FAMILIES of those who disappeared have been attending programmes in different areas over the last few years demanding the safe return of them. With photos of their loved ones, members of some 20 families of enforced disappearance victims gathered in front of the National Press Club under the platform “Mayer Daak”, demanding their safe return so that they could celebrate Eid together. Most of the victims had been missing since 2013.
They demanded that the government formed a judicial probe body led by a justice to investigate each incident of enforced disappearances. Between January 2009, when the Awami League government assumed office, and 2018, at least 507 people have become victims of enforced disappearances, according to the International Federation for Human Rights. Of them, 62 people were later found dead while 286 returned alive. The whereabouts of 159 is still unknown, the Paris-based rights body said.
Members of most families alleged that their relatives were picked up by law enforcers, who have claimed that they had nothing to do with the matter. All the while, the tormented families’ search for their loved ones continued with no success. It is the state’s responsibility to find the missing people, bring them back, and punish those involved in the crime. There are reasons to believe that the state is involved in such enforced disappearances. There should be a proper investigation into the fate of the missing 159 who never returned so that we can understand the common thread between their disappearances. Were they all activists of the opposition party, for instance? Or were they simply criminals who may have been killed in ‘crossfire’? And who arrests them –especially since the law enforcement authorities always deny involvement.
In a country which has not yet been able to figure out the killers of the journalists Sagar-Runi even after almost half a decade there seems no reason to think that investigations will be carried out thoroughly, or at all, to find out the disappeared persons. In such a situation, where would the families of the disappeared go? There seems to be no one in power who is willing to listen to their call.
