BNP has claimed 1,209 people were made disappeared since Awami League formed the government in 2009, of whom 781 were subjected to enforced disappearance by law enforcement agencies.
BNP Senior Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi made the statement on Friday, while speaking at a press conference in BNP’s Naya Paltan central office on the occasion of International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances.
He said those involved in such crimes against humanity will be brought to justice someday through proper investigations.
The BNP leader also said over a thousand leaders and activists of their party and its associate bodies, including M Ilias Ali, Saiful Islam Hiru, Chowdhury Alam, Humayun Kabir Parvez, Sumon, Jakir, Nizamuddin Munna, Tariqul Islam Jhantu, Adnan Chowdhury, Sohel, Khaled Hossain, Samrat Molla and Mahbub, are among the enforced disappearance victims.
“Many children are waiting with a hope of the safe return of their fathers while many parents are left worried over the fate of their missing sons,” he added.
Describing the enforced disappearance as a dangerous crime against humanity, he said it began in the country in 1972 with a political motive.
“It continues in Bangladesh with the same motive. The ruling party resorted to an inhuman program like enforced disappearance to annihilate democracy,” the BNP leader claimed.
Rizvi furthered: “The ruling party is using enforce disappearance as a weapon to eliminate opposition and alternative opinions, and suppress people’s voice to prolong its authoritarian one-party rule.
”Those involved in such brutal acts are comparable to ferocious animals.”
Accusing Awami League of introducing enforced disappearance in the country, he said: “It is impossible to make people disappeared without state patronage.”
Though the UN and global human rights bodies have repeatedly been calling upon the government to stop the enforced disappearance, the ruling party leaders and ministers are trashing the allegations of such incidents calling those a propaganda against the government, Rizvi added.
