Recognising enforced disappearance is not enough. We need accountability

After the fall of the Awami League regime in August 2024, the conversations surrounding enforced disappearances have changed significantly. Once a hushed-up issue, enforced disappearances are now being formally addressed at the state level. In late August 2024, the interim government formed a commission to inquire into such cases, which meticulously went through thousands of applications. Meanwhile, the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) started accepting complaints from victims and their family members seeking justice. More recently, on August 23, 2026, the Ministry of Liberation War Affairs took the initiative to establish a Directorate of Enforced Disappearances for the welfare of the families of victims of enforced disappearances, murders and extrajudicial killings over the last 17 years. The directorate will also arrange medical treatment, legal protection, and rehabilitation for victims of torture.

All these are definitely positive measures, but for the victims of past cases of enforced disappearances—and for the expectation that such heinous crimes will not be repeated in the future—there is a long road ahead. The initiatives and actions taken so far fall short in identifying perpetrators and bringing them to account. Two crucial questions remain inadequately addressed. First, how would the state protect the victims and their families from actual and potential intimidation from the agencies, their members, and associates involved in the crime? The other is: how will those involved in the crimes be held accountable in a way that guarantees that enforced disappearances and extra-judicial killings will never happen again?

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On August 27, the Prevention and Remedy of Enforced Disappearance Bill, 2026 was tabled in parliament, recognising enforced disappearance as a distinct, cognisable, non-bailable and non-compoundable criminal offence. This is the first law in Bangladesh that specifically covers this crime. While it is a step in the right direction, the guilt the nation feels for denying justice to victims of enforced disappearance for years and years cannot be overcome without ensuring independent investigations. According to the proposed law, the responsibility for investigations into cases involving enforced disappearance will fall to the police and, if necessary, other law enforcement agencies. This is ludicrously contradictory. These agencies, having been accused of committing the crimes in the past, cannot be trusted with investigating those very crimes. To expect just outcomes from such probes is almost impossible.

My own personal experience highlights why investigations into enforced disappearances should not be entrusted to law enforcement agencies.

When my father, Shafiqul Islam Kajol, became a victim of enforced disappearance in 2020, it took us quite some time to understand that this was, in fact, a case of enforced disappearance. During that time, we took all the measures we possibly could using existing legal mechanisms. I filed a general diary and complaints with the Rapid Action Battalion, the Detective Branch of police, the Police Bureau of Investigation and the National Human Rights Commission. None of them were even remotely helpful or made any meaningful effort to locate him.   

Today, it is obvious why they acted the way they did. But at the time, their lack of interest and inefficiency regarding my father’s case felt utterly shocking.

Thankfully, I was able to find CCTV footage of my father’s last known whereabouts through my own efforts. The footage shows two men tampering with my father’s motorcycle and potentially putting a tracking device on it just outside his office minutes before he left work on March 10, 2020. The video also shows one of the men chasing after my father once he got on his motorcycle and rode away.

I submitted this footage to the police station, where I had filed a kidnapping case, as that was the most relevant legal recourse available at the time. I also gave the footage to Amnesty International and Prothom Alo. Both shared the video on their websites and social media. The video gathered thousands of views. News outlets widely reported on it. A week later, a report of the police investigation into that same footage came out. The investigating officer stated that there was nothing suspicious in the footage! Thus, it became obvious that nothing more would be done about the incident.

This shows why law enforcement agencies cannot be trusted with the power and responsibility to investigate enforced disappearance cases; choosing them over an independent and autonomous body to investigate these cases raises questions about the government’s sincerity in pursuing justice. Besides, most evidence of enforced disappearance cases actually indicate to these law enforcement agencies. To expect that somehow they will blow the whistle on their own agencies’ or other law enforcers’ crimes is preposterous.

There is also the question of pursuing the cases of enforced disappearances at the ICT. Both the victims who have returned and the family members of those still missing have gone through enough already. Most of them don’t have the resources, mental capacity, or willpower to go through the lengthy legal process to bring the accused law enforcement agencies to justice. Since these crimes were committed by state machinery using state resources against its own civilians by denying them their constitutional rights, the state should bear the responsibility of serving justice to the victims.

Moreover, the mechanism surrounding enforced disappearance that the Awami League regime created still exists. Even if BNP guarantees that it will be a righteous party and will not use unlawful and inhuman tools like enforced disappearance to crush dissent, it will not be in power forever. Therefore, to prevent state-sanctioned enforced disappearances in the future, the power to investigate these cases must lie with an independent body. Besides, if the current government wants to do right by the citizens, it will have to find a way to put law enforcement members responsible for these crimes behind bars. Pointing fingers at Awami League members who have fled the country is not enough.

We also need to remember that the Awami League government did not become authoritarian from day one. Neither did they benefit from the heinous crime of enforced disappearance alone. Others, including many businessmen, government employees, and even members of civil society, reaped the benefits as well. That is why simply seeking justice for the victims is not enough; a system that can hold anyone accountable, regardless of who is in power, must be created.

An independent investigation mechanism is therefore a necessary safeguard against the recurrence of enforced disappearances. Without it, even the strongest laws and the most well-intentioned welfare measures risk falling short of delivering justice. And for the victims and their families, justice cannot end with recognition, compensation, or rehabilitation only. It must also mean knowing what happened or who was responsible, and ensuring that those responsible are held accountable. Finally, justice must mean that enforced disappearance never happens again.

Monorom Polok is a member of the editorial team at The Daily Star.

Views expressed in this article are the author's own. 

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