Inside Bangladesh’s machinery of enforced disappearances

He was blindfolded, pushed into a vehicle, and told to keep his head down. Hours later, he had no idea where he was. Someone asked him the same question again and again: Who do you support? When his answers did not satisfy them, the beating began.

"They kept asking if I was with Jamaat. When I said no, they said I must be with a militant group," recalled a 30-year-old carpenter abducted by the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) in 2017. "I told them I was not with anyone. After that, they beat me for a long time."

His testimony is not an exception, rather a pattern. 

The Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances documents how torture and inhumane detention were not accidental excesses but defining tools of a system designed to break bodies, extract confessions, and erase dissent. 

Enforced disappearance in Bangladesh, as the report shows, did not end at abduction. It entered a darker phase inside secret cells where time disappeared, law vanished and cruelty became routine.

The first stage of this system was always silence. Victims were taken without warrants, often at night, by plainclothes men using unmarked vehicles. Phones were seized. Families were threatened. Police stations denied custody. This deliberate denial created what survivors repeatedly describe as a "grey zone" — a period in which a person existed nowhere in law. Inside that gap, torture flourished.

One survivor, identified in the commission report under the anonymised code "BCG" for safety reasons, described being held at a Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) facility. He was beaten continuously for nearly 24 hours. "They took turns," he said. "Four-hour shifts. When one group got tired, another came." 

His body still carries permanent marks of injury. Another detainee held in the same facility later confirmed hearing his screams and distress. The commission notes that such marathon beatings were common and carefully organised, not impulsive acts of rage.

Physical pain was only one layer. Detention conditions were engineered to maximise suffering. Survivors describe cells with no natural light, rough walls, constant CCTV surveillance, and toilets monitored by cameras. Sleep was deliberately disrupted. Food and water were given irregularly, sometimes withheld as punishment. 

In several facilities, detainees were forced to remain blindfolded for weeks or months, disoriented and dependent on guards for even the smallest movements.

Torture methods varied but followed recognisable patterns across agencies and years. Beatings were the most common, but many survivors also reported electric shocks applied to sensitive parts of the body. 

Pins were inserted under fingernails. Some described waterboarding, during which they lost consciousness repeatedly. In specialised interrogation rooms, rotating chairs — designed to disorient and induce nausea — were used while detainees were beaten or shocked.

Sexualised torture also appears in multiple testimonies, particularly among female detainees. Women reported being denied privacy, harassed by male guards, and prevented from covering themselves properly.

Golam Mortuza Mihin, a survivor cited in the report, spoke of the psychological aftermath rather than the physical pain. The torture did not stop when he was released. Even now, when he hears footsteps at night, his body freezes. 

The commission notes widespread symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder among survivors — panic attacks, insomnia, depression, and a persistent fear of re-arrest. Many avoided political discussion altogether, achieving the system's ultimate goal: silence.

Victims were routinely given only half the food ration of regular guards, kept handcuffed and blindfolded, and confined to solitary cells.

One survivor, coded BHFJ25, described the humiliation of being forced to lie on a cell's built-in toilet pan. "They would not let me sleep. After interrogation, they took away the pillow — everything. In the cold, even the blanket was removed. This was also a form of punishment. Sometimes they forced me to sit for hours without a chair, balancing only on my bare feet. 

"At other times, they handcuffed me to the side of the bed. When mosquitoes bit my hands, I couldn't even brush them away. The mosquitoes kept biting, and I suffered. This is how they punished me."

Both male and female detainees were subjected to constant surveillance, including CCTV cameras monitoring even the most private moments.

Beatings and stress positions were a widespread method of control. Code DGD26 recalled, "They hung me by my hands, tied with handcuffs… I could not bear it after hours. My fingernails were ripped off during the torture."

Other victims endured repeated, systematic beatings.

One survivor, coded EAF27, said, "They beat me again and again, saying my family is linked to Jamaat-BNP. I hit a table and lost consciousness; they poured water on my head to revive me. My hand went numb. I couldn't stand or sit, yet they kept beating me and demanding names, 'Where are they?' They gave me electric shocks, handcuffed me to iron grills, and left my legs swollen. One day, they held my finger with pliers and pushed a needle into it. They asked, 'Aren't you Abdul Mumin?' I said, 'No, my name is Habib.'"

Electric shocks were commonly used. Code BFBG32 described repeated shocks to his body and genitals that left him partially paralysed. 

"They pulled my shirt over my head, covered my mouth, and hit my face. Then they attached clips and shocked me — my whole body felt like it exploded. They repeated it multiple times, lifted me with switches, tore my clothes, and shocked my private parts. They beat me from head to toe, and when I saw my body afterwards, it was completely bruised and swollen.

"When I disappeared, for two weeks my hands were handcuffed and my eyes blindfolded. I spent my days lying on the floor, with sandals under my head, counting the hours of death. Only when I went to the toilet or ate rice were my hands and eyes freed. Jail transfers, CID raids, and court appearances with handcuffs and waist ropes made every moment unbearable," the victim further said. 

"Every day was filled with fear, not knowing what would happen next," said Shovan Rezwanul Haque, a BNP activist, to The Business Standard. "After returning home, I suffered severe mental trauma. My family members also became distressed and lived in constant fear."

The report also found that specialised devices further intensified suffering, including rotating chairs and full-body apparatuses designed to disorient detainees.

Physical pain was only one layer. Detention conditions were engineered to maximise suffering. Survivors describe cells with no natural light, rough walls, constant CCTV surveillance, and toilets monitored by cameras. Sleep was deliberately disrupted.

Sexualised torture, including genital shocks, was also reported, although victims were often reluctant to detail these experiences. Officials documented these methods across various facilities, confirming a systematic approach to instilling terror. The combination of physical pain, psychological intimidation, and the deprivation of dignity left victims in a constant state of distress, with permanent physical and emotional scars.

Some never returned at all. The report documents cases in which enforced disappearance ended in execution. Witness accounts describe detainees being taken out at night and never coming back. Bodies were allegedly disposed of in isolated locations, including riverbanks and railway lines. Families were left with nothing — no body, no death certificate, no legal closure. 

For them, disappearance is a continuing crime, renewed every day that the truth is denied.

What makes this machinery especially chilling is its bureaucratic order. The Commission demonstrates how multiple agencies — RAB, DGFI, police, CTTC, and the Detective Branch (DB) — often worked sequentially. A detainee might be abducted by one force, interrogated by another, and later shown as "arrested" days or weeks after the actual abduction. 

Arrest dates were falsified to erase the period of secret detention. Charge sheets were near-identical across districts, filled with generic claims of secret intelligence and instant confessions.

This coordination diffused responsibility while amplifying coercion. Each transfer reset fear. Each new interrogator threatened worse consequences. The law, instead of protecting detainees, was weaponised against them. Courts were presented with rehearsed narratives, while the true story remained locked inside hidden cells.

The report makes clear that torture was not limited to hardened militants or violent actors. Many victims were students, small business owners, journalists, or political supporters with no record of violence. Their common feature was perceived dissent. By labelling them extremists or terrorists, the system justified extraordinary cruelty and discouraged public sympathy.

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect is how normalised this violence became within institutions. Officers interviewed by the commission described torture as "routine" and enforced disappearances as "necessary".

Beyond individual suffering, the commission views enforced disappearances as a systematic practice of the previous regime rather than a series of isolated abuses. According to its findings, at least 1,900 complaints were formally reviewed, with 765 victims and family members directly interviewed.

The commission estimates that the actual number of enforced disappearances during the 15-year rule could be two to three times higher, as many families never filed complaints due to fear, stigma, or loss of hope. Enforced disappearance, the report concludes, functioned as a tool of governance — used selectively but consistently to manage dissent.

The profile of those disappeared reveals clear patterns. Most victims were men in their 20s to 40s, politically active or perceived as politically inconvenient. They included opposition party supporters, student leaders, grassroots organisers, journalists, small business owners, and professionals. 

While some were accused of militancy, the report finds that many had no prior criminal records. Their common denominator was not violence but visibility — people who could mobilise others, speak publicly, or challenge local power structures.

Timing also mattered. The Commission documents spikes in enforced disappearances around politically sensitive moments: national elections, major opposition movements, and periods of mass protest. Abductions increased notably before the 2014 and 2018 elections. 

Based on the report, the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances clearly shows that torture and inhumane detention were systematic tools used by state agencies to suppress dissent. These practices — encompassing physical, psychological, and sexualised abuse — were strategically deployed to extract confessions and eliminate political opposition. 

The institutionalisation of such tactics underscores how enforced disappearances formed part of a broader state strategy to control and silence opposition, particularly during politically sensitive periods.