HRW calls for investigation into Bangladesh’s first alleged enforced disappearance since July Uprising

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called on the Bangladeshi authorities to immediately investigate the alleged enforced disappearance of Miraj Sheikh (30) from an area adjacent to the Sundarbans, in accordance with a directive issued by the High Court.

The international human rights organisation said, Miraj Sheikh was last seen in the custody of the Coast Guard and it appears to be the first known enforced disappearance case in two years.

The statement was made in a report published on the Human Rights Watch (HRW) website on Sunday night (London time). It said, the government should also reverse its decision to scrap reforms aimed at preventing enforced disappearances and instead ensure accountability by security forces.

The HRW report states, under the previous government, which was toppled by protests in 2024, enforced disappearances became endemic. This led the interim government that governed Bangladesh between August 2024 and elections in February 2026 to adopt the National Human Rights Commission Ordinance in November 2025.

The ordinance provided for independent investigations of enforced disappearances and the power to inspect any detention facility without requiring a court order.

However, the newly elected Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) government allowed the ordinance to expire and proposed a new law that would bar the Human Rights Commission from investigating alleged rights violations by security forces.

“Thousands of people were subjected to enforced disappearance during Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year rule, and this latest case shows that without genuine reforms they can happen again,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

“It is clear that these practices have become entrenched in Bangladeshi security agencies, and the new government, which has pledged reform, should ensure safeguards, institutional reforms, and accountability.”

How Miraj Sheikh disappeared

On the night of 10 April, 2026, multiple witnesses reportedly saw Coast Guard officers detain Miraj Sheikh, a fisherman, in Joymonir Ghol, near the Sundarbans forest in Mongla, and take him away by speedboat.

The following day, his family went to the Coast Guard office in Digraj, Mongla, where they were initially told he was “on an operation” and to return that afternoon. When they did, the Coast Guard told them he had never been there.

On 21 April, the owner of the tea stall where Sheikh was allegedly seized—and where his motorcycle had been left—said a man identifying himself as a Coast Guard member came to the shop, unlocked the motorcycle, and took it away. The tea stall owner said Coast Guard personnel returned it the following day.

“The witnesses explained the situation and time of disappearance, and how the coastguard members took him away,” the family’s lawyer, Muzahedul Islam Shahin, told Human Rights Watch.

Miraj’s family has filed a complaint, held a news conference, and written to multiple government officials with no results. On 12 July, after his father filed a habeas corpus petition, the High Court ordered law enforcement agencies to find the missing fisherman and produce him before the court within 15 days.

Lt. Cmdr. Mahbub Hossain, the media officer for the Coast Guard’s Western Zone, has repeatedly denied detaining Miraj and told the media that they had no information about him.

Concerns over law reforms

There had been high expectations that a successor government would establish an independent body with the power to investigate such practices. The interim government, led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, promulgated two ordinances, the National Human Rights Commission Ordinance, 2025, and the Enforced Disappearance Prevention and Redress Ordinance, 2025, which together would have ensured independent investigation of alleged disappearances with the possibility of referral to the International Crimes Tribunal.

However, the newly elected government allowed these ordinances to lapse, proposing instead laws under which the police would continue to investigate enforced disappearances, leaving the Human Rights Commission’s only recourse to “call for a report from the chief of the force concerned or from the Government.” Under the proposed law, the government would have greater influence both over appointing Human Rights Commission members and its rulemaking.

“The new government should amend its proposed legislation to remove any interference in the Human Rights Commission and to restore its authority to investigate enforced disappearances,” Ganguly said. “Allowing the police to investigate enforced disappearances will not ensure accountability and will not create the deterrence necessary to bring this practice to an end.”