Enforced disappearance: 155 people still missing

Odhikar has released a list of 155 people who still remain missing after being forcibly disappeared. Most of the victims are ordinary civilians.
Only 58 of them were identified to have links with politics.
The rights organisation has also logged 709 incidents of enforced disappearance that took place between 2009 and 2024.
Data released on Friday shows that about 66 percent of the victims were returned alive, while 12 percent were killed. The bodies of the deceased were found later.
Among those 155 missing are 35 BNP leaders and activists, 18 Awami League men, four Jamaat-e-Islami and Shibir activists, and a former Chhatra Union leader.
Profession-wise, students make up the largest group of the victims, with 36 of them still missing.
In addition, there is no trace of 29 businesspeople, contractors, and traders who were picked up.
The pre-election year of 2013 was the worst year for enforced disappearance, with 33 victims picked up that year still remaining missing, shows data.
The election year of 2017 logged 17 such victims about whom there is still no trace.
The year 2021 was the last year when a victim was picked up and forcibly disappeared. In December that year, the US imposed sanctions on the Rab. All those people picked up and arbitrarily detained after that year returned.
Out of the 155 victims, 70 were picked up by the Rab, 42 by the police’s Detective Branch, and three other jointly by the Rab and the DB. In addition, 22 were picked up by agencies who could not be identified.
“No perpetrator, including law enforcement agencies and especially those with command responsibilities, should be exempt from the rule of law,” Odhikar said in a joint statement in commemoration of the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances 2024.
The other signatories of the statement include Anti-Death Penalty Asia Network, the Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances, the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development, Capital Punishment Justice Project, the International Coalition Against Enforced Disappearances, the International Federation for Human Rights, Mayer Daak, Robert F Kennedy Human Rights, and the World Organisation Against Torture.