More than three months have passed since 30-year-old fisherman Miraj Sheikh was reportedly taken away by Bangladesh Coast Guard officers. His family still does not know whether he is alive, where he is being held or what, if anything, he is accused of doing.
That is not merely an administrative failure. It is an emergency.
Prime Minister Tarique Rahman must treat it as one.
According to Human Rights Watch, several witnesses saw Coast Guard officers detain Sheikh near the Sundarbans in Mongla on April 10 and take him away in a speedboat. His relatives went to a Coast Guard office the following day. They were initially told he was participating in an operation and asked to return later. When they returned, officials denied that he had ever been there.
The Coast Guard continues to deny detaining him. Those denials do not resolve the matter. They deepen the need for an independent investigation.
A security agency cannot be permitted to dispose of such an allegation by simply declaring that it knows nothing. Witness testimony, official movements, duty rosters, telephone records, boat logs, surveillance footage and command communications can all be examined. Officers can be questioned. Records can be preserved. Contradictions can be investigated.
What is missing is not the ability to find answers. What is missing is sufficient political urgency.
Sheikh’s family has filed a complaint, written to government officials, spoken publicly and petitioned the courts. On July 12, the High Court ordered law enforcement agencies to locate Sheikh and produce him before the court. A family should not have to spend months pleading with every branch of the state simply to learn what happened to a son.
The burden now rests with Rahman.
His government came to power promising democratic restoration after years of repression. Rahman has publicly pledged to strengthen democratic institutions and prevent a return to autocracy. Those commitments mean little if a man can allegedly be taken by state personnel and vanish while the government waits for agencies to investigate themselves.
Bangladesh has seen this machinery before.
A government commission identified 1,569 cases of enforced disappearance between 2009 and 2024. Most of those victims eventually reappeared after periods of secret detention, but hundreds never returned or were later found dead. Investigators implicated police units, the Rapid Action Battalion and military intelligence. Human Rights Watch has documented resistance by security agencies to investigations, including allegations that officers destroyed evidence and withheld cooperation.
The country knows where silence leads. It leads to secret cells, torture, terrified families and institutions trained to believe that uniforms place them beyond the law.
The 2024 uprising was supposed to end that era. A change of government, however, is not the same as a change of system. Security agencies do not reform themselves merely because a new prime minister takes office. They change when political leaders impose oversight, protect investigators, punish obstruction and make it clear that no institution has the authority to make a citizen disappear.
Rahman should immediately order full government compliance with the High Court’s directive. All Coast Guard records connected to the night Sheikh disappeared should be secured before they can be altered or destroyed. Officers credibly connected to the alleged detention should be temporarily removed from positions where they could influence witnesses or evidence. Sheikh’s family, the tea stall owner and other witnesses should receive protection against threats or retaliation.
Most importantly, the investigation must be independent. Asking a security organization to determine whether its own members committed a grave abuse is not accountability. It is an invitation to concealment.
Rahman’s government should also reverse its retreat from reforms adopted after the uprising. The previous interim administration created legal mechanisms intended to give the National Human Rights Commission greater power to investigate disappearances and inspect detention facilities. Allowing those measures to expire, while proposing legislation that would restrict independent scrutiny of security forces, sends precisely the wrong message.
It tells abusive officers that the old protections may be returning.
Bangladesh ratified the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance in August 2024. That commitment requires more than speeches at international meetings. It requires the state to prevent disappearances, investigate allegations and prosecute those responsible.
No one should prejudge the final evidence in Sheikh’s case. But no responsible government can look at the witness accounts, the contradictory statements and the months of silence and conclude that routine procedures are enough.
The prime minister must demand answers publicly. He must set deadlines, disclose what agencies are doing and explain who will be held responsible if officials obstruct the court’s order. If Sheikh is in custody, he must be produced immediately. If he was released, authorities must establish where and when. If he was harmed, those responsible must face prosecution regardless of rank or institutional affiliation.
Rahman cannot blame Sheikh Hasina’s government for this case. This disappearance allegedly occurred under his government. The responsibility to solve it is his.
The time for sitting back is over. Every additional day without an answer increases the danger to Sheikh and the anguish inflicted on his family. It also strengthens the suspicion that Bangladesh’s security institutions still believe they can operate in darkness.
Miraj Sheikh must be found. The truth must be made public. Anything less would signal that Bangladesh changed its leaders without dismantling the system that allowed people to disappear.