Editorial
No forced disappearance is acceptable
Trace out the abductors immediately
What the Home Minister Shahara Khatun said in parliament on Wednesday about the victims of forced disappearance has shocked us, to say the least. In a reply to a lawmaker's query, she identified all disappeared victims as members of criminal gangs. Worse still, she dismissed outright the allegation that the abductors were plainclothesmen. On the other hand, she added that such incidents were triggered either by conflicting interests or by the motive of realizing ransom.
We are perturbed by the minister's statement because by identifying a victim as a criminal she is seeking to abdicate the government's responsibility to protect a citizen's basic rights. Every citizen whether he is a victim or a person with a clean track record, has a right to justice and it is the state's responsibility to protect that right. So if someone is found guilty of a crime, he should be tried according to the existing laws of the country.
As reported in the media, quite a good number of the victims were not criminals besides the fact that their family members and close relatives alleged that the abductors were members of law enforcing agencies. Evidently, the minister's claim flies in the face of available facts. We think that by making such statements she is embarrassing not only the government but also any person who believes in the basic principles of human rights.
In this column we have repeatedly emphasized that any incident of forced disappearance is a violation of basic human rights. We have also noted that it is for the government to find out the real identities of the abductors. In this connection, we recall the human rights commission chairman Mizanur Rahman who complained of the concerned agencies' negligence in replying to the commission's queries about forced disappearance. We expect the government will wrap up investigations in all of these cases and put the culprits to trial quickly.
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