A Ray of Hope for Bangladesh's Enforced Disappearance Victims

Michael Chakma saw sunlight for the first time in five years on August 6, the day after a student-led uprising toppled the autocratic Awami League regime of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina. About 709 people fell victim during the 15-year rule of Sheikh Hasina's Awami League regime.

"It was akin to a resurrection," Michael, 44, an ethnic Chakma Buddhist, told UCA News.

His six siblings, five sisters and one brother, in Rangamati district of southeast Bangladesh thought their brother would not return like hundreds of victims of enforced disappearance during Hasina's 15-year rule.

"They waited for me for three years and were then convinced that I would not return like many other disappearance victims. So, they held my funeral," he said.

He never knew that his cancer-stricken father had died while he was incommunicado for years.

His siblings never told his father that Michael was missing.

The organizer of ethnic indigenous political party, the United People's Democratic Front (UPDF) based in the forested and restive Chattogram Hill Tracts (CHT) region, disappeared while visiting the national capital Dhaka in 2019.

Michael used to organize programs to oppose undeclared military rule and for the rights of ethnic minorities in the CHT, plagued by insurgency and sectarian conflicts for decades.

He said plainclothes law enforcers detained him on April 9 of that year, blindfolded him, bundled him in a white microbus and incarcerated him in a secret prison without any trial.

"By hearing the use of walkie-talkies, I realized my kidnappers were members of an intelligence agency," he recalled.

Michael was held in five different secret prisons, codenamed Aynaghars (Mirror Houses), run by security agencies including the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI), the military intelligence agency. One prison reportedly exists inside the Dhaka Cantonment.

Hundreds of victims
According to Dhaka-based rights group Odhikar (rights), a total of 709 people became victims of enforced disappearance during the Awami League regime from January 2009 to June 2024.

Among them 471 people either reappeared or were produced before courts, while 83 were found dead, mostly killed in a 'crossfire' — the term used for describing extrajudicial killings by law enforcement agencies, including the police and Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), an anti-terror unit consisting mostly of former and current military personnel.

The whereabouts of 155 people are still unknown, it noted.

For years, rights groups and activists joined by family members of the victims, issued statements and held rallies in Dhaka and elsewhere in the country to demand the return of the victims.

The government repeatedly denied allegations of enforced disappearances by the security forces.

In August 2022, Sweden-based news portal, Netra News, published an investigative report revealing the presence of a DGFI-run secret prison for the first time.

The Hasina regime dismissed the report as baseless anti-government propaganda.

Hasina's fall opened the gates of the dreaded prisons. Several enforced disappearance victims including a rights activist, academic, lawyer, diplomat and former military officials as well as Michael were released from secret detention.

The survivors spoke to the media detailing their ordeal in dark, isolated confinement and inhuman treatment including physical and mental torture.

Dark caves
Michael was interrogated many times during his detention and was asked about other leaders of the UPDF.

"I was not beaten but I was threatened with electric shocks," he said. "I know many prisoners were brutally tortured day after day."

Many prisoners lost hope of being released due to the dire conditions and trauma they experienced, he said.

"The small prison cells were like dark caves or graveyards. There was an exhaust fan unable to reduce the extreme heat inside. My body sweated all the time," he recalled.

Prisoners crying in fear and due to brutal beatings day and night effectively traumatized him and prevented him from sleeping well at night.

"I could never see their faces as they were always covered, even when they were taken to the toilet," he said.

Appalled by continuous extrajudicial killings and disappearances, the US government imposed sanctions on the RAB and its current and former top officials in December 2021.

The sanctions prompted a sharp drop in unlawful killings and detentions but they continued on a lower scale.

A ray of hope for justice
The Awami League's rule from 2009 was marked by massive corruption, an economic nosedive, suppression of dissent and the opposition, the politicization of all government and constitutional bodies, and the rigging of national elections in 2014, 2018, and 2024, critics say.

The government's brutal crackdown on the student-led movement demanding an end to the discriminatory quota system in public service jobs left more than 800 people including young students and children dead and thousands injured.

Despite the deployment of the military, imposing a curfew, and internet blackouts, the movement further escalated turning into a mass public uprising drawing millions on the streets, forcing Hasina to flee to India in a military helicopter on Aug. 5.

Days later, an interim caretaker government led by Nobel-laureate, Professor Muhammad Yunus, took charge.

On Aug. 27, the Yunus government formed a special commission to probe the more than 700 cases of enforced disappearances that took place between 2009 and Aug 5 this year.

Two days later, the government also signed the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances, fulfilling a longstanding demand from local and international rights groups.

"This is very positive. I think enforced disappearances will decline in the future. Anyone planning such crimes will think twice," Michael said.

The investigation and prosecution process needs to be closely watched, he said, adding that for many years people in Bangladesh, including tribal people in the CHT, have had the "bitter experience" of a "mockery of justice."

The commission is led by retired High Court judge Moyeenul Islam Chowdhury. It has been tasked to investigate the circumstances under which people were forcibly disappeared and submit a report in 45 working days.

Ending the culture of brutal oppression
Shireen Huq, a member of the Basic Rights Protection Committee, a group campaigning against enforced disappearances, said there are at least 23 secret prisons across the country.

The culture of brutal oppression in the form of arbitrary detention, torture, extralegal killings and disappearances have long existed in Bangladesh and tarnished the national image globally, she told UCA News.

The recently formed commission needs to ensure every stage of the investigation process is transparent, so people can have faith in justice and see an end to such inhumane tactics to crush dissent in the future, she noted.

"Such heinous crimes should never happen. We want an end to impunity," Huq told UCA News.

Michael Chakma was dropped off from a car in Khagrachhari, a district close to his home in Rangamati district, on Aug. 6.

He was left alone, blindfolded next to a road. He was ordered to lie down and not to move for 30 minutes.

He thought his captors were just setting the stage for another 'crossfire' incident to kill him.

"The car sped away and utter silence descended. I don't remember how long I kept lying there," he said.

When he removed his blindfold, he could not believe his eyes. The road was known to him, so he walked home.

His family members were dumbfounded and cried out in excitement as they had lost hope for his return years ago.

Michael is struggling to recover from the trauma that he suffered.

"How can I get back those five years of my life and erase the suffering that my family faced?" he said.

He says the government should ensure justice for all victims like him and offer their families compensation.

"I have begun a new life, but I do not feel fully safe yet," he said.

Written By: Parimal Palma