Chilling details have emerged from a secret underground jail in Bangladesh, raising serious concerns over how former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina treated her critics.
Since Hasina’s regime began in 2009, hundreds of people have reportedly been taken by security forces, often for minor demonstrations against the state.
While many are said to have been killed and their bodies discarded, others have been held in a secret military detention center known as the ‘Aynaghor,’ literally translated as ‘House of Mirrors,’ according to The New York Times.
Who were the inmates
Hasina, who fled to New Delhi after student protests in the country which turned violent, was once seen as a symbol of democratic aspirations, only to be transformed into an autocratic leader using state power to eliminate any threats to her rule.
From advocates to tribal leaders, anybody who questioned the Awami League was on Hasina’s radar.
Many who disappeared are still, unaccounted for, leaving their families without any closure despite enduring years of government crackdowns and intimidation while holding vigils and protests.
“What we want is an answer — what happened?” said Tasnim Shipraa, whose uncle Belal Hossain vanished in 2013. “It’s almost like he never existed in this world,” NYT reported quoting Shipraa.
They yearn for the return of their sons and brothers, like the other three prisoners who have reappeared. If that isn’t possible, they seek justice to help heal their own wounds and those of their nation.
‘What is my crime?, they ‘d say, ill-intentioned politics’
Michael Chakma, a tribal rights activist, was released in a jungle in August after being driven blindfolded for several hours, said that for the “first time I saw daylight in five years,” and he “was trying to double-check if I was just imagining this light or if it was real.”
When he asked his oppressors “What is my crime? What have I done? What am I guilty of?,” Chamka, who had been advocating for self-governance for Bangladesh’s Indigenous hill communities, received a reply that he had “ill-intentioned politics in relation to the Awami League government.”
Abdullahil Amaan Azmi, a distinguished former army general, was taken away, reportedly due to his father’s status as a senior Islamist leader.
Recalling his detention, Azmi said, “I did not see God’s sky, the sun, the grass, the moon, the trees.”
He was released from military prison in August after spending eight years in captivity, during which he estimated he was blindfolded and handcuffed around 41,000 times.