Law enforcers yesterday said they knew nothing about the whereabouts of BNP leader Salahuddin Ahmed, who has been missing for five days.
In their reports submitted to the attorney general’s office yesterday, the Special Branch of police, Criminal Investigation Department, Rapid Action Battalion, Dhaka Metropolitan Police and the police headquarters all claimed that they had not detained or arrested Salahuddin.
Salahuddin’s family members have, however, complained that lawmen had picked him up from a Uttara apartment five days back.
In response to a petition filed by his wife Hasina Ahmed, the High Court on Thursday asked the government to explain why it should not be directed to trace and produce Salahuddin in the court by 10:30am yesterday.
The bench of Justice Quamrul Islam Siddiqui and Justice Gobinda Chandra Tagore asked eight defendants, including the inspector general of police, director general of RAB, CID, Special Branch of police, and DMP commissioner, to answer the ruling.
During the hearing yesterday afternoon, Attorney General Mahbubey Alam cited DMP’s report as saying it did not detain or arrest Salahuddin. “They are trying to locate him,” he said.
RAB said Salahuddin was not in their custody while the CID said they had not picked him up as there was no case against him it was investigating.
The SB, too, said they were trying hard to find him out.
Quoting the police report, Mahbubey Alam said on March 11 Hasina Ahmed went to the Uttara police station with 20-25 TV reporters and photojournalists around 10:45pm. She told the police that law enforcers had picked up Salahuddin from an Uttara sector 3 apartment between 9pm and 10pm the night before.
Hasina did not clearly say from who she had got the information first that her husband had been picked up.
She first said some unknown men had called her over phone giving the information; later she said she had heard the news from a person in Dubai over phone, the report said.
The police also said it was not clear to them why the family members took more than 24 hours to inform them about the incident and why they had gone to the police station with journalists.
When police offered her to go with them to the house for investigation Salahuddin’s wife refused. She also refused to file any GD.
She left the police station after 40 minutes and the police lodged the GD themselves.
The attorney general, quoting the police report, further said the Uttara police went to that apartment and found that it was owned by late Sirajuddowla. A person named Reza, who lives in Dhanmondi, takes care of the house on behalf of Sirajuddowla’s daughter.
“The ground floor of the building has a garage on the west and a vendor named Ahsan set up a warehouse on the east. A deliveryman named Saiful lives there,” said the report.
On the first floor, one Sukontho Karim lives on the east side flat and First Security Bank’s DMD Habib Hasnat and his wife Sumona live on the west side flat.
On the second floor engineer Khoshru I Jewel and his wife live and on the west side Nestle Manager Maj (retd) Hasib live with his wife and child.
The ground floor accommodates guards Ashraful and Akhter.
Attorney General Mahbubey Alam told the court that police found the Hasnat-Sumona’s flat locked from outside when they went there for investigation.
In an interrogation guard Akhter told the police that the couple had gone somewhere four days ago. Before leaving Hasnat told the guards that a guest would stay in the flat.
“Usually tenants come to and go out of the house until 11pm. On March 10, four-five men went to Hasnat’s flat around 9pm.
“Around half an hour later, the guest went out with those men in a car. The guard could not ascertain that the guest was Salahuddin. The men who took him did not have any uniform,” said Mahbubey.
The guard told the police that the car did not seem to belong to law enforcers. The men had no handcuffs with them and it did not seem that the guest was picked up forcefully.
The police also interrogated the tenants, who said they were unaware that law enforces had picked up anybody from the building. They also had no idea where the couple had gone leaving the guest in the flat.
Police came to know that Hasnat had taken a leave from his bank and Sumona was not in her father’s home. The couple lived alone in the flat and since the incident their phones have been switched off.
“In this situation, police could not be sure if Salahuddin Ahmed was in the flat or anyone arrested him or just abducted him,” the attorney general said.
“Maybe he hid since the police had already been looking for him,” he said, urging the court to dispose of the ruling as the law enforcers could not do anything else in this regard.
BNP leader and senior lawyer barrister Moudud Ahmed opposed the disposal of the ruling, saying they did not get the police report’s copy. He also argued that the reports submitted to the AG office were not endorsed with affidavit.
The court said: “Why should we take much time for such a subject? We can dispose the ruling with the observation that efforts of finding him [Salahuddin] should be continued. We have other cases to deal with.”
In reply Moudud urged the court to consider the case on humanitarian grounds.
