MEMBERS of around 80 families joined a programme under the banner of “Mayer Daak”, a platform of disappearance victims’ family members, from across the country on April 21st, as per report of a local daily. Speaking at the event, supported by rights activists, family members slammed the state for denying justice to their dear ones. According to them, the incidents of enforced disappearance took place in between early 2012 and late last year. Some victims never returned home while bodies of a few were recovered later.
While the families made repeated pleas for tracing the whereabouts of the missing people, the government on several occasions denied the involvement of law enforcement agencies in the incidents. Ferdausi Rahman, elder sister of missing BNP leader Sajedul Islam Suman, said only eight families, including her own, came to Jatiya Press Club over four years ago to join a programme seeking the whereabouts of their relatives. More families have joined in programmes over the years, but their pleas have fallen on deaf ears, she said, as per reports. Suman, General Secretary of Ward-38 BNP in the capital, along with five others was allegedly picked up by RAB-1 men from Bashundhara Residential Area in the evening of December 4, 2013.
The victims’ families filed a writ petition with the High Court over the enforced disappearances and the case was pending at the court. They also sought support from the United Nations over the issue, but the government authorities concerned were yet to respond to the UN’s queries. Since most of the people remain missing and are somehow related to the main opposition party, it seems sensible to speculate that they are no longer alive.
But why were they killed? If they committed some heinous crime it should be brought forth before the nation. But a complete obfuscation of the entire matter lends no credibility to the authorities as no one knows what happened.
These questions must be answered by the authorities. By not doing so a culture of impunity is created which allows the security forces to act as an extra-judicial force which is accountable to no one–since no one knows what they are doing in the first place. Why were they picked up really? And what happened to them? Who gave the orders and why? If these questions remain unanswered then the principle of no accountability will be established. This is not an acceptable state of affairs.
