'Abductors’ freed Mahdi on condition of not writing on Facebook, says father

Ashraf Mahdi, grandson of late Islamic leader Mufti Fazlul Haque Amini, former chairman of a faction of Islami Oikya Jote, has been found at the same place from where he went missing in an alleged abduction on 6 August.

The alleged abductors freed him on the condition that he will not write anything on Facebook against a section of Islamic leaders, Mahdi’s father Jashim Uddin told Prothom Alo on Sunday night.

Mahdi, a student of Cairo’s Al-Azhar University, left Dhaka for Egypt on 25 July but Bangladesh immigration authorities brought him back home from Dubai as a case was filed against him.

In the case statement, it was alleged that Mahdi along with eight others had been spreading rumours on social media against Shah Ahmed Shafi, leader of Islamist group Hefazat-e-Islam Bangladesh and others.

According to Mahdi’s father, those who brought Mahdi back from Dubai were his abductors.

On 6 August, Mahdi went to Lalbagh to meet his grandmother. He posted a Facebook status at 11:27pm that some people were following him. In the post he claimed if any harm was done to him, Islami Oikya Jote general secretary Foyzullah and others would be responsible for this.

Later, he was allegedly abducted from Mohammadpur Beribadh area.

Jashim Uddin told Prothom Alo that the abductors released Mahdi at the same place from where he was ‘picked up’. They freed him on condition of not writing on Facebook, he alleged.

IOJ general secretary Foyzullah could not be reached when contacted. But, he told an international media outlet that he does not understand why Mahdi was blaming him.

Lalbagh police station officer-in-charge, KM Ashraf Hossain, told Prothom Alo they do not know why Mahdi was ‘abducted’.