Abduction and Enforced Disappearance in Bangladesh

30 August the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, declared by the United Nations.

It is astonishing that abduction rate in Bangladesh has grown alarmingly high in recent days. Abduction has almost become a culture in this country at present. This culture of forced disappearance or abduction started in 2009 after the Grand Alliance led by Awami League had formed the government. Though this phenomenon showed a sharp rise at the end of the last year, the abduction episode in the tenure of the present government had commenced with the abduction of Choudhury Alam, a leader of the opposition party BNP and a popular Commissioner of the capital city Dhaka.

It became common in Bangladesh that some men arrive, carrying weapons, in plain clothes or in uniform. They come at the day or in the night. They force giving no reasons, producing no arrest warrant, frequently without saying who they are or on whose authority they are acting, they drag off one or more members of the family towards a car. And then family and friends cry around searching for them end up with at best a press conference. Unfortunately law enforcing authority like Police, RAB and other security forces explicitly deny the fact of abduction. Despite the claims of the family and friends and the testimony of witnesses, they did not admit black operations and the fact is now that people shown on this video disappeared forever.

Please watch the video on abduction in Bangladesh, observe 30 August the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances and campaign to put an end to this crime against humanity.