Dhaka, June 6 -- A culture of abuse buried behind locked doors, soundproof walls, and official silence--now beginning to be unearthed.

In a chilling expose of state-sanctioned brutality, the Commission on Enforced Disappearances has laid bare a pattern of torture and abuse that flourished under the cloak of enforced disappearances during the 15-year rule of prime minister Sheikh Hasina.

Testimonies gathered by the commission recount detainees being strung from ceilings, subjected to electric shocks during urination, and shackled to bedposts for weeks in clandestine detention centres.

Long suppressed by fear, these harrowing accounts began to surface after the formation of the commission, led by retired High Court Justice Mainul Islam C...