Enemy Property List Of Bangladesh 2012 File
He unrolled the brittle printout under a naked bulb. The header read: "Schedule of Enemy/Vested Properties – National Consolidation, 2012 – Ministry of Land."
Farhad still carries his copy. Not as a weapon. As a witness.
He sat in silence for an hour. Then he took out a matchbox.
Three weeks later, a truncated version of the list appeared in a German human rights report. The government called it "a conspiracy to destabilize the nation." The Ministry of Land denied any "enemy property" remained in state hands, pointing to the 2001 Vested Property Return Act, which had promised restitution. But the 2012 list proved otherwise: less than 5% of properties had ever been returned. The rest were still marked Enemy . enemy property list of bangladesh 2012
Farhad lost his job. He was detained for seventy-two hours, then released without charge. His name was added to a surveillance log. But the list survived.
But he didn't burn the papers. Instead, he made three photocopies. One he sent to a journalist at Prothom Alo under a pseudonym. One he buried inside a false-bottomed drawer at his aunt's house in the village. And one he kept on his person—folded into a plastic sleeve, sewn into the lining of his jacket.
Farhad's throat tightened. His great-grandfather had migrated in 1965—six years before Bangladesh even existed as a nation. Yet here, in 2012, the state still called him an enemy. He unrolled the brittle printout under a naked bulb
It never did, fully. But the list remained what it had always been: a testament to the living ghosts of 1971, hiding in plain sight, bound in red tape and sealed with the ink of power.
His finger traced down the rows, past names like Shanti Ranjan Das (Kishoreganj, 12 acres, seized for "absence during war"), Rupam Chandra Shil (Satkhira, fish farm, now under Bangladesh Krishi Bank), Mina Rani Pal (Jessore, three shops, under Zila Parishad control). Each entry was a life erased, a deed turned into a political token.
The year was 2012, and the heat in Dhaka was not just in the air—it was in the dust-choked corridors of the Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs. Inside a cramped, steel-cabinet-lined room, a young legal associate named Farhad Uddin sat cross-legged on a torn rug, surrounded by folios that smelled of mildew and mothballs. As a witness
The original Enemy Property Ordinance of 1965 (later the Vested Property Act of 1974) had allowed the Bangladesh government to seize assets belonging to "enemies"—defined as citizens of India and, later, any person deemed absent or disloyal during the Liberation War of 1971. By 2012, nearly 2.5 million acres of land, 200,000 urban properties, and thousands of industrial units remained under government custody. Most belonged to Hindus who had never returned, or Muslims whose families had been arbitrarily labeled "absentee."
Years later, in 2019, a landmark case reached the High Court: Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh vs. Government of Bangladesh . The petitioners submitted the 2012 list as evidence. The court ruled that the term "enemy property" was unconstitutional—all vested properties must be reviewed, and restitution must begin.
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