Bangladesh finds infamous ‘secret’ detention center at intelligence headquarters

By Ahmad Foyez

A new investigative committee in Bangladesh said on Thursday it had found a notorious “secret” detention center at the military intelligence headquarters that people released from its 22 cells had spoken about chillingly.

The detention center operated during the rule of deposed former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and was run from the Dhaka headquarters of the Directorate General of Intelligence (DGFI), which has no legal authority to detain anyone, committee member Sazzad Hossain said.

“During the visit (September 25) we found similarities with the description of the victims,” Sazzad told a news conference in the Bangladesh capital.

“Some changes were made, many pieces of evidence were destroyed and most importantly they erased prisoners’ writings on the wall by painting over them.”

The Commission on Enforced Disappearances was set up in August after Hasina resigned as prime minister and fled the country, to gather information and details about incidents of enforced disappearances during her government, which has ruled Bangladesh continuously since 2009.

Some of the hundreds of disappeared people were freed from captivity after Hasina resigned on August 5. They described how they had been held for very long periods in dark and damp cells, where thick walls kept out all sound.

Security officials dubbed this center with its pitch-black cells “Aynaghor,” meaning House of Mirrors, according to a Deutsche-Welle documentary that claimed they existed. Thereafter it was known in common parlance as “Aynaghor”.

The mass movement that led Hasina to quit was seen as an indictment of her nearly fifteen consecutive years as prime minister. During her time in power, she suppressed dissent, allowed state institutions to do their work, and stubborn critics of her rule disappeared or were snatched away as suspected victims of enforced disappearances.

According to rights group Odhikar, at least 708 people were victims of enforced disappearance between 2009 and June 2024.

For years, a range of domestic and international human rights groups, including organizations under the United Nations, had expressed deep concern over allegations of enforced disappearances and the lack of judicial safeguards.

The Commission on Enforced Disappearance, which was announced on August 27 and has been operational since mid-September, has filed hundreds of cases of enforced disappearance in just under two weeks of its establishment, said its chairman, Moyeenul Islam Chowdhury, who convened the press conference. Thursday.

“We received a total of 400 complaints in 13 working days between September 15 and October 2,” he said.

“We have already recorded statements from 75 people, including the victims and the families of the victims,” he said, also referring to some victims who disappeared but returned.

Most of them said they were picked up by the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), the Detective Branch (DB) of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police and Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC), Moyeneel said.

“Not all kidnappings were enforced disappearances, but all enforced disappearances were kidnappings,” he said.

Among the 75 people whose statements they recorded were an opposition politician and a suspended military general, who had gone missing but returned.

“There are three types of victims. Those who returned after disappearing for days to years, some are still missing and some have been sent to prison after several months of disappearance,” said another committee member, Nur Khan Liton, a human rights activist.

The commission did not say how many of the 400 complaints received were from returning victims.

“We are now receiving some complaints from victims and their families who have not previously contacted any rights groups. So we think the number of victims of enforced disappearances may be higher than some rights groups had collected data, he said.

The October 10 deadline for submitting its reports is likely to be extended, the committee chairman said.

In addition, he said the committee would recommend that the interim government amend the criminal code, which does not contain provisions on enforced disappearances.

When BenarNews contacted Thursday with questions about the now-empty detention center, the military’s Inter-Services Public Relations office declined comment.