On December 4, 2013, former general secretary of Dhaka Metropolitan BNP, Ward 38 (currently 25), Sajedul Islam Sumon, went missing from the Bashundhara residential area of the capital. Sajedul has not been found since then. Professor Dr. Muhammad Yunus, the chief advisor to the interim government, along with local and foreign media workers and victims, visited the mirror house on Wednesday (February 12) morning. On that day, they visited the DGFI mirror house in Kachukhete, Dhaka, and the RAB mirror house in Uttara and Agargaon.
Social media has been abuzz all day today about this mirror house created during the Awami League era. Many people are posting about the mirror house on Facebook. This time, cultural affairs advisor Mostafa Sarwar Farooqui has also spoken out on social media about the mirror house. He described how BNP leader Sajedul was killed in the mirror house.
Farooqui writes about the mirror house, "My childhood friend Sajedul Islam Suman was probably kept in a room like this. He was trembling with fear in a room like this. Sitting in a room like this, he was probably crying and raising his hands in the court of Allah, saying, 'Allah, please save me for this time. I will not do politics or politics again. Save me for my child. Save me for my mother.'"
The cultural advisor wrote, "My last conversation with Suman was while I was hiding in a hospital in Uttara. His nephew Abrar had a shoot with me. I clearly remember his last words, 'Dude, Abrar, take it easy. Otherwise, I will ruin your acting."
He further wrote, I was under the rule of such a tyrant that I could not say a single word for you, Suman. Later I learned that on the orders of the human-like beast Ziaul Ahsan, he injected you and threw you into the cold lake. The father who was supposed to return home and eat rice with his child was turned into food for the fish of the cold lake by this group of witches. When someone comes to speak on behalf of these hyenas, my blood boils. I lose my composure.
Meanwhile, Ark Dev, editor of Indian journalist 'Inscriptidotomy', also visited the mirror house and posted on Facebook.
After visiting the mirror house, Ark Dev posted a picture of an electric chair there on his Facebook and wrote, "It is important to see this chair. This chair is kept in a room of the mirror house of the mother of fascism, Sheikh Hasina (in the Agargaon area). This chair was used to give electric shocks to 'high value' prisoners. The Counter Terrorism Intelligence Bureau (CTIB) of the DGFI was in charge of this mirror house. Exhaust fans were running in these rooms all the time, and when the fan was turned off, the sound of crying and moaning could be heard. And a little while. From today, the whole world will see all the pictures of the mirror house."
In another post, Ark said that Michael Chakma was imprisoned here. He quoted Michael Chakma's statement and said, "The first two rooms you see are cell number 113, which is right next to the bathroom and has a CCTV camera on the left side corner when entering the cell. I was imprisoned in this cell for about two years. I was in room number 117 on the same line for a little over a year and a half. I was in room number 104, one of the rooms below, for about a year. After 104, cell number 105. After that, the toilet, bathroom and hair cutting cell. Hair cutting cell number 106. Apart from that, I was kept in many other rooms."
After visiting the mirror in the morning, the interim government's chief advisor, Professor Dr. Muhammad Yunus, compared the Awami League regime with the 'Ayyam-e-Jahiliyyat'. Thanking the Commission on Disappearances for discovering the mirror, Dr. Yunus said, "There is no such thing as Ayyam-e-Jahiliyyat, the previous government has established this Ayyam-e-Jahiliyyat everywhere."
He said, "Such torture cells exist all over Bangladesh; I heard about them today. I thought there were only a few mirror cells here." But now I've heard that there are versions of mirror cells all over the country. Some say 700, some say 800. The number has not been determined. How much is known, how much remains unknown.
Professor Yunus said that the documentation of this mirror house will be made mandatory in the report of the disappearance commission. At the same time, those who were involved in such activities will be tried. This information and evidence will be kept sealed and used for trial.
It is worth noting that law enforcement agencies forcibly took away people from different classes and kept them in 'special' places. When a report was published in the Swedish-based media outlet Netra News, these places came to light under the name 'mirror houses'. Many of the disappeared returned to their families from the mirror houses after the ouster of the Sheikh Hasina government. Their statements revealed the horror of the mirror houses.
