‘Enforced disappearances systematic, politically driven crimes’
Staff Reporter :
Enforced disappearances in Bangladesh over the past 15 years were not isolated or sporadic abuses but part of a systematic, institutional and politically driven crime apparatus, according to the final report of the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances released on Tuesday.
Titled “Unfolding the Truth: A Structural Diagnosis of Enforced Disappearance in Bangladesh,” the report concludes that disappearances occurred through a structured and organised process, involving coordinated operations, secret detention facilities, and repeated institutional practices that could not have existed without high-level sanction and administrative continuity.
The commission said its findings were based on thousands of pages of testimonies, official records, site inspections and victim accounts collected over months of investigation. The full report has been made public and is now available on the commission’s official website.
An architecture of disappearance
According to the report, enforced disappearances followed identifiable patterns: victims were picked up by men identifying themselves as members of law-enforcement or security agencies, taken to undisclosed locations, denied legal safeguards, and kept outside the protection of the courts. The commission describes this system as a “deliberate governance tool” rather than a breakdown of law and order.
“These incidents were not accidents, excesses, or rogue operations,” the report states. “They were the outcome of an organised structure that normalised illegal detention, torture, and disappearance.”
Investigators found that disappearances intensified during periods of political tension, including elections and major opposition mobilisations, indicating a clear political motive behind many operations.
Scale of the crimes
The commission received 1,913 complaints of enforced disappearances. After verification, 1,569 cases were formally recognised as meeting the inquiry’s criteria. Among them, hundreds remain missing, while many others were later found dead or returned after months or years in secret detention.
The report cautions that these figures likely represent only a portion of the true scale, as fear, exile, and lack of access prevented many families from filing complaints.
Investigators documented repeated references to secret detention centres, systematic methods of blindfolding and transport, and the use of rivers and remote locations to dispose of bodies, pointing to what the report calls a “permanent infrastructure of disappearance.”
Institutional responsibility
Rather than naming individual perpetrators alone, the commission focused on structural responsibility, arguing that enforced disappearances were sustained through overlapping roles of security agencies, intelligence bodies, and administrative protection.
The report concludes that without institutional coordination, logistical support, and political shielding, the disappearances could not have continued for more than a decade.
It calls enforced disappearance in Bangladesh during this period “a crime of governance.”
Recommendations and accountability
The commission urges sweeping reforms of the security sector, the dismantling of legal and administrative mechanisms that enabled secret detention, and the creation of a credible judicial process to prosecute those responsible—regardless of rank.
It also recommends: Formal recognition of victims and families, Reparations and rehabilitation programmes, Preservation and documentation of former secret detention sites and Legal safeguards to prevent future abuses
The report stresses that accountability must extend beyond individual officers to those who designed, authorised, or protected the system.