HRW Urges Bangladesh to Launch Immediate Probe into First Enforced Disappearance in Two Years

When Miraj Sheikh, a 30‑year‑old fisherman from the Sundarbans‑adjacent town of Mongla, vanished after allegedly being taken by Coast Guard officers, the incident sparked a rare outcry. It’s the first case of an alleged enforced disappearance that has surfaced in Bangladesh in the past two years, and Human Rights Watch (HRW) is now publicly urging the government to act – and act fast.

On July 12, 2026, Bangladesh’s High Court issued a habeas‑corpus order, telling law‑enforcement agencies to locate Miraj and bring him before the court within 15 days. HRW says the order has been ignored, and the family’s pleas – a complaint, a news conference, letters to multiple officials – have met with silence. “The court’s directive must be obeyed,” says Meenakshi Ganguly, HRW’s deputy Asia director, adding that the case “reveals how fragile the reforms introduced after the 2024 protests really are.”

To understand why this matters, you have to look back. Under the long‑standing Awami League rule, especially during Sheikh Hasina’s 15‑year tenure, enforced disappearances became a grim, almost routine, part of the security‑agency playbook. An interim administration that took power after mass protests in 2024 tried to change that. In November 2025 it adopted the National Human Rights Commission Ordinance, a piece of legislation that gave the commission power to launch independent investigations and to inspect detention sites without a court order.

But the new Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) government, elected in February 2026, let that ordinance lapse. Instead, it has floated a draft law that would actually strip the Human Rights Commission of the authority to probe alleged abuses by security forces. “Without genuine safeguards, the same pattern will repeat,” Ganguly warned.

International law adds another layer. Enforced disappearance, as defined by the United Nations, is the secret arrest or abduction of a person by state actors, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or to reveal the fate of the missing. Bangladesh’s interim government signed the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance in August 2024, committing itself to criminalise, investigate and prosecute the practice.

What happened to Miraj? On the night of April 10, 2026, several eyewitnesses say Coast Guard officers grabbed him near Joymonir Ghol, a small inlet close to the mangrove forest, and whisked him away in a speedboat. The next day his family went to the Coast Guard office in Digraj, hoping for an answer. They were told he was “on an operation” and asked to return later. When they came back, the officers claimed Miraj had never been there at all.

Further clues emerged from a tea‑stall owner who said a man in Coast Guard uniform entered his shop, unlocked Miraj’s motorcycle and drove off with it. The same stall owner later reported that the bike was returned the following day, though Miraj himself was still missing. His lawyer, Muzahedul Islam Shahin, told HRW that the family has exhausted every informal route – complaints, media appeals, letters – but nothing has moved the authorities.

The High Court’s July 12 order was meant to cut through that deadlock. Yet Lt. Cmdr. Mahbub Hossain, the media officer for the Coast Guard’s Western Zone, has repeatedly denied any knowledge of Miraj’s detention. “We have no information,” he told reporters, a response that does little to reassure a grieving family.

Miraj’s case is far from isolated. A commission set up by the interim government tallied 1,569 alleged enforced disappearances between 2009 and 2024. Over 1,200 of those people eventually resurfaced, but 251 are still missing, presumed dead, and another 36 bodies have been recovered. The commission also documented a “widespread and systematic culture of torture” across secret detention sites – rotating chairs, pulley systems, electric shock devices, and even thermal torture chambers were described in its report.

Among the most notorious stories is that of Mir Ahmed Bin Quasem, known as Armaan, a lawyer and son of an Islamist party leader. He was snatched by the Rapid Action Battalion in August 2016, held in secret for eight years, and finally released after the Awami League fell in 2024. Armaan described his ordeal as “being buried alive,” a chilling testimony that now forms part of the International Crimes Tribunal’s proceedings against former army officers who oversaw the Rapid Action Battalion.

All of this paints a stark picture: unless Bangladesh reinstates robust, independent mechanisms to investigate disappearances, the shadow of past abuses will linger. HRW’s plea is simple but urgent – obey the court order, reopen the National Human Rights Commission’s mandate, and ensure that security agencies can be held to account.

For Miraj’s family, the stakes are painfully personal. They just want to know where their son is, whether he’s alive or not. For the nation, it’s about reaffirming the rule of law and ending a practice that has haunted Bangladesh for over a decade. The next few weeks could decide whether Bangladesh finally turns a page or merely rewrites the same old story.