Enforced disappearance victim among BNP leaders jailed

Shajedul Islam Sumon, an opposition leader who, along with seven others, was a victim of enforced disappearance on December 4, 2013, was jailed for two years and a half in a case filed in 2013. Dhaka's Metropolitan Magistrate Sheikh Sadi awarded the jail sentence to seven, including Sumon, the then general secretary of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party's ward-25 unit, on Monday. His family members, along with a number of enforced disappearance victims, have launched the human rights platform Maayer Daak. Maayer Daak cofounder Sanjida Islam Tulee found the verdict ridiculous. 'Instead of finding out my brother, they are now making him a convict just to criminalise our movement,' she said. Sanjida alleges that a team of the Rapid Action Battalion abducted his brother and seven others from the Bashundhara Residential Area on December 4, 2013, and their whereabouts are not known as of now. The government launched several internal inquiries but could not reveal their whereabouts. Home minister Asaduzzaman Khan claimed in the past that many of the victims went into hiding to avoid arrest or face charges.
Published on: 2023-11-20 18:14:01.867143 +0100 CET