Locals informed the police about a person in pyjamas and panjabi wandering in front of the street near Shillong Golf Club early Monday. He had a blank look, as if he had been in a spell.
When the local police were informed, a patrol car was passing by around the same time. Dramatic incidents started to unfold as soon as the stranger was taken to nearby Pasteur Beat Police Station.
“I hardly found such a case in my long career in the Meghalaya police service,” M Kharkrang, the superintendent of police in East Khasi Hills, told online portal Bangla Tribune yesterday.
“Look! I am a VIP from Bangladesh. I had been a cabinet member of that country,” the stranger told police. But as he had no document with him and not a penny in his pocket, police thought the stranger was trying to bluff them.
Agreeing with the claim to continue the conversation, a police member enquired how he had crossed the border. It turned the stranger speechless. Considering him as mentally incoherent, police admitted him to the Meghalaya Institute of Mental Health and Neurological Sciences (Mimhens) at Pasteur Hills.
“Until then, we could not confirm whether he was a Bangladeshi or Salahuddin. He had no documents, whereas none of his relatives came to identify him. Therefore, we filed a case against him for illegal entry,” Kharkrang said.
Following treatment, the stranger started to gain normalcy in the night, and in the morning told doctors that he could recall his wife’s phone number. Then he called Hasina Ahmed in Dhaka and told her about his location.
Police said they had not seen injury marks on his body when he was found on Monday morning. Doctors, however, discovered his heart was weak, and admitted him to Shillong Civil Hospital later in the day. Seeking anonymity, a doctor at Mimhens said the person might have been given electric shock recently.
Shillong police are yet to solve the puzzle of how Salahuddin crossed the border and reached the city. The closest border point from Shillong is Dawki – some 42km off the city. After preliminary investigation, police think Salahuddin crossed the border or was pushed inside India sometime on Sunday night. Later he might have taken a bus or auto-rickshaw and reached Shillong.