Bangladesh indigenous people’s rights activist Michael Chakma says he was woken up by his captors earlier this month in the dark, tiny cell where he was being held and thrown into a car, handcuffed and blindfolded.

“I thought they would kill me,” he said. Instead, he was freed.

It was five years, Chakma told Reuters, since he was abducted by armed men outside a bank near the capital Dhaka. Since then, he said, the world outside did not know where he was or if he was even alive.

He was questioned about his opposition to then-Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and beaten for weeks, he said, but then left alone in one of what he said were “hundreds” of cells with no sunlight at an unknown detention facility.

Hasina had ruled the South Asian nation of 200 million people for the past 15 years, marked by arrests of opposition leaders, crackdowns on free speech and suppression of dissent, and she resigned this month in the face of deadly student-led protests that killed hundreds.

Investigations into how hundreds of people were “disappeared”, and some executed, during her tenure are a priority for the interim government led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus.

Human Rights Watch said in a report in 2021 that according to Bangladeshi human rights groups, nearly 600 people have been forcibly “disappeared” by security forces since 2009.

It verified 86 enforced disappearance cases in which the fate of the victims remains unknown. Others were freed, shown as arrested or found dead, it said.

The rights group and activists say the victims were held in different detention centres across the country and any involvement of the army, paramilitary or police could pose a challenge to the interim government’s investigations.

Spokespersons for Bangladesh’s military and police did not respond to requests seeking comment.

Hasina, who is living at an undisclosed location near the Indian capital New Delhi, could not be reached. Her son Sajeeb Wazed, who lives in the US and has been speaking on her behalf, did not respond to questions about these allegations.

The government has formed a five-member commission, headed by a former high court judge, to probe the disappearances.

“There are concerns that perpetrators might try and cover up their crimes,” said Asia Deputy Director for Human Rights Watch Meenakshi Ganguly.

“As a first step, the security forces should release all those that have disappeared, or if they were killed in custody, provide answers to the families.”

‘DIFFICULT TO BREATHE’

Chakma was freed on August 7 in teak gardens near the Chittagong district in southeastern Bangladesh, around 250 km (150 miles) from Dhaka. He said he did not know then that Hasina had been ousted from office and fled to neighbouring India less than two days earlier.

Sitting in a small room with a table and a few plastic chairs in an apartment in Dhaka, Chakma, a short, stocky man, controlled his tears as he shared his ordeal.

“It was difficult to breathe. Initially, they told me that they would release me soon, but as months and years passed, I gave up hope of getting out. Each day felt like 100 days there.”

At least two other people were freed after what they said were years of secret detention on the same day as Chakma, but few details have emerged on who held them and where.

The interim government said this week the commission will “investigate enforced disappearances that occurred” since January 1, 2010 “allegedly involving members of the police” and arms of the paramilitary, intelligence and military.

Nur Khan, a member of the commission and a prominent human rights activist in Bangladesh, told Reuters that the members are yet to meet so it was “very difficult to talk about how optimistic we are about the success of the commission.”

But, he added: “With the forming of this commission the victims and their families at least have a platform from where they can seek fair trial and punishment for the perpetrators.”

Reuters spoke to 15 people, including victims of such detentions, families of some who are still missing, human rights advocates, government officials and observers, about the challenge to seek justice.

One was Shafiqul Islam Kajol, a photojournalist in Dhaka who says he was kidnapped by a group of eight or nine people at gunpoint near Dhaka University in March 2020.

Talking to Reuters from London, he said: “They beat me a lot there.”

Between threats of killing him, he said his captors asked him about what he knew about Hasina.

“They tortured me... I used to bleed from my nose and mouth,” Kajol said.

After 53 days in captivity, he says he was left near a border town and promptly arrested by Bangladesh’s border police. He was released in December 2020, after the courts acquitted him of trespassing charges.

Kajol went to London on a visit last year and applied for asylum, which is still under review.

“I want to return to my country if I get security. I want to file a case against all those who disappeared me, including Sheikh Hasina,” Kajol said.

Chakma also said he was willing to depose before the commission but worried about his safety.

“There were many people involved in these crimes, and they remain strong.”

These people have “created a system that is beyond all accountability, so I am not sure how much this government can change them”, he said.