Bangladesh disappeared: Uncovering a secret jail next to an international airport

A pair of underground prison cell were discovered when researchers broke through a hurriedly constructed walls.

It turned out to be a newly bricked-up doorway – an attempt to hide what lurked on.

To the right and left were two small rooms hidden off a narrow corridor. It was pitch-black.

Without the memories of Mir Ahmad Bin Quasem and others, the crew might never have discovered this secret prisons, which is just a stone’s put from Dhaka International Airport.

A writer of Bangladesh’s ousted president, he was held it for eight times.

He frequently relied on the sounds he could understand, and he recalls the noise of planes landing because he was blindfolded for a large portion of his moment in the prison.

That was what helped guide authorities to the military center near the airport. They discovered the smaller, strongly guarded, roofless structure made of brick and concrete that was located behind the compound’s principal building, which was where prisoners were kept.

It was hidden in plain sight.

Since the government’s ouster in August, when there were numerous demonstrations, authorities have spoken with hundreds of victims like Quasem and released prisoners from jails. Many others are alleged to have been killed unjustly.

According to researchers, the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), an elite counter-terrorism system that operated the secret jails, including the one across the road from Dhaka aircraft, were generally operating from Hasina.

” The officers concerned [said ] all the enforced disappearance cases have been done with the approval, permission or order by the prime minister herself,” Tajul Islam, the chief prosecutor for the International Crimes Tribunal of Bangladesh, told the BBC.

The military establishment operated only, according to Hasina’s party, and the alleged crimes were committed without the knowledge of the army, which the infantry rejects.

Seven decades on, Quasem and others may have been released, but they remain terrified of their prisoners, who are serving safety power individuals and are all still completely.

Quasem claims he always leaves his house without a helmet and mask.

” I always have to watch my back when I’m travelling. “”

He carefully ascends a journey of practical measures to reveal the location of his confinement to the BBC. Pushing through a large metal door, he bends his head lower and goes through another small doorway into “his” place, the body where he was held for eight times.

He tells the BBC,” It felt like being buried alive and completely disconnected from the outside earth.” There were no windows and no windows to natural lighting. When he was outside, he couldn’t distinguish between the day and the night.

Quasem, a lawyer in his 40s, has done discussions before but this is the first moment he has taken the internet for a thorough look inside the small body where he was held.

It is so tiny that an average-sized people may have trouble standing up straight when it was lit by torchlight. It smells smelly. In a last-ditch attempt by the offenders to destroy any evidence of their crimes, some of the rooms have been damaged, and pieces of brick and concrete have been scattered on the ground.

“[This ] is one detention centre. We have discovered that there are more than 500, 600, and 700 organisms spread out throughout the nation. This shows that this was common and comprehensive,” says Islam, the attorney, who accompanied the BBC on the attend to the prison.

Quantum even vividly recalls the flimsy azure tiles from his cell, which were left in pieces on the floor and led researchers to this particular area. In comparison to the cells on the ground floor, this one is much larger, at 10ft x 14ft ( 3m x 4. 3 m ). There is a squatting potty off to one side.

Quasem describes in terrible information how he spent his time while he was a prisoner of war. He walks around the space. During the summer, it was extremely popular. To get some air, he may crouch on the floor and place his mouth as close as possible to the porch.

” It felt worse than dying,” he says.

Returning to experience his sentence seems violent. But Quasem believes it is important for the world to see what was done.

The top officials who aided and supported the totalitarian program are still in their positions, he claims.

” We need to find our account up, and do whatever we can to ensure fairness for those who didn’t profit, and to help those who are surviving to recover into existence. “”

Previous reports said he was kept inside a notorious detention facility – known as Aynaghor, or “House of Mirrors” – inside the main intelligence headquarters in Dhaka, but investigators now believe there were many such sites.

Quasem claimed to have spent all of his time detained at the Ben bottom, with the exception of the first 16 days. Investigators then suspect the primary site was a policeman tree of police in Dhaka.

He believes he was disappeared because of his family’s politics. In 2016 he’d been representing his father, a senior member of the country’s largest Islamist party, the Jamaat-e-Islami, who was on trial and later hanged.

Five other people who were speaking to the BBC described being confined to gloomy material cells with no access to the outside world and being blindfolded and handcuffed. In many cases they say they were beaten and abused.

Nearly all of the people who claim to be afraid that one moment will bump into a kidnapper on the street or on a vehicle can be independently verified by the BBC.

” Now, whenever I get into a car or I’m only at home, I feel scared thinking about where I was,” Atikur Rahman Rasel, 35, says. I’m not sure how I managed to survive, or whether I was actually meant to.

He says his head was broken and his hand is still terrible. They abused me and hit me a bit, they said. “”

Rasel says he was approached by a group of people outside a mosque in Dhaka’s old town next July, as anti-government demonstrations raged. They claimed he had to accompany them because they were rules protection.

The second minute, he was taken into a dark vehicles, handcuffed, hooded and blindfolded. He was taken out of the vehicle forty minutes later, escorted into a tower, and placed in a room.

” After about half an hour, people started coming in one by one and asking questions. Who are you, exactly? What do you do? Therefore the whippings began, he claims.

” Being in that position was terrifying. I believed I had never leave. “”

Rasel currently resides with his sister and her husband. Sitting on a dining head in her straight in Dhaka, he describes his days in prison in detail. He speaks with much feeling and appears to be uninterested in his field.

He too believes his detention was politically motivated because he was a student leader with the rival Bangladesh Nationalist Party ( BNP ), of which his father was a senior member. His brother, who was from another country, would often criticize Hasina on social media.

Rasel says there was no way of knowing where he was held. However, after seeing time head Muhammad Yunus visit three detention facilities earlier this year, he believes he was kept in the Agargaon district of Dhaka.

It was an available solution that Hasina had no compassion for political dissent. Previous prisoners, opponents, and investigators claim that criticizing her could lead to your disappearance without trace.

But the total number of people who went missing may not be obvious.

At least 709 persons who were forcibly disappeared have been documented by a Bangladeshi NGO that has tracked enforced kidnappings since 2009. Among them, 155 citizens remain missing. More than 1,676 problems from alleged victims have been received by the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances since its creation in September, and more people are still coming forth.

But that doesn’t reflect the full amount, which is believed to be substantially higher.

Tajul Islam can bring a case against Sheikh Hasina and other people who are responsible for the incarceration centers through conversations with people like Quasem.

Despite being held at various locations, the tale of victims is oddly related.

Hasina’s Awami League party’s director Mohammad Ali Arafat denies any role. He says if people were violently disappeared, it was not done under the path of Hasina- who remains in India, where she fled- or anyone in her case.

According to Arafat, “if any such detention had taken place, it would have been as a result of sophisticated internal military dynamics.” ” I see [no ] political benefit for the Awami League or for the government to keep these people in secret detention. “”

The government’s chief official said it “has no understanding of the items being implied”.

Lt Col Abdullah Ibn Zaid told the BBC,” The military categorically denies operating any such confinement centers.”

Tajul Islam believes the people held in these prison are proof of Awami League presence. ” All the persons who were detained these were from different political backgrounds, and that’s why they were brought around. They only raised their voices against the previous government, the current government. “”

122 incarceration permits have been issued so far, but no one has yet been charged.

Which is why patients like Iqbal Chowdhury, 71, believe their life are still in danger. Chowdhury wishes to depart from Bangladesh. For years after he was released in 2019, he didn’t leave his house, not perhaps to go to the business. Chowdhury’s captors warned him not to mention his confinement.

” If you ever disclose where you were or what happened, and if you are taken again, no one will ever consider or see you again. You will vanish from this earth, he claims he was told.

Accused of writing advertising against India and the Awami League, Chowdhury says that is why he was tortured.

I was beaten as well as bodily assaulted with an electrical shock. Now one of my hands is seriously damaged by the electrical shock. I lost the strength of my legs and my body. ” He remembers the sound of people being actually tortured, grown people howling and crying in horror.

Chowdhury says,” I am also scared.

Rashmatullah, 23, is likewise terrified. ” They took away a time and a half of my life. Those days will never be forgotten, he claims. ” They made me sleep in a location where a human being should not even be. “”

On 29 August 2023, he was taken from his home at midnight by Ben soldiers, some in uniform and people dressed in simple attire. While he was training to become an engineer, he was working as a kitchen in a nearby village.

After repeated interviews, it became apparent to Rahmatullah he was being violently detained for his anti-India and Muslim messages on social media. He sketches the design of his body, including the open drain he would use to reduce himself, using pen and paper.

” Even thinking about that area in Dhaka makes me feel awful. I had to go to bed getting curled up because there wasn’t room to lay down properly. I don’t stretch my legs while lying down. “”

The BBC even interviewed two different past prisoners – Michael Chakma and Masrur Anwar – to confirm some of the information about the secret prison and what is alleged to have gone on inside them.

Some of the victims ‘ punishments left behind physical scars. All of them talk about the emotional pain that follows them everywhere they go.

Bangladesh attempts to resurrect itself from decades of authoritarian law at a crucial time in its history. A critical evaluation of the region’s progress towards democracy will be its ability to hold a good test for the culprits of these crimes.

Islam thinks it can and may occur. ” We must prevent the recurrence of this type of crime for our future years. And we must pay the survivors justice. They suffered a bit. “”

Standing in what remains of his material body, Quasem says a test may take place as soon as possible so the region is near this book.

It’s not that easy for Rahmatullah.

” The fear has not gone away. The anxiety will persist as long as I live. “”