Missing BNP leader Salahuddin Ahmed’s wife Hasina Ahmed yesterday moved the High Court demanding judicial probe over the disappearance of her husband.
In the petition filed with the High Court bench of Justice Quamrul Islam Siddique and Justice Gobinda Chandra Tagore, she sought the court’s directives to form a probe committee to locate Salahuddin - who has been missing for a month.
During the hearing, Hasina Ahmed’s lawyer Moudud Ahmed told the court that they believed Salahuddin was alive and they had information about that, but could not specify the BNP leader’s whereabouts.
After the day’s proceedings, the High Court adjourned the hearing until 2:30pm today as the defence sought more time to complete their submission.
Following the adjournment, Moudud again told reporters “I was informed that he [Salahuddin] is alive. I do not know whether the information is true or false,” adding that it was Hasina Ahmed who had given him the information.
However, when asked, Hasina Ahmed told the Dhaka Tribune, “I do not know about this. If I knew his whereabouts, I would have told that in the courtroom.”
Following a writ petition filed by Salahuddin’s wife, the High Court bench on March 12 asked the government and law enforcers to explain why they should not be directed to find Salahuddin and bring him before it by March 15.
Following the order, the DMP, the Special Branch of police, CID, RAB and the Police headquarters submitted reports to the attorney general’s office on March 15, saying they could not find Salahuddin but were trying to trace him.
During yesterday’s proceedings, Moudud pointed out to the court that the DB had not answered to the previous court ruling.
When the court asked Moudud why he had not not included the DB’s name as a party in the writ petition, the counsel replied that the DB was not mentioned as it was a part of the police. But he urged the court to allow them to include DB as a correspondent.
“We have also told the court that it has history to direct the government to form any sort of judicial probe committee to find out a missing person. They can do that under the Inquiry Commission Act. I had presented such an initiative taken by a High Court bench in 1975. We will present some two examples tomorrow before the court,” Moudud told journalists.
According to the family of Salahuddin and the BNP, a team of 20-30 policemen, detectives and the RAB picked up the party’s joint secretary general from a house in the capital’s Uttara on March 10.
