Joynal Abedin Khan :The incidents of forced disappearances have been rising alarmingly in the country.According to Ain O Salish Kendra (ASK), the victims are mainly leaders and activists of Chhatra Dal, BNP, Jamaat-I-Islami, Chhatra Shibir, Chhatra League and Jubo League.The bodies of some ‘missing’ people were found after picking up from different places across the country. A very few numbers of victims were rescued but most of the victims are still untraced, claimed the relatives of the victims.The Ain o Salish Kendra (ASK) report said, at least 36 people were abducted allegedly by law enforcers in the first six months of this year while the number was 330 between 2007 and 2014.The ASK reports indicate a rising trend of such disappearances in the last five years. About 46 people were made to disappear in 2010, 59 in 2011, 56 in 2012, 68 in 2013, and 74 in 2014. More significantly, the law enforcers have totally failed to start investigation into 3,000 cases registered after 2002, sources said.Meanwhile, the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances (IDVED) was observed on Sunday. Since 2011, the day is observed globally to condemn what the United Nations considers is ‘a strategy to spread terror in the society’.The United Nations has declared August 30 as the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, to remember the victims of enforced disappearance and the agony of their families.The statement mentioned that between January 2009 and 29 August 2015, human rights defenders documented 212 people who were forcibly disappeared in Bangladesh.Salahuddin Ahmed, the Joint Secretary General of BNP who went missing for over two months, says he does not know how he surfaced in this mountainous state capital of Meghalaya on May 12 this year. He was kidnapped by unidentified group of people from Uttara in capital Dhaka on the night of March 10.Earlier, former lawmaker and BNP Organising Secretary (Sylhet Division) M Ilias Ali along with his driver has been missing on April 17, 2012 while BNP claimed that government agencies have picked them up to make them disappear.On the other hand, garment workers leader Aminul Islam became victims of forced disappearances on April 4, 2012.Choudhury Alam, BNP leader and former Ward Commissioner of NO, 56, went to missing from Farm Gate are on June 25 in 2010.In early April last year, Mofizul Islam Rashed, 32, a Chhatra Dal leader was picked up from Mirpur Mazar Road’s second colony allegedly by a group of people dressed like members of Detective Branch (DB) of Police, says his family.On April 11, Nazrul Islam, a teacher of Joypurhat Talimul Islam School and College, was picked up allegedly by some law enforcers. He is yet to be rescued.In January this year, police allegedly picked up five AL activists for their alleged connection with the killing of another party man, Singra Upazila Chairman Fazlur Rahman. Family members of the victim alleged that he was taken away by a group of DB officials. These “missing” people also include Singra BNP’s Organising Secretary Ibrahim Khalil and local AL activist Shamsul Islam.Bangladesh Chhatra Union former vice-president Shamim Akther was picked up on September 29, 2011 while a youth named Obaidur was picked up by the law enforcers on December 26, 2012 from Dhaka and Gopalganj.Tazammul Ali, a student of the department of Islamic Studies of Rajshahi University (RU), was abducted by security forces on June 24, 2013.Like BNP leader Ilias Ali, police have also failed to make any headway in the abductions of BNP’s Laksham upazila unit President Saiful Islam Hiru and municipality unit President Humayun Kabir.President of the Awami League’s ward 41 unit Hazi Nur Mohammad was abducted on October 19, 2011 from his residence in Savar. Hazi Mohammad Wazi Ullah, president of Dhaka Super Market Owner’s Association in Bangabazar area, went missing in 2011.Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, Minister for Home affairs told the an English daily a few days ago, “We have already given special instruction to the authorities concerned to complete the investigations into old abduction cases and the general diaries filed with different police stations.”He observes that usually, a group of people after abduction puts the blame on the law enforcers.Inspector General of Police AKM Shahidul Hoque told the journalists that if anybody could prove the involvement of the law enforcement agencies in such abduction, the authorities would take action against those personnel.ASK Director Nur Khan said that most of the victims were disapperedred by the members of the cop personnel.
