Nearly five months after Miraj Sheikh disappeared from Mongla, the government says it has no information about his whereabouts and denies that security forces are holding him.

On Tuesday night, however, BNP lawmaker Azizul Bari Helal suddenly said that Miraj Sheikh is “with the police”.

The Khulna-4 MP made the claim during journalist Khaled Mohiuddin’s online programme, immediately raising questions over where Miraj was being held and why he had not been produced before a court.

Helal has since retracted the statement.

“That was a mistake. I apologise for my unintentional error,” he told Daily Waadaa in a message, adding that he corrected himself during a subsequent appearance on BanglaVision.

The retraction, however, has done little to clear up the confusion surrounding a disappearance that has remained unexplained for nearly five months.

Mongla police chief Atikur Rahman told Waadaa that police had no information about Miraj.

“I didn’t watch that show,” he said. “We don’t have any information regarding Miraj Sheikh.”

Waadaa also sought clarification from Police Headquarters and Home Ministry officials before Helal acknowledged his mistake, but received no response.

For Miraj’s family, the episode has added another conflicting account to an already bewildering case.

His sister Liza Islam spoke to Waadaa after returning from Bagerhat, where she, her mother and sister-in-law had appeared in court in a case filed by the Coast Guard. The three women had spent 27 days in jail in connection with the case.

Liza said the family had no way of knowing whether Helal’s initial statement was based on information he had received or was simply an error.

“I don’t understand anything. Look at the situation we are in. I still haven’t found any trace of my brother. The home minister said one thing the other day, and now this MP is saying something else,” she said.

“We are in deep distress. What are we supposed to understand about what the government is actually trying to say?”

But if Miraj is in police custody, Liza said, the family’s demand is straightforward: produce him before a court.

“Of course he should be produced. He must be produced in court. If he is in police custody, then let that come out,” she said.

“He was taken by the Coast Guard. If the Coast Guard handed him over to the police, or if he is in some police station, then this needs to come out now. So much has happened. If he is with the police, why would they still keep him like this?”

Miraj’s family has consistently alleged that Coast Guard personnel took him on April 10. The Coast Guard denies detaining him.

In July, the High Court ordered authorities to locate Miraj and produce him before the court. Human Rights Watch has described his case as the first reported enforced disappearance in Bangladesh since the fall of Sheikh Hasina’s government.

Helal’s now-retracted statement does not establish that Miraj was ever in police custody. But it has introduced another version of events into a case in which the government has yet to publicly establish what happened to him.

Dr Nabila Idris, a former member of the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances, said the conflicting accounts underscored the need for an independent investigation.

“The government is now in an embarrassing position,” she told Waadaa, arguing that different accounts from people at different levels were making it difficult for the authorities to provide a coherent explanation.

An independent investigation with sufficient authority could establish what happened and make its findings public, she said.

“Then the government would not have to take responsibility for these individual actions,” Idris said.

If wrongdoing occurred, she added, it might involve only a small number of individuals. There could also be mitigating circumstances that have not yet emerged.

“But the opportunity to establish those circumstances is not being given,” she said. “The whole force would not have to be put in an embarrassing position.”

That was why calls for an independent investigation had persisted, she said.

“It protects the victims, but it also protects the government.”

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