Tuesday, September 17, 2024
Year : 2, Issue: 37
For Michael Chakma, a Bangladeshi Indigenous rights activist, each day of his five-year detention in a secret prison allegedly run by the country’s military intelligence was harrowing and filled with unending despair.
“There was no window and I had no way to tell time, or whether it was day or night. I was in a dark, enclosed space, and when the light was turned on, it was too bright for me to see properly,” the 45-year-old told Al Jazeera. “Most of the time, I was handcuffed and shackled.”
Chakma was among more than 700 persons, including top opposition figures and activists, who were forcibly disappeared by Bangladeshi authorities during the 15-year “autocratic” regime of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina from January 2009 and June 2024, according to Odhikar, a prominent NGO.
Of these, 83 victims were later found dead, with some reportedly killed in “crossfire” with security forces, while more than 150 individuals remain missing. Hasina was forced to resign and flee to neighbouring India in July after millions of Bangladeshis, led by university students, launched a nationwide movement to demand her ouster.
An interim government, led by the country’s only Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, has since taken over and, on August 29, formed a five-member commission, headed by a former high court judge, to probe the disappearances.
‘Thought they will kill me’
Chakma was picked up by armed men near capital Dhaka in April 2019 allegedly for his criticism of the Hasina government’s policy on the Chakmas, the largest among Bangladesh’s Indigenous groups, who mainly live in the so-called Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) in southeastern Bangladesh.
The Chakmas are mostly Buddhist and have for decades been resisting a takeover of their land by Bengali settlers in the CHT region. Studies show the Chakma population in CHT came down from 91 percent in 1959 to 51 percent in 1991, as the successive governments backed the settlers, leading to an uprising by the Chakmas in the 1980s. Dhaka’s military response to the uprising saw gross human rights violations against the Chakmas, including widespread arrests, torture, extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances. During her first term as prime minister in 1997, Hasina signed the CHT Accord, which recognised the rights of the Chakmas over their land, promised more autonomy to them, and ended the decades-long rebellion. Her Awami League party touted it as a landmark deal. But Chakma was among many in his community who continued to criticise the 1997 deal, mainly over the army’s ongoing presence in the CHT region. He was abducted, allegedly by security forces, in 2019.
“My interrogators told me that criticising the CHT Accord amounted to treason because Hasina’s Awami League party is the government and, by extension, the government is the state. Therefore, no one should criticise the actions of Awami League or Sheikh Hasina,” he told Al Jazeera.
For five years, Chakma was in a solitary confinement where, he said, he feared he would never see daylight again and would die in the small cell.
“I had no idea at all about what was happening outside,” he said. “The prison guards never even told us whether it was day or night.”
Last month, however, Chakma was suddenly removed from his cell. He did not know why. “I was terrified. I thought they were going to kill me,” he said.
‘The House of Mirrors’
Since Hasina’s fall, at least three victims of enforced disappearances have been returned to their families, including Chakma.
Former Brigadier General Abdullahil Aman Azmi is the son of late Jamaat leader, Ghulam Azam, while Mir Ahmad Bin Quasem is the younger son of Mir Quasem Ali, who was among dozens of Jamaat leaders executed by Hasina’s government during a massive crackdown on the Islamist party. Local media reports say Chakma, Azmi and Quasem were detained in Aynaghar (“House of Mirrors”), a notorious network of secret prisons operated by the military intelligence. These prisons were first revealed in 2022 when Netra News, a Sweden-based investigative website, interviewed two of its former detainees.
One of those detainees was former Lieutenant Colonel Hasinur Rahman, who spent two years in the secret prison. “I was targeted for my social media posts in which I strongly criticised the Hasina government for its corruption and violence,” Rahman, a decorated army officer, told Al Jazeera.
“It’s not just one place. There are several secret prisons collectively referred to as Aynaghar. These are essentially a network of secret facilities run by army intelligence for holding high-value political and other prisoners,” he said.
Mubashar Hasan, a researcher in the Department of Cultural Studies at the University of Oslo, was also held in the same prison for 44 days after his abduction in 2017 from Dhaka. Hasan, who was targeted for his critical writings against the Hasina regime, said the secret prison even had a medical facility. He added that he was ordered to remain silent about his abduction and detention.
‘Lucky that I am alive’
Quasem, a lawyer, was picked up by plainclothed police in 2016 and kept in a windowless room, shackled. The constant hum of a large exhaust fan drowned out any sound from outside, he told Al Jazeera.
“Our health was regularly monitored. We received decent food, but just enough to keep us alive – nothing more, nothing less,” he said. Despite his efforts to connect with the prison guards through small talk, greetings, and requests, he was informed that their superiors had strictly forbidden them from sharing any information about the outside world.
Like Chakma, Quasem was also released in the dead of the night, instructed to keep the blindfold for half an hour. He was dropped off near a highway in Dhaka, from where he walked for an hour until he stumbled upon a charity clinic his father had once been a trustee of.
For years, the families of the victims of forcibly disappeared suffered the agony of not knowing about the fate of their loved ones. “For eight years, we lived in uncertainty,” septuagenarian Ayesha Khatoon told Al Jazeera about her son Quasem. “We had no idea if Arman [Quasem’s nickname] was alive.
‘Grave injustices’
While Chakma and Quasem are back with their loved ones, many families of the forcibly disappeared persons continue to wait for any information about their relatives.
On August 10, Mayer Daak, a rights group dedicated to combating enforced disappearances in Bangladesh, submitted a list of 158 missing persons to the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI), the military intelligence headquarters.
Among those still missing is Ataur Rahman, a member of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), who was abducted from Dhaka in 2011. His wife, Nadira Sultana, and their children continue to await his return.
Sultana joined other family members of the disappeared in a protest outside the DGFI headquarters in Dhaka on August 11, demanding information about her husband.
Last week, Bangladesh’s interim government led by Yunus signed the accession to the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances, an international United Nations’ convention aimed at ending the practice.
Mayer Daak coordinator Sanjida Islam Tulee praised the government’s decision to address the issue of disappearances under Hasina’s long regime. “The grave injustices of these disappearances must be uncovered and prosecuted,” Tulee told Al Jazeera. “Many families are still waiting for their loved ones to return. They deserve the answers.”
