‘Everyone culpable’ for allowing ‘Ayna Ghor’ detention cells, says Chief Advisor Yunus

Those involved in the use of the detention cells must be brought to justice, otherwise Bangladesh cannot hold its head up proudly, the head of the interim government says

Muhammad Yunus, chief advisor to the interim government, has said that the ousted Awami League government had established an “Ayyam-e-Jahilliyah” – referring to the “age of ignorance” prior to the arrival of the Prophet Muhammad SM – and that the “Ayna Ghor” detention cells are one example of it. He said that “everyone is culpable” for allowing them to be used.

The chief advisor made the remarks after visiting the joint interrogation cells at the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence, the Task Force Intelligence Centre at RAB Headquarters, and the cells inside the CPC-3 on Wednesday, accompanied by several other advisors and members of the media.

“All that happened here – the situation was brutal. The more I hear, the more unbelievable it seems that this is our world and our society. Those who have been oppressed, those who were victims of this, are also with us. I have heard what happened from their own mouths, but there is no explanation. If there was an explanation then people would be able to understand it. But it was without reason. Like people being kidnapped from the road. They would arrange witnesses and plant evidence like explosives in cars and then say that people who were faultless were terrorists or militants. Then they would bring them here.”

Yunus said there were torture cells like this across Bangladesh.

“That is what I heard today. I thought there were only a few Ayna Ghor cells here. But now I hear that there are versions of Ayna Ghor in different parts of the country. Some say there are 700, some say 800. The number has yet to be determined. We know some of them, but many remain unknown.”

The chief advisor thanked the Commission on Enforced Disappearances for their work, saying that while other commissions could work without going out to the field, this one had to do the legwork.

Highlighting the horrors of the “Ayna Ghor” cells, he said: “People have disappeared, they have been wiped out. No one can say where they are. One of their daughters was in front of you today. She asks, ‘Where has my mother been taken? We have not found her for nine years’. She was there with her mother at the age of 11 when they took her mother. It is a small glimpse, but it a very sad one. The hardest lesson of this is that those who did this are our children, our brothers, our close relatives. If we cannot bring our society out of this, it will not survive. If it continues like this and our children do these things.”

“One person said he was kept in a shack. The chicken coops in villages are larger than this. And even a chicken doesn’t get any space to move around. He was kept in that condition for month after month, year after year. This is a challenge before the people - how can we build a new society? We are all culpable in this crime. We have allowed this to happen in our country. Today we are free. In this free Bangladesh, we can rebuild society anew. We can move far away from this. The evidence, the witness testimony, the documentation of this will be in the report of the Commission on Enforced Disappearances and it will definitely serve as a text for everyone. And those who did it must be tried - otherwise we will not be free from this. Otherwise, how can we freely say we are the people of this country? That we are clean? Why should we be victimised by those who did this? We will try them. The public will say that justice has been done. Then we will be free from this. That is our appeal to everyone in the country, so that we can do this.”

The chief advisor said that the “Ayna Ghor” and its accessories will be kept sealed as evidence.

Ensuring justice is the government's top priority, Yunus said, adding: "We are not looking at compensation. We are looking for justice to be done and for it to be done very quickly.”

"This is why this government exists. We do not want to remain in the darkness that was built up around us. We want to create a new environment. We want to build a new Bangladesh. The Commission on Enforced Disappearances has shown us these things. If we did not have this commission, it would have just remained a story. Now we have evidence. This is the first step. This cannot be allowed to happen again. This is our promise."