Disappeared after entering DB office?

db-police
db-police

A BNP man and councillor of a union parishad in Keshabpur upazila of Jashore allegedly went missing after he had entered the Minto Road office of the detective branch (DB) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police on 27 November.

Majidpur union parishad councillor Saifur Rahman, 35, came to Dhaka on the insistence of a DB officer, who made several phone calls to him, said another councillor of the union parishad Abdul Latif Gazi.

Abdul Latif Gazi accompanied Saifur Rahman to Dhaka and was waiting for him at the gate of DB office for several hours.

Earlier, the missing councillor accompanied the Jashore district unit BNP vice president, also chairman of Majidpur union Abu Bakar, who came to Dhaka to seek party nomination for the upcoming general elections but was found dead in Buriganga river on 22 November, four days after he had gone missing.

Acting chairman of the union Abdur Rahman said Saifur informed them about the phone call and insistence of a certain DB officer. “Then I sent him to Dhaka along with councillor Abdul Latif Gazi.”

“We went to the DB office around 11:00am on 27 November. In the meantime, Saifur talked to that officer over mobile phone. He asked him to wait at the gate around 12:00pm. After a while, a man came and led Saifur inside,” Latif Gazi told Prothom Alo.

“Two other persons were waiting there. We were asked to wait on the other side of the road. I waited there for several hours but Saifur didn’t come out. I talked to the persons at the gate but they said they don’t know what’s going on inside,” he added.

Latif Gazi said he returned in the evening and could not contact Saifur since then.

Missing councillor’s brother Hafizur Rahman said Saifur is an activist of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).

Acting chairman of the union Abdur Rahman said despite efforts, they failed to find the whereabouts of Saifur.

“However, recently three masons who were released from DB police custody informed me over phone that they met Saifur there. He gave them my phone number and asked them to inform us of the matter,” he added.

On contacted, DMP deputy commissioner (media and public relations) Masudur Rahman told Prothom Alo that South Keraniganj police station has been investigating the lawsuit, not the DB.

South Keraniganj police station officer-in-charge Shah Zaman said he did not know whether the DB officials called anyone regarding the case.

*This report, originally appeared in Prothom Alo print edition, has been rewritten in English by Shameem Reza