Bleak tales of the traceless

Family members of a number of victims of "enforced disappearances" yesterday called on the state to ensure return of those who remain "missing", before Eid-ul-Fitr. 

In a discussion organised by human rights body Odhikar at its Dhaka office, marking International Week of the Disappeared, speakers also vowed to continue their campaign against extrajudicial "abductions" by law enforcement agencies.

Empathising with the others present, Nagorik Oikya convener Mahmudur Rahman Manna said, “This cruel, inhumane behaviour was never the part of Bengali culture.”

One of the more striking claims came from Rina Alam, wife of Jubo Dol leader Nur Alam who was picked up by police from his brother's Gazipur residence on February 12, 2015. She said Nur Alam was living at his brother's house as he had a number of cases filed against him, and one night some 8-9 men -- some of them in police uniform -- took him away. Two days later there was a news scroll on a TV channel saying Nur Alam's dead body was found in Gazipur but it turned out to be false, she said.

Then on October 6, 2015, someone called Rina, and handed the phone to her husband, she claimed. Nur Alam asked her to send Tk 10,000 to that phone number, before the "mediator" took the phone away. She sent the money, and the next day she got a call from her husband, and they spoke for 25 minutes, she said, adding that she asked him some questions to verify it was really him. “When I asked him where he was and how I could get to him, he said, 'You won't be able to find me. I don't know where I am. Just pray to Allah, and don't give anyone any money if they ask for it'.”

Afroza Islam, sister of Sajedul Islam Sumon who was picked up along with seven others by men claiming to be Rapid Action Battalion members on December 4, 2013 from the capital's Bashundhara Residential Area, said, “There are people who saw my brother and others being rounded up,” adding that one of the "detainees" was taken from Shahinbagh in front of his father. She said they have not heard anything from the law-enforcing agency in the years after the incident. “Why is the administration silent? We want answers,” Afroza said.

Shabnam Zaman, daughter of former ambassador M Maroof Zaman who went 'missing' on December 4, 2017 on his way to the airport, claimed that after some plainclothes men came into their house and took away Maroof Zaman's laptop, desktop computer, camera and phone, she saw suspicious login activities on her father's email and other online accounts.

Other speakers at the programme included Mostafizur Rahman Shupu, brother of Jubo League leader Mahbubur Rahman Ripon who was picked up on March 21, 2014 in Feni in front of his wife and children; Ayesha Akhter, mother of Abdul Kader Masum who was taken along with Sajedul Islam Sumon; and Abdul Hai, uncle of Kushtia Islamic University student Al Mokaddes who was held from a bus along with a friend in front of the Nabinagar Rab check-post in Savar on February 4, 2012.

“Stop enforced disappearances, give back those who remain disappeared, and bring those involved with it to book -- we will keep saying this until those who have been disappeared come back,” said Adilur Rahman Khan, secretary of Odhikar.

Law enforcement agencies have consistently denied involvement in such cases of disappearances in the last few years.