Dhaka, Bangladesh – For Michael Chakma, a Bangladeshi Indigenous rights activist, every day of his five-year detention in a secret jail allegedly run by the nation’s navy intelligence was harrowing and full of never-ending despair.
“There was no window and I had no approach to inform time, or whether or not it was day or evening. I used to be in a darkish, enclosed house, and when the sunshine was turned on, it was too vibrant for me to see correctly,” the 45-year-old instructed Al Jazeera. “More often than not, I used to be handcuffed and shackled.”
Chakma was amongst greater than 700 individuals, together with high opposition figures and activists, who had been forcibly disappeared by Bangladeshi authorities through the 15-year “autocratic” authorities of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina from January 2009 and June 2024, in keeping with Odhikar, a outstanding NGO.
Of those, 83 victims had been later discovered lifeless, with some reportedly killed in “crossfire” with safety forces, whereas greater than 150 individuals stay lacking.
Hasina was forced to resign and flee to neighbouring India in July after tens of millions of Bangladeshis, led by university students, launched a nationwide movement to demand her removing.
An interim authorities, led by the nation’s solely Nobel laureate, Muhammad Yunus, has since taken over and, on August 29, fashioned a five-member fee, headed by a former excessive courtroom choose, to probe the disappearances.
‘Thought they’ll kill me’
Chakma was picked up by armed males close to the capital Dhaka in April 2019 allegedly for his criticism of the Hasina authorities’s coverage on the Chakma individuals, the most important amongst Bangladesh’s Indigenous teams, who primarily stay within the so-called Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) in southeastern Bangladesh.
The Chakma persons are largely Buddhist and have for many years been resisting a takeover of their land by Bengali settlers within the CHT area. Research present the Chakma inhabitants in CHT got here down from 91 p.c in 1959 to 51 p.c in 1991, as successive governments backed the settlers, resulting in an rebellion by the Chakma individuals within the Nineteen Eighties. Dhaka’s navy response to the rebellion noticed gross human rights violations in opposition to the Chakma individuals, together with widespread arrests, torture, extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances.
Throughout her first time period as prime minister in 1997, Hasina signed the CHT Accord, which recognised the rights of the Chakma individuals over their land, promised them extra autonomy and ended the decades-long insurrection. Her Awami League occasion touted it as a landmark deal.
However Chakma was amongst many in his neighborhood who continued to criticise the 1997 deal, primarily over the military’s ongoing presence within the CHT area. He was kidnapped, allegedly by safety forces, in 2019.
“My interrogators instructed me that criticising the CHT Accord amounted to treason as a result of Hasina’s Awami League occasion is the federal government and, by extension, the federal government is the state. Subsequently, nobody ought to criticise the actions of [the] Awami League or Sheikh Hasina,” he instructed Al Jazeera.
For 5 years, Chakma was in solitary confinement the place he mentioned he feared he would by no means see daylight once more and would die within the small cell.
“I had no concept in any respect about what was occurring exterior,” he mentioned. “The jail guards by no means even instructed us whether or not it was day or evening.”
Final month, nonetheless, Chakma was abruptly faraway from his cell. He didn’t know why. “I used to be terrified. I believed they had been going to kill me,” he mentioned.
Blindfolded and restrained, he was put in a automobile and pushed all evening. Through the drive, he was consumed by ideas of his imminent loss of life. “I used to be whispering to myself: ‘They’re going to kill me, they’re going to kill me,’” he mentioned, dreading a staged “crossfire” execution – a technique he had lengthy opposed throughout his activism for Chakma rights.
“Once I was in that automobile, I hoped they’d at the very least kill me in an open space, permitting me a closing glimpse of the world,” he mentioned. As a substitute, the automobile stopped in a forest within the lifeless of the evening and he heard a voice: “You’re free.”
“I used to be instructed to not take away my blindfold for an additional half an hour,” he instructed Al Jazeera.
When he lastly opened his eyes, he discovered himself surrounded by teakwood timber. Feeling numb and struggling to course of his sudden freedom, he wandered within the darkness, unsure of his location, till he noticed a signpost that mentioned: “Chattogram Forest Division”. Chittagong was renamed Chattogram in 2018, however the CHT retains the outdated title.
Realising the place he was, Chakma made his approach to the freeway and managed to hitch a experience with a passing automobile. “I reached dwelling and was reunited with my siblings. It was an extremely emotional second.”
‘The Home of Mirrors’
Since Hasina’s fall, at the very least three victims of enforced disappearances have been returned to their households, together with Chakma. The opposite two are kids of outstanding leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami, Bangladesh’s largest Muslim occasion banned by Hasina in 2013 for supporting the Pakistani forces through the nation’s liberation battle in 1971. The ban was lifted last month by the Yunus-led interim authorities.
Former Brigadier Common Abdullahil Aman Azmi is the son of late Jamaat chief Ghulam Azam, whereas Mir Ahmad Bin Quasem is the youthful son of Mir Quasem Ali, who was amongst dozens of Jamaat leaders executed by Hasina’s authorities throughout a widespread crackdown on the Islamist occasion.
Native media studies say Chakma, Azmi and Quasem had been detained in Aynaghar (“Home of Mirrors”), a infamous community of secret prisons operated by navy intelligence. These prisons had been first revealed in 2022 when Netra Information, a Sweden-based investigative web site, interviewed two of its former detainees.
A kind of detainees was former Lieutenant Colonel Hasinur Rahman, who spent two years within the secret jail. “I used to be focused for my social media posts through which I strongly criticised the Hasina authorities for its corruption and violence,” Rahman, a embellished military officer, instructed Al Jazeera.
“It’s not only one place. There are a number of secret prisons collectively known as Aynaghar. These are primarily a community of secret services run by military intelligence for holding high-value political and different prisoners,” he mentioned.
Mubashar Hasan, a researcher within the Division of Cultural Research on the College of Oslo, was additionally held in the identical jail for 44 days after his abduction in 2017 from Dhaka. He mentioned the clandestine services functioned like absolutely operational prisons.
Hasan, who was focused for his crucial writings in opposition to the Hasina authorities, mentioned the key jail even had a medical facility. “We had been frequently examined by docs who ensured we stayed alive,” he instructed Al Jazeera.
He added that he was ordered to stay silent about his abduction and detention. “They issued a transparent and direct risk: not solely would they abduct me once more, however they’d additionally hurt my members of the family,” mentioned Hasan.
‘Fortunate that I’m alive’
Quasem, a lawyer, was picked up by plainclothed police in 2016 and stored in a windowless room, shackled. The fixed hum of a giant exhaust fan drowned out any sound from exterior, he instructed Al Jazeera.
“Our well being was frequently monitored. We acquired respectable meals, however simply sufficient to maintain us alive – nothing extra, nothing much less,” he mentioned.
Regardless of his efforts to attach with the jail guards via small speak, greetings, and requests, he was knowledgeable that their superiors had strictly forbidden them from sharing any details about the surface world.
“I might ask the guards for time in order that I might pray, however they by no means answered,” he mentioned. “Sometimes, I might hear muffled voices and screams exterior my cell. Slowly, I started to grasp there have been different prisoners like me. It was a totally operational jail.”
Like Chakma, Quasem was additionally launched within the lifeless of the evening, instructed to maintain the blindfold on for half an hour. He was dropped off close to a freeway in Dhaka, from the place he walked for an hour till he stumbled upon a charity clinic his father had as soon as been a trustee of.
A employees member on the clinic recognised him and shortly knowledgeable his household, which rushed to reunite with him. “I’m feeling fortunate that I’m alive,” he mentioned.
“Contained in the jail, I had misplaced all hope of ever seeing my family members once more. The situations had been so dehumanising that it stripped away any sense of hope. We felt as if we had been dwelling as lifeless our bodies.”
For years, the households of those that had been forcibly disappeared suffered the agony of not realizing the destiny of their family members.
“For eight years, we lived in uncertainty,” septuagenarian Ayesha Khatoon instructed Al Jazeera about her son Quasem. “We had no concept if Arman [Quasem’s nickname] was alive. Every second in that limbo felt like an eternity.”
Quasem’s spouse Tahmina Akter and their two daughters bear in mind the day when a gaggle of males barged into their Dhaka residence and demanded that Quasem include them.
“Our daughters had been crying and clinging to their father’s garments,” Akter instructed Al Jazeera. “We had by no means imagined he would go lacking for the following eight years. The agony of not realizing the place a cherished one is defies description.”
When Khatoon was reunited together with her son final month, she mentioned it felt surreal. “It felt like a dream, and for a time, I wasn’t certain if it was actually occurring.”
‘Grave injustices’
Whereas Chakma and Quasem are again with their family members, many households of the individuals forcibly disappeared proceed to attend for any details about their kin.
On August 10, Mayer Daak, a rights group devoted to combating enforced disappearances in Bangladesh, submitted a listing of 158 lacking individuals to the Directorate Common of Forces Intelligence (DGFI), the navy intelligence headquarters.
Amongst these nonetheless lacking is Ataur Rahman, a member of the principle opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Get together (BNP), who was kidnapped from Dhaka in 2011. His spouse, Nadira Sultana, and their kids proceed to await his return.
Sultana joined different members of the family of the disappeared in a protest exterior the DGFI headquarters in Dhaka on August 11, demanding details about her husband.
“My daughter, who has particular wants, nonetheless believes her father is alive. I instructed her I might deliver him again,” Nadira instructed Al Jazeera. “My kids need their father again and I need my husband again.”
Mursheda Begum’s husband, Faruk Hossain, one other BNP member, was kidnapped in 2012. She filed a number of studies with the police and different safety businesses, however acquired no help or details about Hossain.
Begum and her two daughters additionally protested exterior the DGFI workplace, holding photographs of Hossain. “Our lives proceed to be shrouded in uncertainty,” she instructed Al Jazeera.
Final week, Bangladesh’s interim authorities signed the accession to the Worldwide Conference for the Safety of All Individuals from Enforced Disappearances, a global United Nations conference aimed toward ending the apply.
Mayer Daak coordinator Sanjida Islam Tulee praised the federal government’s choice to handle the difficulty of disappearances underneath Hasina’s lengthy tenure.
“The grave injustices of those disappearances should be uncovered and prosecuted,” Tulee instructed Al Jazeera. “Many households are nonetheless ready for his or her family members to return. They deserve the solutions.”