News Desk :
The friends and families of missing people are demonstrating in Dhaka’s Shahbagh on Tuesday, the International Day of the Disappeared, to demand the whereabouts of their loved ones.
An organisation known as ‘Maer Daak’, or ‘A Mother’s Cry’ organised the protest in front of the National Museum.Children cried for their fathers, wives lamented their husbands and parents mourned their children at the demonstration, reports bdnews24.com
Speakers described the harrowing experiences of losing members of their families and called on the prime minister to take action to reunite them.
Eleven-year-old Adiba Islam took part in the protest alongside her mother. Her mother says her husband and Adiba’s father, Parvez Hossain, was picked up by people who identified themselves as law enforcers in 2013. The Bangshal Thana Chhatra Dal general secretary then disappeared.
With tears streaking down her face and her voice breaking Adiba said all the other students at school are dropped off by their fathers, but she has never had that experience. What have I done to deserve this? she asked.
“I urge the prime minister to return my father to me. I feel terrible with him gone. I want my father to take me to school.”
Tamanna Islam, another young woman, joined the protest while carrying a photograph of her father.
She claims that her father, Ismail Hossain Baten, was detained by the RAB in 2019 while on his way home from work.
The family went to the police that very day, but as the RAB was involved, they did not take it seriously, Tamanna said. The family have since gone to RAB headquarters, the police, the Detective Branch, the Dhaka Metropolitan Police commissioner’s office, and the Human Rights Commission in search of information about her father.
“But we still haven’t got any news of his whereabouts. Day after day I waited with my father’s photograph in hand, but there has been no news. I want to find my father.”
Khurshid Alam, the younger brother of BNP Central Committee member Chowdhury Alam, was also at the protest to demand his brother be found.
Alam said plainclothesmen picked up his brother from Dhaka’s Indira Road on Jun 25, 2010, and there has been no news of him since.
“To the government I say – if you have murdered my brother, at least give his body back to us so that we can bury him. We will not call for justice or make any other demands. We just want his body back.”
Another BNP leader, Tabith Awal, said all those gathered only have one thing on their minds – to learn the whereabouts of their family members.
“There have been calls from both the domestic and international quarters for proper investigations into these forced disappearances,” he said.
“We will accept the findings of such an investigation. But their repeated denials of such incidents make it clear that the government is involved. The day when we will get proper justice is not too far off.”
