Dhaka, Bangladesh For Michael Chakma, an indigenous rights activist in Bangladesh, every day of his five-year detention in a secret prison allegedly run by the country's military intelligence was a moment of pure despair.
“I didn’t have a ganilla and I didn’t know how to tell time, it wasn’t day or night. It was in a dark, old place and when the light came on, it was so obvious that you couldn’t see it directly,” the 45-year-old told Al Jazeera. “Most of the time, it was aljimado and aljimado.”
Chakma was among more than 700 people, including opposition figures and prominent activists, forcibly disappeared by Bangladeshi authorities during the 15-year “authoritarian” rule of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, from January 2009 to June 2024. An important NGO. .
Of these, 83 victims were later found, some allegedly killed in “crossfire” with security forces, while more than 150 people remain missing.
It was Hasina Forced to resign and flee To visit India next July, thousands of Bangladeshis, led by University studentsBecause I am a mother National Movement To demand its removal
An interim government led by Muhammad Yunus, the country's only Nobel laureate, has since taken power, and on August 29, it formed a five-member committee, headed by a former Supreme Court judge, to investigate the disappearances.
“I thought they were going to kill me.”
Chakma was arrested by armed men near the capital Dhaka in April 2019, allegedly for criticizing the Hasina government's policy toward the Chakma people, the largest of Bangladesh's indigenous groups, who live mainly in the Chittagong Hill Tracts in southeastern Bangladesh.
The Chakma people are among the majority Buddhists and have resisted Acquisition of your lands By Bengali settlers in the CHT area. Studies indicate that the Chakma population in the Chittagong Hill Tracts declined from 91 percent in 1959 to 51 percent in 1991, as successive governments supported the settlers, which led to a rebellion among the Chakma people in the 1980s. Dhaka's military response to the revolt there was serious human rights violations against the Chakma people, including widespread arrests, torture, extrajudicial executions, and enforced disappearances.
During her first term as prime minister in 1997, Hasina Asino or Akordo Shit, who reaffirmed the Chakma people's rights to their land, promised greater autonomy after ending a decades-long rebellion. Your Awami League match is a historic agreement.
But Chakma was among many in his community who continued to criticize the 1997 agreement, largely because of the continued military presence in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. He was apparently abducted by security forces in 2019.
“The investigators told me that criticizing or approving of the Chittagong Hill Tracts is tantamount to treason, because Hasina’s Awami League rules the state, and therefore rules and is ruled by it. So we should not criticize the actions of the Awami League or Sheikh Hasina.”
For five years, Chakma remained in solitary confinement, fearing that he would never see daylight again and die in a small cell.
“I have no idea what was going on outside,” he said. “You guards in the prison never tell us whether it was night or day.”
But not long ago, Shakma was suddenly taken out of his cell. He didn't know why. “Vicky was terrified. “Ashi will kill me,” he said.
After his eyes were bandaged and his contents sealed, he was put in a cart and driven all night. During the journey, he was haunted by thoughts of his impending death. “He whispered to himself, ‘He’s going to kill me, he’s going to kill me,’” he said, fearing that he would be executed in the “crossfire”—a method he had long opposed during his anti-Chakma activism.
“When I was in the car, I wished that you would at least kill me in an open area, allowing me to take one last look at the world,” he said. Once, he said, the car stopped in a forest in the middle of the evening and he heard a voice: You are free.
“I was instructed not to wear the blindfold for more than half an hour,” he told Al Jazeera.
When you finally opened your eyes, you found yourself surrounded by teak trees. Feeling paralyzed and struggling to deal with your sudden freedom, you wandered into the shadows, unsure of where you were, when you saw a sign that read: “Divisão Florestal Chattogram.” Chittagong was renamed Chattogram in 2018, but Chittagong kept the old name.
Knowing where he was, Shakma was tied to the road and managed to hit a passing car. “I checked home and met my friends again,” he said. “It was an incredibly exciting moment.”
“Casa dos Espelhos”
Since Hasina’s death, at least three victims of enforced disappearance have been returned to their families, including Chakma. The other two include senior leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami, Bangladesh’s largest Islamist party, which Hasina led in 2013 for supporting Pakistani forces during the country’s 1971 freedom war. The ban was No more past By the interim government led by Yunus.
Former Brigadier Abdullah Aman Azmi is the son of deceased Jamaat leader Ghulam Azam, while Mir Ahmed bin Qasim is the new son of Mir Qasim Ali, who was among dozens of Jamaat leaders executed under Hasina during a widespread crackdown on the Islamist party.
Local media reports say that Shakma, Azmi and Qasim were detained in Aynagar (“Espielhaus House”), a notorious network of secret prisons run by military intelligence. The prisons were first exposed in 2022, when the Sweden-based investigative website Netra News interviewed two of its former detainees.
One of those accused was former Lieutenant Colonel Hussainur Rahman, who spent two years in a secret prison. “I went through all the posts on social media that were very critical of Hasina’s government for its corruption and violence,” Rahman, a decorated army officer, told Al Jazeera.
“It’s not just a place. There are many secret prisons where mass detentions are held like Ainjar,” he added. “It’s basically a network of secret facilities run by military intelligence to deter political prisoners and other high-value prisoners.”
Mubashar Hasan, a researcher at the University of Oslo’s Department of Cultural Studies, was also held in the same prison for 44 days after being abducted in Dhaka in 2017. The secret facilities are said to function as fully functioning prisons.
Hasan, who has written two critical books against Hasina’s government, said the secret prison had medical facilities. “We were regularly checked by doctors who ensured our survival,” he told Al Jazeera.
Akristo said he was ordered to remain silent about his abduction and detention. “They will send a clear and direct message: Not only will they kidnap me again, they will also harm my family members,” Hassan said.
“I'm lucky to be alive”
Qasim, a lawyer, was arrested by police in plain clothes in 2016 and held for four weeks. He told Al Jazeera that the constant buzzing of the Big Abafava Kowalker Som repellent was external.
“Nosa’s health is monitored regularly. We get decent food, but it’s just enough to keep us alive – no more, no less.”
Despite his attempts to communicate with the prison guards through reliable conversations, fulfillment, and requests, he was informed that his superiors strictly forbade him from sharing any information about the outside world.
“He asked for time to pray, but he didn’t respond,” he added. “Sometimes, I would hear faint voices and screams outside the cell. Slowly, he began to realize that there were other prisoners like him. “It was a fully functioning prison.”
Like Chakma, Qasim was also released at night, ordered to keep his eyes open for half an hour. He was left on a road in Dhaka, where he walked for an hour and found a charitable clinic where his father was the director.
Soon, an official from the clinic or rehabilitation center informed his family that it was time to meet him. “I feel lucky to be alive,” he said.
“In prison, I lost all hope of ever seeing my loved ones again. These conditions were so dehumanizing that they eliminated any sense of hope. “We feel like we are living like corpses.”
For many years, the families of the forcibly disappeared have suffered the agony of not knowing the fate of their loved ones.
“For many years, we have been living in limbo,” 70-year-old Ayesha Khatun told Al Jazeera about her film Qasim. “We had no idea that Arman (Qasim’s last name) was alive. “Every moment in limbo feels like an eternity.”
Qasim's wife, Tehmina Akter, and two daughters were arrested the day a group of men broke into their Dhaka apartment and demanded that Qasim find them.
“Our files are closed and we are taking our clothes off,” Akter told Al Jazeera. “We never imagined that he would disappear in the next few years. “The agony of not knowing where someone you love is defies description.”
When Khatun reconfronted his past film, he said it was surreal. “It felt like a dream, and for a while, there was no certainty that this was really happening.”
“serious grievances”
With Shakma and Qasim back with their loved ones, many families of the missing are forced to continue waiting for any information about their relatives.
On August 10, Mayer Dak, 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 headquarters of military intelligence.
Among those still missing is Attaur Rahman, a member of the main opposition party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, who was abducted in Dhaka in 2011. His wife, Nadira Sultana, and children are still waiting for his return.
Sultana joined other relatives of two missing persons in a protest outside the DGCA headquarters in Dhaka on August 11, demanding information about her husband.
“My daughter, who has special needs, is now attesting that she is alive. The European Union told her she would never come back,” Nadira told Al Jazeera. “My children want my country and I want my husband back.”
Murshida Begum's husband, Farooq Hossain, another BNP member, was kidnapped in 2012. She filed several reports with the police and other security agencies, but received no help or information about Hossain.
Begum and her file also protested outside the DGSP office to secure Hussain’s photos. “Our lives are still surrounded by uncertainty,” she told Al Jazeera.
Last week, Bangladesh's interim government accepted the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, a UN international treaty aimed at ending the practice.
Mayer Dak coordinator Sanjeeda Islam Tuli hailed the government's decision to address the disappearance of these two cases during Hasina's long tenure.
“The serious injustices caused by these disappearances must be exposed and brought to justice,” Tooley told Al Jazeera. “Many families are still waiting for their loved ones to return. They deserve these answers.”
