Representational Image.

 DHAKA, June 24, 2025 (BSS) - The interim government instituted commission on enforced disappearance has observed that a "systemic problem" within the institutional culture rather than "individual misconducts" resulted in the related crimes committed during the ousted regime as they received 1800 related complaints.
 
 "It appears that there was an environment in which such crimes were tacitly condoned, and those who committed them were not regarded as offenders in any meaningful way," read the commission's second interim report, obtained by BSS.
 
 The commission said the intelligence agencies documented descriptions of cases of enforced disappearances by different security forces while it reviewed seven such files revealing prima facie evidence of complicity in serious crimes, including enforced disappearances against officers concerned.
 
 The report said the nature of these disappearances strongly indicated that these were not actions of individuals rather these crimes were carried out by many members of individual units while it was nearly impossible that intelligence agencies were in dark.
 
 "And yet, not one of the reviewed files contained a single mention of enforced disappearance, despite how widespread the practice was during the period in question . . . as if these officers, drawn from both the military and the police, had committed no such crimes at all."
 
 The report said the files rather contained "often in meticulous detail" notes on officers suspected own political affiliations and even that of their extended family members and even "wives aunts".
 
 "Additionally, the files recorded any complaints lodged against the officers, such as allegations of corruption, indiscipline, or misconduct. Yet, conspicuously absent was any mention of enforced disappearance or extrajudicial killing," it read.
 
 The commission observed the "persistent silence" within the forces about such serious allegations could be regarded as part of a wider "operational mandate"
- understood internally as necessary steps "in the pursuit of the proverbial national security and public order".
 
 The reported cited an example of an officer drawn from military to RAB against who the commission "have prima facie evidence of involvement in enforced disappearances" while the then RAB chief Benazir Ahmed appreciated him as very good officer.

 In his official endorsement, Ahmed, who later became police chief, wrote the officer's performance was "very satisfactory" and leadership was of "high quality" while in person he was "polite" and "honest" and professionally he was "very skilled)" and "self-initiated".
 
 The then RAB chief noted the officer conducted raids in various places in Chattogram and tackled Islamist militancy, terrorism, and smuggling, and drugs syndicate and wrote that "no negative information was found about this officer".
 
 The commission said from that standpoint, it would not have occurred to anyone to formally report the crimes they had committed as "offenses", a scenario which it called a "reflection of how institutional priorities and norms can shape what is recorded and what is not".
 
 The report said a senior general told the commission that he made efforts to ensure that officers seconded from the military to RAB did not become involved in capital crimes and under a briefing and debriefing system they were warned not to engage in unlawfully killing the defenceless.
 
 It noted a case study saying in one of these debriefing sessions, a junior officer who returned to the unit from RAB was asked by his superior whether he had killed anyone during his deputation period, and if so, how many.
 
 "The officer hesitated (and) then admitted to having personally killed two individuals and having witnessed the killing of four others," the report said.
 
 The commission pointed out that since funds were reportedly routinely distributed after such incidents, the superior officer followed up by asking what the junior officer had done with the money he had received after the operation.
 
 "The officer replied that he had donated the money to his village mosque," it said.
 
 In another case, the report said one senior officer recounted confronting a subordinate who had begun to show signs of religiosity following his involvement in serious crimes. 
 
 The senior told him that while the prayers he now offered were his duties to God, the crimes he had committed were debts owed to people and God does not forgive violations of others' rights on a person's behalf.
 
 "It revealed an internal conflict - the kind of quiet moral struggle that, even if expressed clumsily, suggested a young man grappling with the weight of what he had done," the report wrote.
 
 But, the commission noted what stood out even more in the event of the first of the two cases that senior general upon hearing his junior's admission of committing cold blooded murder twice he did not take any steps to initiate an investigation, to identify the victims, or to refer the matter to military or civilian justice mechanisms.
 
 "Despite having every opportunity to act, he chose not to. Instead, he presented this story to us as an illustration of his own vigilance - as if the debriefing itself fulfilled his responsibility," the report read.
 
 The report said another senior retired officer, widely acknowledged for his honesty, discipline and commitment to institutional standards, expressed concern about his officers being posted to RAB but his concern did not seem to lay in the killings or the fate of the victims. 
 
 The report, however, said young officers often felt deeply disempowered in this environment and in one incident, a soldier recounted that a captive managed to briefly escape from a RAB Intelligence safe house but was caught outside by the soldier and brought back inside.
 
 The report said a young officer nearby was reportedly shaking fearing that if the captive had managed to escape, in retaliation, he himself might have been killed or severely punished by his senior officer since he was renowned for his ruthlessness.
 
 In another account, it said, an officer described how a colleague, who had become heavily involved in enforced disappearances and other illegal operations, told him, "I didn't have the courage to refuse at the beginning, and now I'm stuck".
 
 "Such testimonies reveal not only a climate of fear but also a striking pattern of dereliction of duty by senior officers, who failed to provide any form of pastoral care or ethical guidance," the commission said.
 
 It noted this dynamic was not confined to the military, police sub-inspectors also reported being compelled to sign off on documents prepared by their superiors that implicated them in criminal acts they did not feel they could oppose.