What Happens When the Accused Investigate Themselves?

I have spent the past several days reading the Enforced Disappearance Prevention and Remedy Bill, 2026 and the National Human Rights Commission Bill, 2026, now before Parliament. Both promise justice for families of the disappeared and stronger protection for human rights. But both contain the same structural weakness: when security forces are accused, the institutions meant to investigate are kept too close to those under investigation.

The central question is simple: if the state is accused of making someone disappear, who investigates the state?

Who investigates a disappearance?

The Enforced Disappearance Bill appears to offer a safeguard. Under Section 14(3), an accused force cannot investigate its own member. The case must instead go to another disciplined force or an interagency investigation team.

On paper, that sounds reasonable. In practice, it may not be.

The National Human Rights Commission Bill is more direct. Under Sections 13, 15 and 32, the Commission can use its own investigators for ordinary human rights complaints. But if the complaint concerns a security force, the Commission’s own investigators are effectively excluded. Under Section 19(1), it must ask the accused force itself to submit a report.

The force, in other words, investigates itself.

There is no clear deadline for submitting that initial report. Under Section 19(2), the accused institution can respond at its own pace at its own pace, potentially legally being allowed to hold up the report for years and destroy all evidence in the process. If the Commission finds the report inadequate, it can issue a recommendation under Section 19(3)(b). But that recommendation is not binding. Only after another 45 days, if the force fails to respond or gives an unsatisfactory reply, can the Commission consider further action under Section 19(4).

By then, however, the Commission may have gathered no independent evidence of its own. Witnesses may have been intimidated, digital evidence deleted, records altered, and detention sites cleared. The law delays independent scrutiny precisely when speed matters most.

The Enforced Disappearance Bill’s alternative arrangement, assigning the case to another force, also contains serious problems.

First, families often cannot identify who abducted their relative. Victims may describe “plainclothes men claiming to be Detective Branch officers,” but such a claim does not establish which agency was involved. Bangladesh’s Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances documented cases in which agencies used one another’s names or did not identify themselves at all.

If a family cannot identify the accused force, Section 14(3)’s protection may never activate.

Second, handing a case from one force to another does not automatically produce independence. Bangladesh’s security and intelligence agencies have historically worked through joint operations, detainee transfers, operational support and overlapping chains of information. A complaint against RAB might go to police or DGFI; one against DGFI might go to police; an interagency team may include personnel from several bodies with shared institutional interests.

Changing the investigator does not necessarily remove the conflict.

There is also a basic reality of power. A police sub-inspector cannot realistically investigate senior police officers, RAB commanders, intelligence officials or military personnel with complete independence. Rank, career pressure, institutional loyalty and fear are not technical details. They are central to whether an investigation succeeds.

Even referral to a magistrate does not fully solve the problem, because the court can still direct police to carry out the actual investigative work.

The case of Miraj Sheikh illustrates the danger. He disappeared on 10 April. His family tried to lodge a report immediately, but it was reportedly registered around ten days later. The family has accused the Coast Guard. Yet months have passed without a substantive answer. By now, the case has almost certainly passed through multiple security and intelligence channels. This is exactly the kind of delay and opacity that the “another force” safeguard was supposed to prevent.

Article 12(4) of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance is clear: anyone suspected of involvement in a disappearance must not be able to influence the investigation.

That does not mean all investigators must be civilians. Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal investigation agency shows that investigators with a security background can work in a specialised process. But their reporting lines, evaluations, promotions and professional control must sit outside the accused force’s chain of command.

Neither bill guarantees that separation.

The problem is not new

This is not an abstract legal concern.

In August 2022, while in opposition, BNP called publicly for UN-supervised and impartial investigations into enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings. The demand reflected an obvious reality: domestic investigations into allegations against state forces had not earned the confidence of victims’ families.

Even Home Minister Salahuddin Ahmed’s own family sought help from the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances after his disappearance. They did not find a credible domestic route to remedy.

The same structural question BNP raised in opposition remains unresolved in the legislation introduced under its government.

Independent investigation protects security forces

Independent investigation is not only about holding perpetrators accountable. It also protects innocent officers. When an institution investigates itself and clears itself, the public understandably sees the outcome as self-serving, even if the conclusion is correct. The Coast Guard’s denial of involvement in the Miraj Sheikh case has not ended public suspicion. An inquiry outside the Coast Guard’s control could either establish responsibility or credibly clear the institution and its officers.

Self-investigation does neither convincingly.

A genuinely independent body protects victims from cover-ups, but it also protects honest officers from collective suspicion.

The trap in the “benefits”

The most troubling part of the Enforced Disappearance Bill is that its protections for families depend on the very investigation whose independence is in doubt.

Compensation under Section 23 requires conviction and a fine under the Act. Recognition of a person as “disappeared”, which may be necessary for a family to access property or, after five years, distribute inheritance under Section 29, also depends on an investigation report or court judgment.

In plain language, families receive little practical help unless the investigation succeeds.

That turns legal protection into a distant reward at the end of a process that may be slow, compromised or blocked.

Then comes Section 21. If a complaint is found false, the complainant can face up to five years’ imprisonment. That provision may deter deliberate fabrication, but it is dangerous in a context where the accused force or a closely linked institution plays a major role in determining whether an allegation is credible.

A family that cannot prove what happened may not simply lose its case. It may risk prosecution.

For the Miraj Sheikh family, the risk is especially sharp. The Home Minister has publicly suggested that no disappearance occurred. If that position hardens while the family continues to pursue the allegation, their complaint could potentially be treated as false. A family already under immense pressure could face jail for insisting that its relative was taken.

That is not a theoretical concern. It creates a powerful incentive for families to remain silent.

The same pattern in the NHRC Bill

The National Human Rights Commission Bill creates a two-tier system.

For ordinary human rights complaints, the Commission can investigate independently. But if a security force is accused, independent investigation disappears and the Commission must wait for the accused institution’s own report.

That raises a serious constitutional concern under Articles 27 and 31, which guarantee equality before law and protection of law. Two victims of the same violation could receive different levels of protection solely because one accused person is a private citizen and the other belongs to a disciplined force.

The government may invoke Article 45 of the constitution, which permits special laws regarding disciplined forces. But Article 45 concerns the internal discipline of those forces. It should not be used to reduce the protection available to citizens alleging that those forces violated their rights.

A good law needs an independent investigator

The government’s case deserves to be acknowledged fairly. Home Minister Salahuddin Ahmed has said the aim is an effective framework that ensures justice for victims. Law Minister Md Asaduzzaman has argued that the legislation closes legal gaps, increases penalties and prevents perpetrators from exploiting loopholes.

The bills do contain meaningful provisions. They include stronger penalties, the death penalty where a disappearance results in death, court-issued search warrants for missing persons and recognition of digital evidence. It is worth acknowledging that the government deserves real credit simply for bringing forward dedicated legislation on enforced disappearance and human rights protection, where none of this existed in law before.

It would therefore be wrong to say that the bills legalise disappearance or reduce the seriousness of the crime.

But enforced disappearance is not an ordinary offence. Its defining feature is that the suspected perpetrators may be state agents with access to police stations, intelligence networks, detention facilities, communications systems, records and witnesses.

That is why independent investigation is not an optional procedural detail. It is the foundation of any credible remedy.

Barrister Mir Ahmad Bin Quasem, himself a survivor of enforced disappearance and now an MP, asked Parliament how a government led by survivors of torture could accept protections weaker than those previously available.

That question remains unanswered.

A law can define a crime accurately. It can announce severe punishment. It can promise compensation and legal recognition. But if it leaves investigation into allegations against security forces largely in the hands of those same forces, or bodies dependent on them, then families will still struggle to obtain truth, accountability or even basic recognition of their loss.

Both bills contain real additions. But on the question that matters most, who investigates and whether that investigator can act without influence from the accused institution, they still leave Bangladesh’s disappeared and their families without a clear answer.