Published : 03 Jul 2026, 06:36 PM
Updated : 08 Sep 2026, 09:21 AM
Detectives have arrested a former assistant superintendent of police over allegations of involvement in the 2012 "enforced disappearance" of Sukhranjan Bali from the International Crimes Tribunal.
Bali had gone there to testify for Jamaat leader Delwar Hossain Sayeedi.
Dhaka Metropolitan Police’s Detective Branch (DB) Additional Commissioner Shafiqul Islam said on Friday that Fazlur Rahman was arrested from his home in Dhaka on Thursday night.
Fazlur is a former officer of assistant superintendent of police rank.
The DB said he is now being questioned.
It did not immediately disclose what charges would be brought against him, in which case he would be shown arrested, or whether others were also involved in the alleged abduction.
On Nov 5, 2012, Bali, a resident of Pirojpur, went missing from the tribunal premises after arriving to testify in Sayeedi’s defence.
Law enforcers later said he had been found near the border, but his family and rights groups had alleged from the outset that he had been picked up from the tribunal compound.
The incident drew wide attention at home and abroad at the time.
After the fall of the Awami League government in the 2024 July Uprising, Bali filed a complaint with prosecutors at the International Crimes Tribunal on Aug 21, 2025.
In the complaint, he said he had been subjected to enforced disappearance and torture after refusing to testify against Sayeedi and later agreeing to testify in his favour.
Bali named 32 people in the complaint, including ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina and former chief justice Surendra Kumar Sinha.
He also listed 10 to 15 unidentified people as suspects.
Others named include former tribunal chairman Justice Nizamul Huq Nasim, former law minister Shafique Ahmed, former state minister for law Qamrul Islam, former tribunal judge ATM Fazle Kabir, former tribunal investigator Helal Uddin and former Pirojpur-1 MP AKMA Awal.
According to the complaint, in July and August 2010, Helal summoned Bali to Rajlakshmi School in Pirojpur’s Parerhat, and asked him about the killing of his brother Bishabali during the 1971 war.
Bali said he told investigators that Pakistani forces had killed his brother, but Helal asked him to name Sayeedi as one of the killers and testify against him at the tribunal.
When he refused, Bali said he was beaten.
Some time later, Sayeedi’s son Masud Sayeedi contacted him and asked about the incident.
Bali said he then agreed to testify about what he described as the real account of his brother’s killing.
He said that on Nov 5, 2012, after arriving at the tribunal gate to testify for Sayeedi, police blindfolded him, tied his hands and took him to an unknown place.
Bali alleged he was held in a dark, windowless room for nearly two months and subjected to
“severe physical and mental torture”.
He said he was later moved to another location, where the abuse continued for another two months.
Bali said one day he was blindfolded and put into a vehicle. After travelling for several hours, the car stopped and he asked to use a toilet.
When his blindfold was removed, he realised he had been taken to a border area.
He said members of the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) later took him to Baikari under Swarupnagar Police Station in North 24 Parganas, across the border in India.
There, he said, India’s Border Security Force (BSF) beat him before taking him to Basirhat.
After 22 days in Basirhat sub-jail, he was transferred to Dumdum Central Jail.
Bali said he later learned that Masud had found out about his detention and sent Bali’s son to India.
He added international human rights organisations visited him in prison and documented his account of torture.
After returning to Bangladesh, Bali said he could not go back to Pirojpur for security reasons and has been living outside his home district in hiding.
