Enforced disappearances in Bangladesh

Enforced disappearances in Bangladesh are cases in which the Government of Bangladesh directly or indirectly kidnaps people and holds them incommunicado. According to a Dhaka-based human rights group Odhikar, at least 402 people have become victim of enforced disappearance from 2009 to 2017 under the current Awami League administration. These incidents along with extrajudicial killings in Bangladesh has been criticized by The United Nations and human rights groups including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), a special paramilitary unit in Bangladesh, is alleged to be behind most of these disappearances even though RAB claimed these allegations to be false. The current Awami League government denies involvement in these forced disappearances even when victims later surface in custody.

According to the report of a domestic human rights organization, 82 people were forcefully disappeared from January to September in 2014. The activists and leaders of opposition parties constitute the majority of the victims. After the disappearances, at least 39 of the victims were found dead while others remained missing. Before the controversial national election of 2014, at least 20 opposition men were picked up by the security forces. At least 89 people have been victims of enforced disappearances in 2016.

In 2016, the families of the victims of enforced disappearance in Bangladesh founded a platform Mayer Daak to press their demand to know the whereabouts of their loved ones who disappeared under mysterious situation. On August 14, 2022, Netra News, which is blocked in Bangladesh, published a whistleblower report alleging that Bangladesh officials were holding and torturing victims of enforced disappearances at Aynaghar, a secret detention facility (house of mirrors).