BGB Naik Abdur Razzak, who returned to country on Thursday after being held captive by Myanmar for eight days, was brought to the capital last night for medical treatment.
He reached the Pilkhana Border Guard Bangladesh Headquarters around 11:30pm. “After having rest for the night, he will be admitted to the BGB Hospital in the morning,” Mohosin Reza, public relations officer of the BGB, told the Dhaka Tribune.
Asked about Razzak’s condition, Reza earlier in the day said the naik’s mental state had been stable, but he needed to have a nose injury checked by specialised doctors.
Upon his return in the country “unhurt,” Razzak told reporters that he had received the nose injury during a scuffle at the Naf River border on the night he was abducted by the Border Guard Police members.
He, however, did not comment when asked whether he had been tortured in custody.
From the Teknaf battalion offices, BGB officials initially brought Razzak to the Cox’s Bazar headquarters yesterday morning; and from there, they started for Dhaka by road in the afternoon.
Naik Razzak was abducted on June 17 by Myanmar’s BGP from the zero line on the Naf River following a scuffle between the members of the two countries’ border security forces. Another BGB member Biplob was injured by gunshots fired by the BGP members, but he was brought back to safety.
Following the incident, the BGP Facebook page uploaded a picture which showed the BGB naik with handcuffs on, drawing mass outrage from the Bangladeshis as well as prompting an official protest by the government.
After eight days of drama and uncertainty about the fate of Razzak, on Thursday, a team led by 42 BGB battalion Commanding Officer Lt Col Abu Jar Al Zahid went across the border to the neighbouring country’s Mongdu area. He was brought back after day-long successful talks with the BGP officials.
At a press conference at the Pilkhana Headquarters on Thursday, the paramilitary force’s chief Maj Gen Aziz Ahmed said Razzak would be debriefed about what had happened during his stay in BGP custody.
The BGB director general, however, refuted questions on whether the naik might have disclosed sensitive information, saying Razzak was not supposed to know anything that might be considered sensitive for the state as he was not in a very high-ranked post.
“However, now that he has come back, we will definitely ask him about it and whether any BGB official’s irresponsible actions led to the incident,” he said. Asked whether the BGP did this intentionally, Aziz said: “The place where Razzak was abducted from is one of the hotbeds of the yaba trade.”
