Since the mass protests in Bangladesh triggered the fall of the Sheikh Hasina Wazed Government on August 5, 2024, one word - Aynaghar (the Room of Mirrors) - has been circulating from social media to the press. The way the word is being presented in the public domain, it seems that there is pure hatred and fear behind it!
Aynaghar was basically a secret prison run by the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI) during the regime of former Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina's Awami League Party. The Hasina Administration set up the prison mainly to detain and torture the suspects of anti-Government plots! It may be noted that DGFI is the intelligence agency of the Bangladeshi Ministry of Defence.
Mir Ahmad Bin Quasem Arman, a Bangladeshi barrister trained in the UK and Human Rights activist, and former Army Officer Brigadier General Abdullahil Amaan Azmi appeared in public on August 6, 2024 after eight years of disappearance. They told Dhaka-based Daily Observer that the Hasina Administration had detained them in Aynaghar for their alleged involvement in Anti-Human activities during the 1971 Liberation War of Bangladesh. They claimed that they had spent eight years there in a horrific condition, without trial!
People came to know about the existence of Aynaghar only after Sheikh Hasina resigned from the post of Prime Minister on August 5 (2024) and took shelter in neighbouring India. The local media have revealed that many used to disappear suddenly during Hasina's Prime Ministership! Almost all of them reportedly criticised the former Prime Minister, openly. According to Mir Ahmad and Brigadier General (Retired) Azmi, the Aynaghar was like a Nazi concentration camp! They claimed that there were 23 such prisons in the capital city of Dhaka alone and one of those was Aynaghar. In other words, Aynaghar was Sheikh Hasina's house of horrors for political prisoners.
As per a survey carried out by several Human Rights organisations, around 600 people mysteriously disappeared in Bangladesh in 2009. The survey report claimed that they were forcibly taken away by the Army! Human Rights organisations further claimed that many people, not just critics of the then Government, were detained in Aynaghar after being identified as extremists or terrorists. Although some of them were released later, several others were killed by the Army and very few went to trial in court.
Netra News, a Sweden-based investigative and public interest journalism platform focusing on Bangladesh, published a report on August 14, 2022, revealing that people, who had suddenly disappeared, were being held and tortured in a secret prison, called Aynaghar. The daily even mentioned the possible location of the prison, citing the statements of Mir Ahmad and Brigadier General (Retired) Azmi (as the basis for this claim). The two claimed that they were detained in Aynaghar.
Colonel Hasinur Rahman, a Bangladesh Army Officer and a former Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) personnel, was picked up from his residence in Mirpur by 14-15 members of Detective Branch of Police on August 8, 2018. He was also dismissed from the Army over his alleged links to militants. He was left in front of his residence in 2022! He was sick at that time! According to his family members, Hasinur Rahman was suffering from high blood pressure! The former RAB official said that he had arrested several members of Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen (a terrorist organisation operating in Bangladesh) from Chittagong in 2005-06 for their alleged involvement in sabotage. Surprisingly, the Army dismissed him from duty on charges of treason!
In 2022, Netra News published several pictures of a prison, claiming that those were of Ayanaghar and taken by the Military Officers working there! The daily claimed that Counter-Terrorism Intelligence Bureau and DGFI of Bangladesh were in charge of Aynaghar situated in a building in Dhaka Cantonment area. Netra News published the report on the eve of the visit of Verónica Michelle Bachelet Jeria, a Chilean politician who served as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2018 to 2022, to Bangladesh. Upon her arrival in Dhaka, Bachelet inquired about the sudden disappearances of those people. The senior UN official also confirmed the existence of Aynaghar before leaving the South Asian country, demanding an impartial investigation into extrajudicial killings of missing people.
Meenakshi Gangopadhyay, the spokesperson of Human Rights Watch, claimed that the Sheikh Hasina Government was responsible for the disappearance of those people. She also organised a rally, called Maayer Daak (A Mother's Plea), demanding information about those missing persons. Sanjida Islam, the Convener of Maayer Daak, accused the DGFI of running a secret prison, pointing to the Aynaghar itself.
A former Military Officer, named Sheikh Mohammad Salim, was allegedly detained in Aynaghar. Salim claimed that he spent many years in that secret prison. Netra News came to know from him that there were no windows in his cell and only a tiny bulb was there high up the ceiling. Salim claimed that no sound from outside reached the prison as a huge exhaust fan ran all day somewhere. However, he occasionally felt vibrations. Hence, he assumed that there was an airport or airfield near the prison. Salim informed Netra News that he had no idea about the number of people imprisoned there. He was often beaten and subjected to other physical abuses. According to Salim, he was violently beaten one day and thrown into another cell. Later, he came to know that it was not the DGFI's intention to pick him up. As the DGFI detained him by mistake, the Intelligence Forces released Salim later. Thereafter, Salim went to Malaysia.
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The Dhaka Tribune reported that United People's Democratic Front (UPDF) leader Michael Chakma, missing since April 2019, was released from the secret detention centre on August 6, 2024. Barrister Jyotirmoy Barua, the lawyer who filed a Habeas Corpus petition seeking Chakma's discovery, confirmed his release, stressing: "Michael Chakma has been handed over to his friends. I have spoken to a friend who was with him, and he has assured me that Michael Chakma had been released."
Meanwhile, a Bangladeshi Army Officer told Netra News that there were about 30 cells in Aynaghar. He stated that although few cells were soundproof, prisoners often heard faint screams coming from other cells! Even if a person got released from Aynaghar, s/he kept quiet about it because of the fear of detention.
After the fall of Hasina Government, the family members of missing persons expressed hope that their near and dear ones would return soon. However, no one knows whether the missing persons are all alive. The DGFI informed the press on August 7, 2024 that no one was there in Aynaghar.
It may be noted that there are many such notorious prisons across the globe. Some of those are ADX Florence (US), Bang Kwang Central Prison (Thailand), Black Beach (Equatorial Guinea), Black Dolphin Prison (Russia), Butyrka Prison (Russia), Camp 14 (North Korea), Ciudad Barrios Prison (El Salvador), Diyarbakır Prison (Turkey), Gldani Prison (Georgia), Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp (Cuba), Kamiti Maximum Security Prison (Kenya), La Santé Prison (France), Mendoza Prison (Argentina), Muhanga Correctional Facility (Rwanda), Red Onion State Prison (US) and Abu Ghraib Prison (Iraq).
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