A person who wakes up in the morning not knowing whether their sleep will be violently interrupted at night, a family that does not know whether their loved one will be able to make it home after stepping out of the prison gate—such people and families are, in reality, imprisoned inside an invisible torture chamber. Over the past few months, Yunus’s so-called interim government has turned prisons into exactly that. And the primary victims are the activists and supporters of one particular political party.
During the Awami League era, families were allowed to visit every five days. Now it is once every fifteen days. This ten-day difference may sound minor, but to a prisoner it means ten additional nights of not knowing how their family is doing. In many cases, visits have been completely stopped. There is no opportunity to make phone calls. Even when being taken to court, prisoners are not allowed to speak with their families. This is not a security measure; it is a deliberate strategy to create isolation.
Sudden wake-ups at four or five in the morning, followed by turning the entire ward upside down, scattering belongings everywhere. If this happened two or three times a month, it might be tolerable. But every three or four days? This is not checking—it is a calculated effort to break sleep cycles and destroy mental stability. A person who cannot sleep properly cannot think properly. And a person who cannot think properly is easy to break.
Food, drinking water, and bathing water are being restricted in political wards. This may sound trivial, but depriving people of basic human needs is a well-known method of torture. CID personnel arrive and harass prisoners in the name of “checking.” Informers and guards are deliberately unleashed to keep prisoners under constant pressure. This unrelenting stress mentally exhausts a person.
“PW writer.” The name itself has now become synonymous with terror. When a PW writer arrives in the middle of the night and calls a prisoner by name, the prisoner knows a new case has been filed. Any hope of bail is instantly crushed. This uncertainty, this fear, haunts prisoners every night—when will their name be called again, when will another case be piled onto their heads?
Cases that previously resulted in bail after seven days of custody during the Awami League era now keep people in custody for three or four months without bail for the same type of charges. This is not the normal functioning of the justice system. Bail has effectively been barred in both lower courts and the High Court. What is being presented as a legal process is, in reality, a strategy to detain members of a particular political party indefinitely.
Even if bail is somehow granted, another phase of mental torment begins. Getting out of the prison gate becomes the biggest test. Prisoners are made to sit for hours. Calls are made to police stations, CT-SB, DB—asking whether any new case will be filed against the accused. If clearance comes, release follows. If not, the person is sent back to jail.
There is a grave legal inconsistency here. A person is sent back to prison without any case, and then, days later, shown as arrested in a new case. That means during those days in prison, there is no legal documentation. Legally, the person was free—but physically imprisoned. This is a direct violation of the law and an extreme violation of human rights. But who will stop it? How can justice be expected from a judiciary that is complicit in these acts?
Even if someone manages to cross the prison gate, the ordeal is not over. The DB can pick them up from the street. There is no chance of returning to normal life. One must remain in hiding. This cannot be the picture of an independent country.
Families outside suffer more than the prisoners themselves. They do not know what is happening inside. Every phone call, every piece of news terrifies them. Has bail been granted? Has a new case been filed? Will they be able to leave prison? Will they make it home? This uncertainty, this constant anxiety, breaks families from within.
The recent incident involving Saddam has made this entire situation even clearer. It is hard to imagine how much pressure and mental anguish a family must endure to reach such a decision. But those who are living through this reality understand.
Yunus and his illegal government are essentially pursuing one objective: the eradication of the Awami League. The judiciary, law-enforcement agencies, and prison administration are all being used to achieve this single goal. This is not a legal process; it is political revenge. Expecting justice from a government that seized power through riots funded by foreign money, supported by Islamist militant groups and backed by the military is foolish.
What is happening inside prisons is not merely physical confinement. It is a carefully planned system of psychological torture. Those inside do not know when their names will be called again, when a new case will be filed, or when they will be freed. Those outside do not know each day whether their loved ones are safe or even alive. This uncertainty, this fear, this mental pressure is enough to break a human being.
This is Yunus’s real objective: committing injustice through the law, delivering injustice through the judiciary, and turning prisons into centers of psychological torture. In this way, an attempt is being made to destroy a political party not only physically, but mentally as well. This cruelty, this systematic torture, cannot be the work of a democratic government. It is the work of a vindictive, illegal ruling clique that will not hesitate to choose any inhuman path to remain in power.