Staff reporter :
Families of the victims of enforced disappearances have demanded return of their loved ones on the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances on Thursday.
“It has been almost nine months since my father went missing. Yet, I have not received any help from anybody,” said Samiha Zaman, daughter of missing former Bangladesh ambassador to Vietnam Md Maroof Zaman.
“Every morning I go to my father’s room. I used to serve him morning tea. Now no one is there, it is completely empty. Mother passed away five years ago. How long will we wait? Please give me my father back,” Samiha said.
Another victim’s sister, Marufa Islam, said: “I have stood up 25 times since the year of 2013 to get back my brother. We started with eight families, now the number is growing. Will we only keep demanding in an independent country and receive no help?”
She is the sister of BNP leader Sajedul Islam Sumon.
Saleha Begum, mother of missing Chhatra League leader SM Muazzem Hossain Topu, said: “My son was innocent. If he did wrong in terms of law, then he should have been prosecuted as per law. My question is what kind of a country is it that people die, but their bodies are not found.”
The programme titled “Ma er daak” was arranged by the families of the victims of enforced disappearances, where at least forty families were present. The programme was arranged at the Jatiya Press Club in the capital on Thursday morning on the occasion of the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances today (Thursday).
“August 30 is globally observed as the day”, since 2011 to condemn what the United Nations considers “a strategy to spread terror in society”. At the programme, human rights activist Noor Khan Liton said that many people went missing and fortunately one or two of them returned. “Those who returned have said that they were kept in chicken coops, under the surface. In the past, at least the bodies were found, but nowadays bodies are not found.
Dhaka University Professor CR Abrar said, “Children want their fathers back, wives their husbands and parents their children. Are these illogical demands?”
While addressing the programme, Mahmudur Rahman Manna, Convener of Nagorik Oikkya, said that he has been attending the programme for the last five years and he does not want to attend or give speech at such programmes any longer.
“When children with photographs of their fathers demand to get their father back, I feel very helpless,” he added.
