It was only their young age and state of being inmates of a mess building for why the police picked up 87 youths from the capital’s Kalabagan early yesterday, only few hours ahead of the opposition’s programme at Nayapaltan.
Police admitted that they had detained the youths only on suspicion.
SI Moniruzzaman, who led the arrest, said those youths had been taken in custody just for questioning to find whether they had links to any crimes centring the opposition’s programme.
Asked, the SI said none of them was arrested in any specific case and no case was filed against them. Moreover, the police did not recover anything from their possessions.
Iqbal Hossain, officer-in-charge of Kalabagan police, said they would free the youths after questioning.
All those detainees, aged between 22 and 30, were picked up from a seven-storey building at Dolphin Goli of Kalabagan just after midnight. Most of them were students while some others just have completed their studies or joined jobs.
Syed Latif Hossain, an uncle of detainee Safwan Bakee, said the security issue had become a matter of concern for the people.
Sources said the tight security situation, centring the opposition programme, had created scopes for a section of policemen to make money through malpractice of laws through detentions.
Like those 87 youths, a significant number of students, service holders or job seeking youths had to suffer detention after the joint forces had begun a special drive ahead of the national election on January 5.
The joint forces in separate drives in capital earlier arrested 25 people on December 26 – on the launching day, 152 on December 27 and 203 on December 28 while more than 1,500 people across the country in the last one week.
