The year 2016, when the Awami League was in power, recorded the highest number of reported enforced disappearances, according to the interim report of the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances.
The commission said it has received 1,676 complaints of enforced disappearances as of submitting the report to Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus yesterday (14 December).
While the commission, formed on 27 August this year – 22 days after the ouster of Sheikh Hasina amid a mass uprising, estimated the number of enforced disappearances in the country would cross 3,500, it could scrutinise 758 of them as of submitting its first interim report yesterday.
At least 17% or 130 of these 758 disappearances took place in 2016 alone, and 27% of the victims still remain missing to this day, according to the data disclosed in the report.
The interim report, however, did not mention any specific reason behind such a sharp rise in the number of enforced disappearances in 2016.
The second-highest number of enforced disappearances in a year – 89 – took place in 2018, followed by 84 in 2017, 78 in 2015 and 73 in 2013.
Meanwhile, the 2016 Annual Report of the Ain O Salish Kendra (ASK) reported 152 cases of enforced disappearances in 2015 and 2016.
According to that report, 92 of the victims were never traced and presumed dead, while 19 were traced but found dead, 33 were traced but shown under arrest, and only eight returned to the family.
The ASK report also mentioned the law and order situation of the country deteriorated in 2016 with the killing of foreign nationals at the Holey Artisan bakery and a bomb explosion in the biggest Eid congregation in Sholakia, Kishoreganj in the first week of July.
