disappearances occurred in five horrific stages: target selection, surveillance, kidnapping, torture, and execution or release. Victims were dragged from their homes or streets into unmarked vehicles, blindfolded and cuffed before disappearing into the ether. The darkness that engulfed them was literal and metaphorical—secret prisons where light and hope were extinguished. Stories of abuse uncovered by the commission defy human comprehension. Lips sewn shut without anaesthesia, electric shocks to the ears and genitals, bodies buried in rivers, and corpses left for trains to mutilate—such horrors belong in the annals of medieval tyranny, yet they happened here, in modern Bangladesh.
The commission speaks of nine secret prisons run by entities such as DGFI, RAB, and CTTC—facilities reminiscent of historical gulags or infamous detention centres of military juntas. This is not just a Bangladeshi tragedy. It is a human tragedy.
“When the truth is buried underground, it grows, it chokes, it gathers such an explosive force that on the day it bursts out, it blows up everything with it,” said the French writer Émile Zola. The victims of enforced disappearances are not only individuals but the truth itself—buried, gagged, and annihilated by a regime that operated beyond accountability.
Enforced disappearances have been a recurring curse across the world, often carried out under the guise of political stability or national security. The haunting parallels with Latin America’s military dictatorships are undeniable. In Argentina during the “Dirty War” (1976-1983), an estimated 30,000 people were forcibly disappeared. The Argentinian military junta, like the Awami regime, abducted citizens at night, detained them in secret prisons, and dropped their bodies into rivers or seas. “They are neither dead nor alive. They are disappeared,” said Jorge Rafael Videla, Argentina’s military dictator, offering a scary encapsulation of the erasure of human identity.
This eerily resembles the commission’s report—victims abducted at night, bodies weighed with cement bags and thrown into the Buriganga and Shitalakshya rivers. Such methods are not born from chaos but are orchestrated with diabolical precision. The parallels remind us that tyranny wears the same face across borders.
The horrors of enforced disappearances have long been reflected in art and cinema, where fiction blurs uncomfortably with reality. In The Secret in Their Eyes (2009), an Argentinian film inspired by the Dirty War, we see justice denied in the shadow of political corruption. A line from the film resonates deeply: “You can change everything about yourself—your face, your family, your city, your country—but there’s one thing you can’t change: you can’t change your passion.” For the families of the disappeared in Bangladesh, their passion for truth remains unshakable, despite the state’s attempts to erase their loved ones from memory.
Similarly, the American film Rendition (2007) explores the terror of enforced disappearances under the pretext of counterterrorism. The protagonist, rendered to a foreign country for interrogation, becomes a victim of a faceless system that denies him identity or justice. The parallels are unsettling—the commission’s findings reveal Bangladeshi victims handed over to India under international conspiracies, as in the cases of BNP leader Salahuddin Ahmed and others.
In The Nightingale of Tibet (2011), the titular character symbolises resilience against oppression. The story speaks to the silencing of voices and the erasure of cultural and individual identities—a theme that echoes in Bangladesh, where victims of disappearance have been framed as criminals and subjected to false charges under draconian laws like the Digital Security Act.
The commission’s findings do not shy away from naming the architects of these horrors. The involvement of institutions such as RAB, DGFI, DB, and CTTC paints a grim picture of state-sponsored terror. Lower-ranking officers claim ignorance about their actions, while higher officials supervised and ordered these atrocities. This dissonance—between blind obedience and orchestrated cruelty—exposes a system rotten to its core.
The commission goes further, highlighting cross-border operations with Indian security forces. This revelation adds a layer of geopolitical intrigue to the disappearances, turning Bangladesh into a theatre of international complicity.
History has shown us that regimes that wield enforced disappearances as a weapon eventually crumble under the weight of their crimes. As Mahatma Gandhi once said, “There is no god higher than truth.” Truth has an uncanny way of piercing through darkness, even when regimes attempt to suppress it with violence and fear.
To understand enforced disappearances, one must confront the silence. It is not only the silence of the abducted but also the silence forced upon their families—a silence that gnaws at the soul. A mother waiting for her son, a wife searching for her husband, a child growing up without a father—these silences are louder than the state’s propaganda or the click of handcuffs in the dark.
“The dead cannot cry out for justice. It is the duty of the living to do so for them,” wrote Lois McMaster Bujold. For the victims who were thrown into rivers, buried in unmarked graves, or mutilated beyond recognition, justice remains elusive. Yet their families refuse to give up.
Bangladesh’s recent signing of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances is a step forward, but mere paperwork cannot heal the wounds or bring justice to the victims. The abolition of RAB, as recommended by the commission, would be a symbolic first step—but what about the accountability of the architects? The report hints at the responsibility of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina as the “instructor of disappearances.” History will judge her legacy not by her rhetoric but by the bloodstains that cannot be washed away.
The interim report is not the end of this story. It is a crack in the wall of silence. The truth will emerge, piece by piece, no matter how deeply it has been buried. The families of the disappeared deserve more than condolences. They deserve justice, accountability, and the return of dignity to the names that were erased.
In times of darkness, art, history, and literature remind us of resilience. The words of Seamus Heaney echo for Bangladesh today: “History says, Don’t hope / On this side of the grave. / But then, once in a lifetime / The longed-for tidal wave / Of justice can rise up, / And hope and history rhyme.”
The commission’s findings are the first wave—a warning bell that the silence is breaking. The stories of those disappeared will not remain in the shadows. As the river currents carry their lost bodies, let their memories rise above the tides, a testament to the cost of truth and the undying resilience of those left behind. Bangladesh must confront its past, for only then can it build a future where no one vanishes into the night, never to return.
H.M. Nazmul Alam
is lecturer at the Department of English and Modern Languages of the International University of Business, Agriculture and Technology (IUBAT). He can be reached at nazmulalam.rijohn@gmail.com.
From 2009 to 2024, a systematic machinery of abduction, torture, and killing unfolded like a grotesque opera of state violence. The numbers alone are enough to chill the bones—1,676 complaints of enforced disappearances registered over 15 years, with 758 cases reviewed so far.