DHAKA: A Bangladesh commission investigating disappearances during the rule of ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina said Monday at least 287 people were assumed to have been killed.

The commission said some corpses were believed to have been dumped in rivers, including the Buriganga in the capital, Dhaka, or buried in mass graves.

The government-appointed commission, formed after a mass uprising in August 2024 toppled Hasina, said it had investigated 1,569 cases of abductions, with 287 of the victims presumed dead.

“We have identified several unmarked graves in several places where the bodies were presumably buried,” Nur Khan Liton, a commission member, said.

“The commission has recommended that Bangladesh seek cooperation from forensic experts to identify the bodies and collect and preserve DNA samples from family members.” In its final report, submitted to the government on Sunday, the commission said that security forces had acted under the command of Hasina and her top officials.

The report said many of those abducted had belonged to the country’s largest Islamist party, Jamaat-e-Islami, or the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), both in opposition to Hasina.

In a separate investigation, police in December began exhuming a mass grave in Dhaka.

Published in Dawn, January 6th, 2026