New Age: A law and a tribunal needed to fight enforced disappearances

Published: 00:05, Nov 20,2017 | Updated: 00:08, Nov 20,2017

POLICE investigators saying that they have found no evidence of any criminal gang being involved in the abduction of North South University teacher Mubashar Hasan Caesar, which took place on November 7, points to a pertinent, yet concerning issue. The teacher, who is an anti-extremism analyst, was picked up from in front of the IDB Building in the capital city 10 minutes after he had left the building. The incident, like any other incidents of enforced disappearance, caused a stir, with family, friends, rights and civic groups demanding that the government should find him out. He still remains untraced. But now that the police have fund no ‘criminal gang’ being involved in the incident, it is the duty of the government and the law enforcement agencies to find out who the people were that have criminally picked him up and where he has been kept. On the other front, Aniruddha Kumar Roy, a businessman and honorary consul of Belarus to Bangladesh, who went missing on August 27, has finally reached, or has been re hed, near his house at Gulshan in the capital. Aniruddha seems to be one of the few of about 402 people who, as rights group Odhikar puts it, disappeared between January 2009 and October 2017 and returned.

Govt must tell what happens to people who disappear

Published: 00:05, Nov 14,2017 | Updated: 00:50, Nov 14,2017

ENFORCED disappearances coming to be a dominant feature is gravely concerning. At least six people disappeared from Gulshan, Khilgaon and Agargaon in the capital city in November 5–8. Rights group Odhikar, as New Age reported on Monday, comes up with a figure of 402 people going missing between January 2009 and October 2017. There were two cases of enforced disappearances reported in 2009, 18 in 2010, 31 in 2011, 26 in 2012, 54 in 2013, 39 in 2014, 66 in 2015, 91 in 2016 and 74 in the first 10 months of 2017, as the rights group puts its statistics based on such incidents reported in national newspapers. Fifty-two of them were later found dead, 198 could be traced or were shown arrested and 152 still remain untraced. And 36 of such people went missing only in 2017. Another rights group, Ain O Salish Kendra, comes up with a figure of 202 for enforced disappearances between January 2015 and September 2017. But people cannot simply disappear. Someone somewhere should know what has happened to them. Odhikar says at the Rapid Action Battalion and the police picked up 80 per cent of the 402 people who disappeared; in the remaining cases, as the rights group puts it, there are ‘law enforcement agencies’ and ‘people from the government’ involved.

ASSOCIATION OF PARENTS OF DISAPPEARED PERSONS

Press Release: 2^nd November, 2017 

SHRC Orders Government to Investigate 2080 unmarked graves and mass graves of Poonch and Rajouri districts 

Association of Parent of Disappeared Persons (APDP) welcomes the recent 24^th October, 2017 order of State Human Rights Commission [SHRC] regarding the existence of unmarked and mass graves in Jammu and Kashmir. On 24^th October 2017, in response to a petition filed by APDP regarding the presence of 3844 [Poonch with 2717 Graves and Rajouri with 1127] unmarked graves in Poonch and Rajouri Districts of Jammu and Kashmir, SHRC in its order once again acknowledged the presence of unknown, unmarked and mass graves in Jammu and Kashmir and has directed the government for a comprehensive investigation including DNA [Deoxyribonucleic Acid] Testing, Carbon dating and other forensic techniques.

Odhikar-Human Rights Monitoring Report October 1 – 31, 2017

Odhikar believes that democracy is not merely a process of electing a ruler; it is the result of the peoples’ struggle for inalienable rights, which become the fundamental premise to constitute the State. Therefore, the individual freedoms and democratic aspirations of the citizens – and consequently, peoples’ collective rights and responsibilities - must be the foundational principles of the State.