On August 21, 2016, lawyer Ahmad Bin Quasem Arman was going about his each day enterprise when he was arrested from his residence in Mirpur, Dhaka. Two days later, former Brigadier Normal Abdullahil Aman Azmi was arrested by regulation enforcement officers for crimes towards humanity dedicated through the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation Warfare. Each males ended up in Aynaghar, the Home of Mirrors, a secret jail in Bangladesh underneath the federal government of Sheikh Hasina.
Aynaghar is a home of horrors. These arrested and launched there hardly communicate of what they skilled.
Each Arman and Azmi had been launched on August 6, Bangladesh’s Every day Observer reported. They had been held within the worst situations with out trial for eight lengthy years.
Hasina’s regime fell when she escaped of the nation on August 5, and now the main target is on a mysterious jail in Bangladesh: Aynaghar or Aynaghor.
WHAT IS AYNAGHAR, THE HOUSE OF MIRRORS IN DHAKA?
Hasina’s regime was recognized for sudden disappearances and harsh remedy of political opponents.
There are reportedly 23 different secret detention centres, a few of them in Dhaka itself. One of many mysterious locations the place prisoners find yourself is Aynaghar, or the Home of Mirrors, within the Dhaka Cantonment.
Aynaghar is reportedly directed by the Directorate Normal of Forces Intelligence (DGFI), Bangladesh’s navy intelligence company.
Aynaghar jail is believed to have been used not solely to detain political prisoners but in addition extremists.
Based on a 2024 Human Rights Watch report, Bangladeshi forces have carried out greater than 600 enforced disappearances since 2009, the yr Sheikh Hasina got here to energy.
Some prisoners had been launched, others had been dropped at courtroom. Many had been even killed throughout an alternate of fireside with safety forces. Hasina’s authorities refused to just accept UN assist in investigating the enforced disappearances.
Allegations of torture are hardly ever investigated in Bangladesh.
Greater than 100 individuals are nonetheless lacking.
In 2022, Bangladesh Nationalist Occasion (BNP) chief Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir mentioned that the get together’s interim president and son of former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, Tarique Rahman, was additionally a sufferer of Aynaghar. Rahman, who later moved to London, plans to return to Bangladesh.
“Those that can be killed can be taken to this Aynaghar’s torture cell, and those that can be saved alive can be tortured and confined right here for years,” he was quoted as saying by Bangladeshi newspaper Prothom Alo.
UN Resident Coordinator in Bangladesh Gwyn Lewis visited the DGFI headquarters and requested about Aynaghar. Lewis was advised that Aynaghar didn’t exist, The Enterprise Commonplace of Bangladesh reported.
HOW ARE PRISONERS TREATED IN AYNAGHAR?
Sheikh Mohammad Salim was at a automobile restore store when he was kidnapped following a cellphone name. He additionally landed in Aynaghar. Hasinur Rahman was a embellished navy officer who was detained right here after serving for a few years.
Each Sheikh Mohammad Salim and Hasinur Rahman have been interviewed by Netra Information.
Salim mentioned his cells had no home windows, a excessive ceiling with just one mild and big, noisy extraction followers. The sound of those followers drowned out some other sound within the room. He may really feel vibrations contained in the constructing, which meant there was an airport or airfield close by.
Earlier inmates had written DGFI on the cell partitions, he mentioned.
“I couldn’t even think about how many individuals had been locked up on this jail earlier than me,” Salim advised Netra Information.
Folks wrote “DGFI introduced me right here” or “DGFI had picked them up from their residence.”
Some carvings had been extra shifting than others.
One among them mentioned: “Please ask my household to maintain searching for me and inform them that the federal government introduced me right here.”
Salim was not handled with the identical respect as different, extra distinguished prisoners. He was tortured and crushed.
“Sooner or later I used to be severely crushed after which taken to a different cell,” he advised Netra Information.
Salim was not the person they wished to arrest. A sufferer of mistaken identification, he was launched shortly afterwards and left for Malaysia.
WHERE IS THE MYSTERIOUS AYNAGHAR?
Hasinur Rahman was a former lieutenant colonel within the Bangladesh Military. He had obtained a high navy award for valour referred to as ‘Bir Pratik’. He was the commander of the Fast Motion Battalion (RAB), a infamous paramilitary group on which the US had imposed a sanction for human rights violations. He had participated in anti-militancy operations. In 2012, he was sacked on costs of involvement in militant actions. He denied the fees to Netra Information.
He was first kidnapped in 2011. Then, in 2018, he was in Aynaghar. He was in a position to find Aynaghar when he appeared via the toilet exhaust followers. As a former military officer, he knew the Dhaka Cantonment space in and out.
In 2018, he was captured from his residence in Mirpur Defence Officers Housing Society. He was lastly launched in February 2020. Initially, he was not prepared to speak to anybody.
“This disappearance home is named Aynaghar,” Rahman advised Netra Information.
An officer additionally advised Netra Information that Aynaghar had 30 cells, soundproof investigation cells, the place prisoners had been tortured.
Ayanaghar is guarded by each civilians and navy personnel.
“After I was in that jail, I heard lots of people crying in numerous cells. I’m fortunate to have been launched, however there are nonetheless a variety of unlucky individuals there,” Salim advised Voice of America. “I’m taking this big threat only for them. I’m urging them to depart.” [the government] to cease this atrocious crime of compelled disappearances.”
When victims are launched, they select silence to avoid wasting their lives and people of their households, Netra Information’ Zulkarnain Saer advised VOA.
“One flawed transfer they usually may very well be kidnapped and disappear once more, so this can be very vital that these voices are heard and reported on,” mentioned Saer, who was an undercover reporter on Al Jazeera’s award-winning investigative movie ‘All of the Prime Minister’s Males’.
On Wednesday (August 7), the DGFI mentioned there have been no arrests in Aynaghar, in keeping with a report by the Every day Star.
Hoping to get again family members from Aynaghar
The DGFI knowledgeable a bunch of activists and requested its members to examine the amenities. The DGFI advised the group that it could type a joint fee to examine 23 different detention centres throughout Bangladesh.
The households of the lacking weren’t satisfied by the DGFI’s assertion and protested in entrance of its headquarters.
Kin of lacking individuals arrived there within the hope of recovering their family members now that Sheikh Hasina’s regime had collapsed.
One among them was Nadira Sultana, who got here to search for her husband, Ataur Rahman, who has been lacking since December 2011.
“I advised everybody that I used to be going to Dhaka to carry again my daughter’s father. I left at 3am for Dhaka,” the lady from Madaripur district mentioned, in keeping with the Every day Star. Madaripur is about three hours by street from Dhaka.
There are dozens of individuals like Nadira Sultana hoping to recuperate their lacking husbands, sons or fathers after years of detention and torture within the notorious Aynaghar.
