
The Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances鈥� second interim report showed that the median spending of each of the reappeared enforced disappearance victims during the Awami League regime was around Tk 7,00,000 as they had to fight fabricated cases.
Half of the victims spent more than this, and half spent less, according to a part of the report submitted to chief adviser professor Muhammad Yunus on June 4 and shared by the chief adviser鈥檚 press wing on Monday.
Referring to the Household Income and Expenditure Survey 2022 conducted by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, the report said that a family in Bangladesh earned an average of about Tk 3,00,000 a year.
鈥楾hat means, most families in this sample spent more than two years鈥� worth of income by way of legal costs. Many spent even more鈥攕ome as much as five or six years鈥� income鈥攋ust to try to get justice,鈥� the report said.
The incidents of these enforced disappearances occurred during the Awami League regime between January 6, 2009 and August 5, 2024.
The procedural coercion was not only emotionally and reputationally damaging, it also imposed a severe financial burden on victims and their families, it said and added that this level of financial burden was聽 debilitating for low- and middle-income households.
The report said that the victims鈥� families were forced to sell assets, borrow from informal lenders, and fall into prolonged cycles of debt, compounding the trauma of the initial rights violation with sustained economic hardships.
鈥楻ather than offering relief, the justice process often imposes further suffering on the families who have already endured significant loss,鈥� the report said.
The commission said that it had received a total of 1,837 complaints related to enforced disappearances and, following a first round of review, 1,772 of these complaints entered into the commission鈥檚 database as active cases.
Among these active cases, 1,427 victims have surfaced alive, and 345 individuals remain missing till date.
The commission member Nabila Idris told 抖阴精品 that about 80 per cent of the enforced disappearance victims who reappeared alive had to spend such an amount. 鈥楳any had to spend more than that.鈥�
The report said that psychological toll, physical exhaustion, and financial burden of this process were immeasurable.
鈥楳any victims鈥攁 large number still in their primes鈥攕pend years shuttling between courtrooms, required to appear before magistrates on a regular basis as part of routine bail conditions. If multiple cases have been filed against them, they may be summoned several times a month, often having to travel from one end of the country to the other to comply,鈥� the report said.聽
According to the report, the Anti-Terrorism Act 2009 stands out as the most frequently invoked law, with 198 victims facing charges under it, far more than any other legislation, followed by 51 under the Explosive Substances Act 1884, and 43 under the Arms Act 1878.
Fewer cases were filed under the Information and Communication Technology Act 2006 and nine under its successor the Digital Security Act 2018 and eight under the Special Powers Act 1974.
The over-reliance on broad national security and criminal statutes, such as the Anti-Terrorism Act, suggests a pattern of systemic criminalisation, often without regard for individualised evidence, said the report.