The Bangladeshi authorities should immediately comply with a July 12, 2026 court order to investigate the alleged disappearance of 30-year-old Miraj Sheikh, who was last seen in the custody of Bangladesh Coast Guard, in what appears to be the first known enforced disappearance case in two years, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Monday.
The government should also reverse its decision to scrap reforms aimed at preventing enforced disappearances and instead ensure accountability by security forces, it said.
“Thousands of people were subjected to enforced disappearance during Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year rule, and this latest case shows that without genuine reforms they can happen again,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, deputy Asia director at HRW.
“It is clear that these practices have become entrenched in Bangladeshi security agencies, and the new government, which has pledged reform, should ensure safeguards, institutional reforms, and accountability,” she said.
Under the previous government, which was toppled by protests in 2024, enforced disappearances became endemic.
The government should also reverse its decision to scrap reforms aimed at preventing enforced disappearances and instead ensure accountability by security forces, it said.
“Thousands of people were subjected to enforced disappearance during Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year rule, and this latest case shows that without genuine reforms they can happen again,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, deputy Asia director at HRW.
“It is clear that these practices have become entrenched in Bangladeshi security agencies, and the new government, which has pledged reform, should ensure safeguards, institutional reforms, and accountability,” she said.
Under the previous government, which was toppled by protests in 2024, enforced disappearances became endemic.
This led the interim government that governed Bangladesh between August 2024 and elections in February 2026 to adopt the National Human Rights Commission Ordinance in November 2025.
The ordinance provided for independent investigations of enforced disappearances and the power to inspect any detention facility without requiring a court order.
However, the newly elected Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) government allowed the ordinance to expire and proposed a new law that would bar the Human Rights Commission from investigating alleged rights violations by security forces, the HRW said.
On the night of April 10, 2026, multiple witnesses reportedly saw Coast Guard officers detain Miraj Sheikh, a fisherman in Joymonir Ghol near the Sundarbans in Mongla of Bagerhat, and take him away by speedboat, it said.
The following day, his family went to the Coast Guard office in Digraj, Mongla, where they were initially told he was “on an operation” and to return that afternoon. When they did, the Coast Guard told them he had never been there.
On April 21, the owner of the tea stall where Miraj Sheikh was allegedly seized—and where his motorcycle had been left—said a man identifying himself as a Coast Guard member came to the shop, unlocked the motorcycle, and took it away. The tea stall owner said Coast Guard personnel returned it the following day.
“The witnesses explained the situation and time of disappearance, and how the coastguard members took him away,” the family’s lawyer, Muzahedul Islam Shahin, told Human Rights Watch.
Miraj’s family has filed a complaint, held a news conference, and written to multiple government officials with no results, the HRW said.
On July 12, after his father filed a habeas corpus petition, the High Court ordered law enforcement agencies to find the missing fisherman and produce him before the court within 15 days, it said.
