The interim government instituted Commission on enforced disappearance has said victims of enforced disappearance were frequently exposed to tortures to secure confessions which subsequently affected deeply the judicial system apart from the dampening the civic and political life of theirs and their families.
The commission’s second interim report said the culture of enforced disappearance and tortures of the victims during the past regime penetrated deeply into personal lives, even creating fear within families operating in the safety of their own homes.
“The widespread use of scripted and coercively extracted confessions has deeply distorted the functioning of the criminal justice system simultaneously. In many instances, confessions operate less as a tool for truth-finding and more as a bureaucratic shortcut for conviction,” the report read.
It said the weakness of institutional independence in investigative procedures made these confessions a “ready-made resolution” that avoided the need for evidence collection, witness examination, or accountability for misconduct.
“These results in a fundamental imbalance: confessions become dispositive even when all surrounding circumstances, including illegal detention, torture, and denial of counsel, point to procedural violation,” the report read.
It observed that despite bail being granted in earlier cases, the cases involving custodial confessions have become highly resistant to judicial relief.বিস্তারিত