FOR the interim government to facilitate any meaningful political transformation in the days to come, it should establish legal liability for victims of enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killing, custodial death, and torture done under the authoritarian Awami League regime. According to human rights organisations, security forces have committed over 600 enforced disappearances since 2009. While some people were later released, produced in court, or said to have died during an armed exchange with security forces, nearly 100 people remain missing. Immediately after the fall of the Awami regime, Mayer Daak, a platform for family members of the victims of enforced disappearances, urged the interim government to ensure the safe return of their loved ones. The government has taken some significant steps towards this end. On August 29, the chief adviser signed the instrument of accession to the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances and formed a commission to investigate reported incidents of enforced disappearances. A five-member inquiry commission to identify and find the people who were forcibly disappeared by various intelligence and law enforcement agencies in 2010鈥�2024 is also formed. These steps, while recognising the crimes long denied by the AL government, are not enough to ensure justice, particularly when there are allegations that law enforcement agencies have recently destroyed evidence related to illegal detention centres, popularly referred to as Aaynaghar.
Following its request for complaints on enforced disappearances, the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances received 400 complaints in 13 working days, from September 15 to October 2, and recorded statements from 75 individuals. Most of the victims have blamed, as the commission says, the Rapid Action Battalion, Directorate General of Forces Intelligence, and Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime Unit for their enforced disappearances. As part of the investigation, when members of the commission visited the DGFI headquarters premises on September 25, they found walls were recently painted to remove evidence of illegal detention centres. On September 30, the co-founders of Mayer Daak brought allegations that their house was raided and a family member was picked up by the joint forces because of their continued campaign for the safe return of their loved ones. The destruction of evidence and the alleged raid in Mayer Daak鈥檚 convener鈥檚 house suggest that vested quarters are still active to jeopardise the investigation. The government has so far taken no steps to prevent such an attempt at destroying evidence of the heinous crime.
It is disheartening, even morally perplexing, to see relatives of the victims of enforced disappearances are still holding protest programmes seeking information about their loved ones. In order for the government to restore public trust in the legal system, it must fully commit, investigate, publish a full list of victims, and bring the errant members of law enforcement and intelligence agencies involved in enforced disappearances to justice.