‘This is a clearly established case of enforced disappearance involving a security force’: Nur Khan Liton

Renowned human rights activist Noor Khan Liton has said the police are institutionally ill-equipped to investigate alleged enforced disappearances or other serious abuses involving members of fellow law-enforcement agencies.

Speaking at a programme at the National Press Club on Monday, Liton, a former member of the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances, called for such investigations to be entrusted to the National Human Rights Commission or another independent body.

“One force is not mentally or institutionally prepared to disclose another force’s weaknesses or possible involvement in crimes,” he said. “In Bangladesh’s present reality, it is extremely difficult for the police to investigate allegations against another force.”

Liton cited the case of Miraj Sheikh, a motorcycle rider and fisherman who was allegedly picked up by plainclothes Coast Guard personnel from outside a tea stall near his village home on April 10, 2026.

Several local people witnessed Miraj being taken away, he said, arguing that the incident should not be described merely as a case of a missing person.

“This is a clearly established case of enforced disappearance involving a security force,” Liton said, referring to findings by several rights groups and a Human Rights Watch report stating that Miraj was last seen in Coast Guard custody.

Miraj’s family repeatedly attempted to file a general diary with police but was initially turned away, Liton alleged. Police eventually registered a GD on April 23, but it stated only that Miraj had gone missing from his home.

“That was a constructed and misleading account,” he said. “People saw him being taken from outside a tea stall.”

According to Liton, members of the agency concerned initially spoke several times with Miraj’s wife, Mukta Khatun, and acknowledged having him in their custody. Some of those calls lasted nine or 10 minutes, he said.

Although the conversations were not recorded, Mukta retained details of when the calls occurred and whom she spoke to. The government could retrieve the call records and determine what was discussed between her and Coast Guard personnel, Liton added.

The authorities began denying custody of Miraj two or three days after he was taken, he said.

Liton accused the police of failing to make any investigation findings public. He said inquiries conducted by one security agency into allegations against another often remained internal, preventing victims’ families and the public from learning what had happened.

Human Rights Support Society, BLAST and Ain o Salish Kendra have conducted fact-finding inquiries into Miraj’s disappearance, he said.

A writ petition was subsequently filed with the High Court by Advocate Mujahidul Islam Shaheen. The court directed the respondents to produce Miraj and disclose his whereabouts within 15 working days, but no report has yet been submitted, according to Liton.

He said the court recently granted the authorities additional time and asked the deputy attorney general concerned to communicate with the government respondents to secure the report promptly.

Liton said the case involved direct violations of Bangladesh’s arrest and detention procedures. Under the law, a person arrested over a specific allegation must be produced before a court through the relevant police station.

Amendments to the Code of Criminal Procedure in 2026 also require arresting officers to disclose their identities, explain the allegations against the detainee and inform the family about the arrest and the place of detention, he said.

“None of those requirements was followed in Miraj’s case,” Liton said.

He also criticised the government’s proposed human rights legislation for failing to empower the National Human Rights Commission to investigate enforced disappearances.

An earlier ordinance had granted the commission such authority but was not subsequently enacted into law, he said. Although the government has promised a stronger law and the Cabinet has approved a new proposal, the draft excludes the commission’s power to investigate disappearances.

Liton called for the proposed law to be amended, warning that internal investigations without public accountability could allow enforced disappearances to continue despite formal legal reforms.

“We do not want a return to a system in which people are disappeared, an agency claims to be investigating, and the public never sees the report,” he said.

He urged the state and its law-enforcement agencies to return Miraj to his family “alive, unharmed and in good health.”

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