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Deposed Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was directly involved in the forced disappearances of thousands of people. That's according to a new report by an inquiry commission earlier this month. The report also found that several of Hasina's top officials carried out a program of abductions, imprisonment and torture. This story contains depictions of that torture. Shamim Chowdhury reports from Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka.
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (Vocalizing).
SHAMIM CHOWDHURY: I'm on my way to meet Abdullahil Amaan Azmi, a former brigadier general in the Bangladesh army. I meet him in a hospital where he's receiving treatment. He's dressed in a shirt and tie, his white beard neatly trimmed. In August 2016, four masked gunmen barged into his home, blindfolded him and took him away.
ABDULLAHIL AMAAN AZMI: They slapped my maidservant. They beat all the security stuff that we have, tortured them in many ways, punched them in the faces.
CHOWDHURY: Azmi, who's 64, was kept in solitary confinement in a secret detention center for eight years without charge.
AZMI: I couldn't see any daylight.
CHOWDHURY: He later discovered he was being held by the country's defense intelligence agency, the DGFI, one of the nine agencies accused by the U.N. and human rights groups of carrying out enforced disappearances of hundreds of people during Sheikh Hasina's 15-year reign.
AZMI: One guy came, and he forgot to take of his ID card, and I saw in his ID card he's DGFI.
CHOWDHURY: Azmi's late father, Ghulam Azam, was the leader of Bangladesh's main religious party, Jamaat-e-Islami. Azmi believes that's why he was targeted.
AZMI: I said, I have nothing to do with Jamaat. They feared that if I take over Jamaat, Jamaat will be reenergized. And then there might be - may be a challenge for the government.
CHOWDHURY: Azmi and a few others were released in August following a student uprising, but many are still missing. Bangladesh's interim leader, Muhammad Yunus, has signed a U.N. convention protecting all persons from enforced disappearances. He also set up a commission to investigate the abductions. Its first report, published this month, found that they couldn't have happened without Hasina's knowledge. So far, the commission has received more than 1,600 cases. It believes the numbers may reach 3,500. One commissioner, Nur Khan Liton, told me they'd uncovered at least eight secret detention centers in the capital, Dhaka. They're known as Aynaghar, or the House of Mirrors, where captives were held in unimaginable conditions.
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CHOWDHURY: Cells smaller than a bed, no windows, light or ventilation. Liton heard chilling accounts of torture.
NUR KHAN LITON: (Through interpreter) They used to hang prisoners from the ceiling and beat them. They gave them electric shocks. They ripped their fingernails off.
CHOWDHURY: Azmi confirmed the reports.
AZMI: I heard people shouting, crying in the middle of the night, crying like babies.
CHOWDHURY: One agency accused is Rapid Action Battalion, or RAB, an elite force sanctioned by the U.S. for human rights violations. The commission has proposed its abolition. Sanjida Islam leads a victims group named Mayer Daak, or Mother's Call in English. Her brother, Sajedul Islam Sumon, disappeared in 2013. She's concerned that those working for the agencies won't be held to account.
SANJIDA ISLAM: There might be two or three top senior. Most were replaced or transferred and maybe one or two arrested, but it is not only one or two person. It is the whole structure who were involved.
CHOWDHURY: Another victim, Mir Ahmad Bin Quasem, was also abducted in August 2016 by a group of armed men in plain clothes. Like Azmi, Quasem was never given a reason.
MIR AHMAD BIN QUASEM: I kept urging people when they came to give food or came to clean - what is the allegation against me? At least give me the opportunity to defend myself. They kept repeating one word. We're only following orders.
CHOWDHURY: Sultan Sharif, head of the U.K. branch of Hasina's Awami League, rejected the accusations. He claimed any disappearances were carried out by criminals. The commission plans to submit another report in March, but the final findings may take up to a year. Until then, the victims and their families have no choice but to wait. For NPR News, I'm Shamim Chowdhury in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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