A businessman on Sunday told the International Crimes Tribunal-1 that he was abducted, secretly detained, and tortured in 2020 over Facebook posts critical of the then government and India.

The businessman, Md Masrur Anwar Chowdhury, said this while testifying as a prosecution witness in a crimes against humanity case over enforced disappearance at the Taskforce for Interrogation Cell of the Rapid Action Battalion during the 15-year authoritarian rule of ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina.

Masrur, now 36, is a freelance procurement and supply chain specialist and a graduate in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Independent University.

The case accuses 17 individuals, including Sheikh Hasina, her former home minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, her former defence adviser retired major general Tarique Ahmed Siddique, and 14 others, including 10 serving and one retired army officers and three fugitive senior police officers.

Masrur demanded justice for the torture he endured and the damage to his career.

The three-judge tribunal, chaired by Justice Md Golam Mortuza Mozumder, recorded his statement and adjourned the hearing until Monday.

Masrur testified that he was picked up on March 1, 2020, from the capital’s Gulshan area while on his way to work. Plainclothes men intercepted his rickshaw near Police Plaza, identified him through his Facebook profile, and forced him into a microbus at gunpoint.

He said that he was handcuffed and blindfolded before being taken to an unknown location, where he was kept in a small cell and interrogated about his social media posts and alleged links with extremists.

He alleged that he was beaten when he denied the accusations.

He said that he was later moved to another facility, which he believed to be a unit of the Rapid Action Battalion.

There, he claimed, he was repeatedly interrogated, kept blindfolded most of the time, and threatened with being killed in ‘crossfire’.

Masrur said that the interrogators pressured him to confess to involvement in extremist activities and an anti-government conspiracy, which he refused.

He also claimed that he spoke to other detainees who said that they had been held incommunicado for years.

After several days, he alleged, he was forced to witness what appeared to be a staged arrest of extremists. The next day, he and others were presented before media personnel and shown as arrested in an extremism case before being sent to jail through Fatullah police station.

He said that he spent around 10 months in jail before securing bail and was not allowed to contact his family during detention.

Following the July 2024 uprising, he filed a complaint with the Commission on Enforced Disappearances and later identified the cell where he had been held.

Chief prosecutor Md Aminul Islam and prosecutors Gazi Monowar Hossain Tamim and Shyikh Mahdi appeared for the state, while lawyer ABM Hamidul Mizbah, among others, represented the detained army officers.