Surprising the nation a former ambassador now being abducted from the city to make the list of enforced disappeared persons further long. People are missing but hardly returning home to raise question is there a government at work and if that what kind of government it is. We must say there is no sign of governance as growing anarchy is overtaking the nation. What our government is doing is the big question while the role of the law enforcement agencies is equally surprising. What they do? How will they defend their failure, inaction and silence?
The former Bangladesh ambassador to Vietnam Maroof Zaman remains missing since Monday night from the airport area as he was driving to pick up his daughter. We don’t know who is next in line, as panic is growing in every aspect of life of our private citizens who never felt in the past so insecure and unsafe. It is sad our head of the government only few days back claimed ‘people get disappeared in other countries too.’ It sounds strange instead of standing by the side of the troubled families she attempted to justify it citing statistics of missing people in the UK and the USA. It shows our government is hardly moved by such incidents.
The big question who are those people so powerful that they are picking people from the streets on the very nose of the government intelligence agencies. These abductors are defying the government ability to ensure safety to the people.
The government has its own people to sing for the government and tell how successful the government is. The Human Rights Organisations including Amnesty International have been expressing deep concern about disappearances. We have written hefty pages to draw the attention of the government to this terrible situation where persons are abducted with a sense of impunity. But the government seems helpless.
As per data compiled by leading human rights organizations, no less than 519 people have fallen victim to ‘forced’ disappearances from 2010 to 2017 and over 329 of them are still missing. Alone from January to October this year 50 people went missing, according to data provided by Ain-O-Shalish Kendra.
What makes helpless the family of the missing diplomat who went on retirement in 2009 and living in the city is that some people came to his house at Dhanmondi after the abduction and took away his laptop and camera and also searched his living room. These are indications the persons are not ordinary ones. They are working for the government. At least in this case the people involved have shown no fear. Earlier he was forced to telephone the house-help to cooperate with those people.
A recent story from Cox’s Bazar and widely reported in the media said two DB inspectors were arrested with huge cash by Army personnel at Tekhnaf as they were returning from the home of a businessman earlier abducted by them. They settled with a huge ransom for the release but family members meanwhile told Army men at the nearby check posts. So the arrest was possible.
We don’t want to speculate but no matter in what way one sees, it is no credit for the government that citizens of a free country are lifted away, even from the capital fearlessly and the government has no knowledge who these abductors are. Any government worth its name must take the responsibility of catching the people responsible for denying the government’s existence and safely rescuing the missing former diplomat.
