Bangladesh under the newly formed interim government has taken giant strides to protect human rights and to put an end for ever to the enforced disappearances of its citizens-a historic move that earns kudos from the human rights organisations both at home and abroad.
Bangladesh inked the accession to the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances of the United Nations on August 29 with the aim of preventing enforced disappearances as a state party.
This is why the observance of this year's International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances in Bangladesh, a day after the signing of the UN Convention, assumed special significance.
This historic initiative of ratifying the UN Convention came in the wake of vanishings of a large number of people during the 15-year rule of Awami League government since 2009. As per statistics of various rights bodies, at least 700 people disappeared under unexplained circumstances. But some of them returned home alive, some were found dead and over 150 suspected victims still remain untraced.
However, the government also established a five-member commission headed by a retired High Court judge Justice Moyeenul Islam Chowdhury to examine the claims made by the relatives of the missing people between January 1, 2010, and August 5, 2024.
The commission will investigate the circumstances under which people were forcibly hauled from their homes and other places by any law enforcing or intelligence agencies like Bangladesh Police, the Rapid Action Battalion, Border Guard Bangladesh, the Criminal Investigation Department, the Special Branch, the Ansar Battalion, National Security Intelligence, military forces and the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI).
Notably, although members of a number of security forces were said to have participated in the country's extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances, the United States imposed sanctions on the RAB as well as seven of its officers on December 10, 2021.
Until now families of enforced vanishings have not been able to seek justice because of the absence of laws to criminalize the acts of security forces behind people's disappearances. After the signing of the UN Convention, relatives of these victims hope to get justice in the future.
With this hope, families of enforced disappearance victims on Friday throng the capital's Central Shaheed Minar to raise their voice in a human-chain organized by the 'Mayer Daak'--a platform for family members of victims of enforced disappearances. A heart-breaking scene was created when they broke into tears demanding an end to all kinds of extra-judicial killings and enforced disappearances under any circumstances in the country.
We are also in belief that these kinds of inhuman acts of unnatural deaths and disappearances of citizens must not be repeated in Bangladesh at anytime in the future.
