29 August 2024, Thu, 1:16

'International Day of the victims of the enforced disappearances on 30th August

Jamaat Ameer calls for bringing the missing persons back to their families

-Dr. Shafiqur Rahman

Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami’s Ameer Dr. Shafiqur Rahman has issued the following statement on 29th August.

“30th August is the 'International Day of the victims of the enforced disappearances. According to the information of various national and international human rights organizations and agencies, during the 15-and-a-half-year rule of the fascist Awami League government, which has been overthrown recently following a popular revolution of the students, more than 700 people of different classes and professions, including leaders and workers of the opposition political parties, students, teachers, intellectuals, lawyers, journalists, businessmen, went missing.

Foreigners are also concerned about the issue of 'missing' or abducted people in Bangladesh. In August 2022, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet visited Bangladesh. Besides, the United Nations Human Rights Council's Working Group on Enforced Disappearances had handed over a list of missing persons to the Bangladesh government at various times.

After the collapse of the Hasina-led government, the former Brigadier General Abdullahil Aman Azmi, the son of former Jamaat Ameer Professor Ghulam Azam, and the son of former executive council member of Jamaat-e-Islami, Shaheed Mir Quasem Ali, and a Supreme Court lawyer Barrister Mir Ahmad Bin Quasem Arman have been released after 8 years. Jamaat leader Hafez Zakir Hussain, Islami University students and Islami Chhatrashibir leaders Al Muqaddas and Mohammad Oliullah and BNP leader Mr. Ilyas Ali and former commissioner Chowdhury Alam are still missing.

Families of missing and abducted persons are living in extreme anxiety and fear. Their repeated appeals to the Sheikh Hasina-led government to return the missing persons to their families have yielded no result.

The interim government constituted a 5-member commission to trace the missing persons. The government formed the commission under section 3 of the Commissions of Inquiry Act, 1956. This newly formed commission has been asked to submit the investigation report to the government within the next 45 working days.

We hope that the current interim government will quickly find out the missing persons and return them back to their families immediately and subsequently will arrest and punish those persons, who were involved in the incidents of enforced disappearances.”