Rescued UK expatriate BNP leader Mujibur Rahman was undergoing treatment at a city hospital on Tuesday night, but his car driver Rezaul Hoque Sohel did not reached home even after 24 hours of their rescue.
Earlier on Monday evening, Mujibur Rahman and Rezaul were reportedly rescued from Tongi in
Gazipur near the capital city Dhaka after they went missing from Sunamganj over three months ago on May 4.
They were found wearing veils of women. Adhesive tapes were stuck on their mouths while their hand and legs were tied with the ropes.
“Driver Rezaul still not reached his home. We were earlier told [by M. Rahman] that he had started for his Sunamganj home. He gave Rezaul Taka 1000 as conveyance. But the driver is still untraced. It is mysterious,” Md Jan-e Alam Khan, Officer-in Charge of Sunamganj Police Station, told The New Nation Tuesday night.
“We actually do not know whether the driver was with M. Rahman or not…. It was not police statement; rather it was his statement about sending his driver to village home. However, the police have started investigation to unearth the truth,” the OC said.
Rahman was undergoing treatment at Dhaka’s United Hospital under police custody till the time of filing this report at 7:30 pm yesterday.
He got admitted to hospital at about 8:15 pm on Monday after rescued by some of his relatives. A six-member team of police led by Additional Superintendent of Police [east] of Sunamganj Hedayetul Islam has been supervising him in the hospital.
When contacted, Addl SP Hedayetul Islam said last night, “Police already have talked with Rahman. But his replies were not satisfactory at all. He was giving different statements. He said some members of law enforcement agencies had kidnapped him. But he failed to identify which force it was.”
“Mujibur also did not tell anything about his confinement. He said that he was in a dark room. Besides, he was kept blindfolded during alteration of hiding places. ……There is no significant information. However, we also did not give him pressure as he was undergoing treatment,” the Addl SP said.
About missing driver, he further said, “It is highly mysterious why the driver has not still reached home. Local police sources also told me that the driver did not go home. We are trying to know the truth.”
Hedayetul Islam said that they would produce M. Rahman before a Sylhet court soon after the hospital authority releases him.
Meanwhile, Rahman’s brother-in-law Anowar Hossain claimed that a group of men abandoned the both [Rahman and Rezaul] at Tongi from where they came to his Gulshan residence. Later, he had admitted M. Rahman to United Hospital.
M. Rahman, BNP’s Sunamganj chapter convener, was a London expatriate. He was also the founder president of Juba Dal in the UK. He returned home a year ago and was staying at Hajipara in Sunamganj town. But his family was residing in the UK.
His relative Rabiul Islam had lodged a complaint with Sunamganj Sadar Police Station two days after the missing. Besides, the local BNP unit and the UK unit had been staging protests including hartals demanding immediate release of the two abducted men.
Meanwhile, media reports said that M. Rahman had spent six months in a prison of Kent in England in 2003 on charges of an attempt to murder. He allegedly tried to knife one of his party supporters during a Juba Dal convention in London. He got release on 29 April, 2004.
