Staff Correspondent

The Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearance Saturday submitted its first interim report to Chief Adviser Prof Muhammad Yunus.

Led by retired justice Mainul Islam Chowdhury, the five-member commission handed over the report titled “Unfolding The Truth” to the chief adviser at the state guesthouse Jamuna in Dhaka.

Mainul Islam said they found the prima facie involvement of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina and some high-ranking officials of security forces and her government, including her defence adviser, Maj Gen (retd) Tarique Ahmed Siddique, in the enforced disappearances.

It also found the involvement of the former director general of the National Telecommunication Monitoring Centre and sacked Maj Gen Ziaul Ahsan, senior police officers Monirul Islam and Md Harun-Or-Rashid in several incidents of enforced disappearance.

The commission said they already recorded a total of 1,676 complaints of enforced disappearances, while 758 complaints have already been scrutinised. It estimates the number of enforced disappearances in the country would cross 3,500.

The commission recommended disbanding the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB).

While submitting the report, the commission chairman said they found a "systematic design" so that the incidence of enforced disappearances remains undetected.

The commission also found that forces exchanged the victims and operations were deliberately segmented, he said.

Individuals carrying out enforced disappearance or extrajudicial killing lacked knowledge about victims, he said.

Mainul said they would deliver another interim report in March and would require at least another year to complete the scrutiny of all allegations they had received.

Chief Adviser Prof Yunus thanked the commission for submitting the interim report and promised all possible support in accomplishing the job.

"You are doing a really very important job. We are ready to give you all kinds of support that you need."

The chief adviser said he would visit some of the Aynaghar, or secret detention centres and joint interrogation cells detected by the commission to get a firsthand knowledge about the sufferings of the victims.

Commission members Justice Farid Ahmed Shibli, human rights activist Nur Khan, BRAC University teacher Nabila Idris, and human rights activist Sajjad Hossain, interim government’s advisory council members Adilur Rahman Khan and Sharmeen S Murshid, Principal Secretary to Chief Adviser Md Siraj Uddin Mia, and Press Secretary Shafiqul Alam were present at the meeting, among others.