Rights campaigners on Sunday expressed concern about the increasing number of enforced disappearances, with people from various professional groups now going missing, which intensified the sense of insecurity in society.
They also spotted a change in the way people were facing enforced disappearance — earlier the victims used to be picked up from their house or their workplace or any place they family were aware about, but now the victims were going missing on their way to any direction.
‘Families are in dilemma as to who is to blame for it. We have noticed the trend, especially since August,’ rights group Odhikar director ASM Nasiruddin Elan told an indoor discussion at National Press Conference in the capital.
Over two dozen families of enforced disappearance victims organised the programme to observe Human Rights Day on December 10.
Many other rights groups and socio-political organisations organised programmes on the occasion, where they expressed concern about deteriorating human rights situation.
At the press club programme, the campaigners were highly critical of the continued incidents of enforced disappearance, extrajudicial killings in the name of ‘crossfire’ and ‘gunfight’ and secret detention and custodial torture.
Referring to the United Nations’ definition of enforced disappearance, Elan said it was now difficult for the victim family in many cases to blame a particular agency while the perpetrators were enjoying impunity.
On December 4, former diplomat Muhammed Maroof Zaman, who served as ambassador to Qatar and Vietnam, went missing while going to Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport to pick up his daughter.
Anti-extremism analyst Mubashar Hasan Caesar, also a North South University political science teacher, also went missing after emerging from a meeting at the United Nations country office at Agargaon in Dhaka on November 7.
According to rights organisation Odhikar, at least 408 individuals were subjected to enforced disappearance between January 2009 and November 2017.
Addressing the function, Zafrullah Chowdhury, founder and trustee of Gonoshasthaya Kendra, accused the government of the enforced disappearance and other extrajudicial activities saying ‘none of the incidents takes place without the government’s nod.’
He observed that one of the reasons behind the continued rights abuse was the ineffectiveness of the judiciary.
Rights campaigner Nur Khan Liton said they planned to hold a mass-hearing by March next year on rights situation and to record the reported cases of rights abuses over the years across the country.
He said they would record cases of reported incidents of rights abuses in order to get a promise from the government to identify the perpetrators and to bring them back.
Nagarik Oikya convener Mahmudur Rahman Manna said all the victim families present at the programme alleged that security agencies had taken away their family members.
Dhaka University teacher CR Abrar urged the government to return the victims of enforced disappearances to their families if they were alive.
‘If they are not alive, please tell us what has happened to them. Book them who are involved with the incidents,’ he urged.
Enforced disappearance victim and Bangladesh Nationalist Party leader Sajedul Islam Sumon’s sister Marufa Islam read out a written statement, urging the government to ensure the return of all victims.
In the statement, she detailed how his brother Sumon and 18 others were picked in two weeks just before the national election held in January 2014 boycotted by major political parties including the BNP.
In the programme, Adiba Islam Hridi, the seven-year-old daughter of Chhatra Dal leader Parvez Hossain, who remains missing since 2013, sought prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s intervention in finding her father.
‘Please bring my papa back or send me to my papa. I want to go to school with my papa. Sheikh Hasina aunty, please return my papa,’ Hridi cried.
In a separate rally, BNP secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir alleged that whoever raised voice against the present government became victims of killing or enforced disappearance.
He claimed that so far 78,340 false cases were filed implicating 7,83,236 leaders and activists of BNP across the country during the rule of the present government.
He said that a total of 520 party activists were killed by law enforcers, 647 others abducted, 157 went missing.
Marking Human Rights Day, National Human Rights Commission organised a two-day programme at Bangabandhu International Conference Centre in Dhaka.
As part of the programme, a two-day international conference titled ‘Promoting Equality, Justice and Human Dignity’ began at Bangabandhu International Conference Centre.
- Resource - .newagebd.net
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