Dhaka, Bangladesh – For Bangladeshi indigenous rights activist Michael Chakma, every day of his five-year detention in a secret prison allegedly run by the country’s military intelligence was harrowing and filled with endless despair.
“There was no window and I had no way of telling the time, whether it was day or night. I was in a dark, enclosed space, and when the lights were turned on, it was too bright for me to see properly,” the 45-year-old told Al Jazeera. “Most of the time, I was handcuffed and shackled.”
Chakma was among more than 700 people, including top opposition figures and activists, who were forcibly disappeared by Bangladeshi authorities between January 2009 and June 2024 during Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year “autocratic” government, according to a leading rights NGO. . .
Of these, 83 victims were later found dead, some killed in “crossfire” with security forces, while more than 150 people went missing.
Haseena was Forced to resign and flee After millions of Bangladeshis led by neighboring India in July University studentsIt launched nationwide movement to demand her removal.
An interim government led by the country’s only Nobel laureate, Muhammad Yunus, has since taken over and, on August 29, formed a five-member commission headed by a former High Court judge to investigate the disappearances.
‘Thought they were going to kill me’
The Chakmas were picked up by armed men near the capital Dhaka in April 2019, allegedly for criticizing the government’s policy on the Chakma people, the largest of Bangladesh’s indigenous groups, who live mainly in the so-called Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT). Southeast Bangladesh.
The Chakma people are mostly Buddhist and have been opposing it for decades Possession of their land by Bengali settlers in the CHT region. Studies show that the Chakma population in the CHT declined from 91 percent in 1959 to 51 percent in 1991, as successive governments supported settlers, leading to rebellions by the Chakma people in the 1980s. Dhaka’s military response to the uprising saw serious human rights violations against the Chakma people, including widespread arrests, torture, extrajudicial killings, and enforced disappearances.
During her first term as prime minister in 1997, Hasina signed the CHT Accord, which recognized the Chakma people’s rights to their land, promised them greater autonomy and ended decades of insurgency. Her Awami League party hailed it as a landmark deal.
But Chakma was among many in his community who continued to criticize the 1997 deal, mainly over the army’s continued presence in the CHT region. He was allegedly abducted by security forces in 2019.
“My interrogators told me that criticizing the CHT Accord is tantamount to sedition because Hasina’s Awami League Party is the government and by extension, the government is the state. Therefore, one should not criticize the actions of [the] Awami League or Sheikh Hasina,” he told Al Jazeera.
For five years, Chakma was in solitary confinement where he said he feared he would never see the light of day again and would die in a small cell.
“I had absolutely no idea what was going on outside,” he said. “The prison guards never even told us whether it was day or night.”
However, Chakma was suddenly removed from his cell last month. He didn’t know why. “I was terrified. I thought they were going to kill me,” he said.
Blindfolded and restrained, he was put in a car and driven through the night. During the drive, he was overwhelmed by thoughts of his imminent death. “I was whispering to myself: ‘They’re going to kill me, they’re going to kill me’,” he said on stage, fearing a “crossfire” execution – a method he had long opposed during his activism for Chakma rights.
“When I was in that car, I was hoping they would at least kill me in the open, allowing me one last glimpse of the world,” he said. Instead, at the end of the night the car stopped in a forest and he heard a voice: “You are free.”
“I was instructed not to remove my blindfold for another half hour,” he told Al Jazeera.
When he finally opened his eyes, he found himself surrounded by teak trees. Feeling numb and struggling to process his sudden freedom, he wandered in the dark, uncertain of his location, until he saw a signpost that read: “Chattagram Forest Division”. Chittagong was renamed to Chattogram in 2018, but CHT retains the old name.
Realizing where he was, Chakma went to the highway and managed to hitch a ride with a passing car. “I reached home and reunited with my siblings. It was an incredibly emotional moment.”
‘The House of Mirrors’
Since Hasina’s fall, at least three victims, including Chakma, have been returned to their families. The other two are children of prominent leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami, Bangladesh’s largest Muslim party, which was banned by Hasina in 2013 for supporting Pakistani forces during the country’s 1971 liberation struggle. was lifted last month by the interim government headed by Yunus.
Former Brigadier General Abdullahi Aman Azmi is the son of late Jamaat leader Ghulam Azam, while Mir Ahmad bin Qasem is the younger son of Mir Qasem Ali, who was among dozens of Jamaat leaders executed by Hasina’s government during a sweeping crackdown on the Islamist party.
Local media reports say that Chakma, Azmi and Quasem were detained in Aynagar (“House of Mirrors”), a notorious network of secret prisons run by military intelligence. The prisons were first publicized in 2022 when Sweden-based investigative website Netra News interviewed two of its former detainees.
One of those detainees was former Lt. Col. Hasinur Rahman, who spent two years in a secret prison. “I was targeted for my social media posts in which I strongly criticized Hasina’s government for its corruption and violence,” Rahman, a decorated army officer, told Al Jazeera.
“It’s not just one place. There are many secret prisons which are collectively known as Iyanagar. This is essentially a network of secret facilities run by Army Intelligence to hold high-value political and other prisoners,” he said.
Mubashar Hasan, a researcher at the Department of Cultural Studies at the University of Oslo, was also held in the same prison for 44 days after he was abducted from Dhaka in 2017. He said the secret facilities functioned like fully functioning prisons.
Hasan, who was targeted for writings critical of Hasina’s government, said the secret prison also had medical facilities. “We were regularly checked by doctors who made sure we were alive,” he told Al Jazeera.
He added that he was ordered to remain silent about his abduction and detention. “They made a clear and direct threat: not only will they kidnap me again, but they will also harm my family members,” Hassan said.
‘Lucky to be alive’
A lawyer named Kasem was picked up by plainclothes police in 2016 and held in a windowless room. He told Al Jazeera that the constant hum of the large exhaust fan drowns out any noise from outside.
“Our health was monitored regularly. We got decent food, but enough to keep us alive – nothing more, nothing less,” he said.
Despite his efforts to connect with the prison guards through small talk, greetings and requests, he was informed that his superiors strictly forbade him to share any information about the outside world.
“I would ask the guards for time so I could pray, but they never responded,” he said. “At times, I would hear panicked voices and screams outside my cell. Gradually, I began to realize that there were other prisoners like me. It was a fully functioning prison.”
Like Chakma, Quasem was released during the night, instructed to remain blindfolded for half an hour. He was dropped off near a highway in Dhaka, where he walked for an hour until he reached a charity clinic where his father was once a trustee.
A staff member at the clinic recognized him and quickly informed his family, who rushed to reunite with him. “I feel lucky to be alive,” he said.
“Inside the prison, I had lost all hope of seeing my loved ones again. The conditions were so inhumane that it took away any sense of hope. We felt as if we were living like corpses.”
For years, the families of the forcibly disappeared suffered the agony of not knowing the fate of their loved ones.
“For eight years, we lived in uncertainty,” septuagenarian Ayesha Khatun told Al Jazeera about her son Xem. “We had no idea that Armaan [Quasem’s nickname] was alive Every moment in this state seemed like an eternity.
Quasem’s wife Tahmina Akhtar and their two daughters remember the day a group of men barged into their Dhaka apartment and demanded that Quasem come with them.
“Our daughters were crying and clinging to their father’s clothes,” the actor told Al Jazeera. “We never imagined that he would be missing for the next eight years. The agony of not knowing where a loved one is defies description.
When Khatoon was reunited with her son last month, she said it felt surreal. “It felt like a dream, and for a while, I wasn’t sure if it was really happening.”
‘grave injustice’
While Chakma and Kwasem have returned with their loved ones, many families of the forcibly disappeared continue to wait for any information about their relatives.
On 10 August, Mayer Dak, a rights group dedicated to combating enforced disappearances in Bangladesh, submitted a list of 158 missing persons to the Directorate General of Force Intelligence (DGFI), the headquarters of military intelligence.
Among those still missing is Ataur Rahman, a member of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), who was abducted from Dhaka in 2011. His wife, Nadira Sultana, and their children await his return.
Sultana joined other members of the disappeared family in a protest outside the DGFI headquarters in Dhaka on August 11 demanding information about her husband.
“My daughter, who has special needs, still believes her father is alive. I told her I would bring him back,” Nadira told Al Jazeera. “My children want their father back and I want my husband back.”
Mursheda Begum’s husband, Farooq Hussain, another BNP member, was abducted in 2012. She lodged several reports with the police and other security agencies, but got no help or information about Hussain.
Begum and her two daughters also protested outside the DGFI office with photos of Hussain. “Our lives are surrounded by uncertainty,” she told Al Jazeera.
Last week, Bangladesh’s interim government signed its accession to the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, an international United Nations convention aimed at ending the practice.
Mayor Dak’s coordinator Sanjida Islam Tuli praised the government’s decision to address the issue of Hasina’s long-running disappearance.
“The grave injustice of this disappearance must be exposed and prosecuted,” Tuli told Al Jazeera. “Many families are still waiting for their loved ones to return. They deserve answers.”
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