'Goom' Or Enforced Disappearance: Even One Is One Too Many

Even one missing person is too many. Isn’t it so – unless, of course, one prefers remain content with what the state’s top policeman has recently said. Media quoted the Inspector General of Police as saying, “Enforced disappearance, abduction and killing are nothing new. It has been going on since the British period.”

- Reaz Ahmad

It’s also another way of reminding us of our colonial past. In fact the top cop stopped just by speaking of what he perceived –‘what used to happen’ during the British days in our part of the world. But the prime minister has recently given us an elaborate description of what happening in modern day ‘mainland’ Britain.

Prime minister has claimed that forced disappearances also occur in Britain and the United States. She told the parliament in its last session in November that it was ultimately the government’s responsibility to protect people, but that Bangladesh was not the only country whose citizens sometimes vanished.

“As per statistics of 2009, 275,000 British citizens disappeared,” she said. “Of them, the whereabouts of 20,000 is not known. If you consider America, the situation is even worse.” Sheikh Hasina said Bangladesh was a developing country with 160 million people, compared with 65 million in Britain, and that in comparison with the UK and US “our situation is better”.

“We are taking steps when there is any incident of disappearance,” said the prime minister.