Critics of Bangladesh’s government are liable to vanish
And some of its supporters treat the matter as a joke
“BABA KOBE ashbe?” (“When will Daddy come?”), asks the youngest daughter of Sajedul Islam Sumon. No one has an answer, but she keeps asking anyway. Her family’s life—and hers—revolves around his absence. Now eight, she was just one when security forces came to their suburb of Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital, and bundled her father, a local leader for an opposition party, into the back of a van. That was the last time he was seen or heard from.
This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline “They just disappeared”
From the August 21st 2021 edition
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