FAMILIES of the victims of involuntary disappearances, supposedly at the hands of state or, in some cases, even non-state actors, have made it a good observance of the International Week of the Disappeared, which began on May 26, by putting out a call for the government to find the people who went missing and the institution of an independent commission to ensure justice in the cases of enforced disappearances. Mayer Daak, or mothers’ call — a platform of families of the victims of enforced disappearances — organised the protests. Families of the victims and their sympathisers held photographs, banners, placards and portraits of the people who went missing and demanded justice. The Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission, in a report made public in September 2022, has said that at least 623 cases of involuntary disappearances took place in Bangladesh between January 2009 and June 2022. The organisation has said that at least 153 of the victims remained traceless while 84 of them were found dead; 383 of the victims have either returned home, and have remained silent about what happened to them, or landed in jail. All this suggests that enforced disappearances continue apace while the government continues to brush aside disappearance allegations.

Mayer Daak co-founder, whose brother has been missing since December 2013, has said that they have noticed an increase in cases of involuntary disappearances and extrajudicial killing before the national elections of 2014 and 2018 and now fears a recurrence of such events with the national elections scheduled to take place early 2024. Against such a backdrop, the United States treasury department in early December 2021 imposed sanctions on seven serving and former officials of the Rapid Action Battalion and the agency on allegations of their involvement in gross human rights violations in Bangladesh. While the government should stop brushing aside the allegations and investigate them and hold anyone among the law enforcers found guilty to account, the government has, rather, as the protesters who joined the event at hand said, remained unmoved and ranking government leaders often mocked at the families by making ‘objectionable remarks’ about the victims; some government leaders even denied such events having ever happened. While such allegations of enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killing weighs heavily on the rule of law and tarnishes the image of the nation, the government, as manager of the state, should investigate the incidents of enforced disappearances at least for security and law enforcement agencies to steer clear of the allegations, especially when most of the allegations are levelled against the law enforcers, who are said to have picked up the victims in plain clothes.

The government showing unwillingness to resolve the issues only tends to consolidate the public opinion about the perpetrators. The government must resolve the mystery of enforced disappearances, set right the incidents of extrajudicial killing and, also, end torture in custody. And, it must set up an independent commission to investigate the allegations.