AL leader abducted in capital

A mid-ranking leader of ruling Bangladesh Awami League (AL) party was abducted in broad daylight from capital’s Lalmatia area Friday afternoon when he was returning home after performing Jumma prayer, witnesses said.

Unidentified abductors whisked away former chairman of Cumilla’s Titas upazila (sub-district) Pervez Sarker into a pajero jeep just after he came out of the mosque after performing Jumma prayer.

Pervez, a member of AL’s Cumilla-North organisational district unit, is expecting nomination from the ruling party Awami League for Cumilla-2 constituency.

According to witnesses, Pervez was on his way to his home at Lalmatia after performing his Jumma prayer around 1:45pm. Meanwhile, a person wearing pant and t-shirt shakes hand with him. Another person having long hair holds his mouth tight from behind. A pajero jeep came to the scene just the time immediately and forcibly took Pervez to the car and left the scene in no time.

Pervez’s cousin Fahad Bhuiyan told Prothom Alo that four persons are involved in his brother’s abduction and all of them had pistol and walkie-talkie with them.

According to Fahad, two abductors were in the car while two others were outside. Fahad also said that abductors have long been following Pervez.

He also said that a video footage of the incident was also collected and it was found that the car which took Pervez has a number plate on it and the number is Gha-14-2577.

When contacted, Dhaka Metropolitan Police Mohammadpur zone senior assistant police commissioner Mrityunjoy Dey Sajal told Prothom Alo that the video footage is not clear.

“We are trying to collect more video footages of the scene from near-by houses,” he said.