Staff Reporter :
Poet, columnist, critic and political analyst Farhad Mazhar, 70, was allegedly abducted early Monday from his Haque Garden residence in the city’s Shaymoli area, claimed his family.
The police, however, said Farhad Mazhar remained missing after he “went out of his residence in the morning in normal attires,” said Biplob Kumar Sarker, Deputy Commissioner of Tejgaon Division of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP). Farhad’s wife Farida Akhtar told him that her husband had been abducted, the police official said.
Later, Farida filed a General Diary (GD) with Adabar Police station in this connection as per the prescription of police. After receiving a verbal complaint, police visited his house and found a CCTV footage that shows Mazhar was “going out of the residence on foot, clad in a normal dress, at 5:05am in the morning,” Sarkar said.
Wahidul Islam, Additional Deputy Commissioner of Tejgaon Division of DMP, said the kidnappers demanded ransom money through Farhad’s moble phone number around 7:30pm.
Police sources said after tracking his number, it was found that he travelled through Gabtali and Paturia ferryghat to the South-Western region of the country. Police put all effort to trace him out.
They said Mazhar was located about 250 kilometres away in Khulna region in a quickly unfolding event.
“The police are trying to trace him with the help of technology. But the matter is still very mysterious,” Sarker said.
Meanwhile, a team of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) has started a massive drive at Sonadanga upazila of Khulna to rescue Farhad Mazhar after being informed by the detectives, Khandakar Rafiqul Islam, Additional Deputy Inspector General of Police and Commanding Officer (CO) of RAB-6, told The New Nation on Monday night.
The rescue operation will be continued until further declaration, the RAB official said.
“We have ensured after verifying that the seized micro bus and the city micro bus, which was used for abduction, is not similar,” the CO said
Besides, detectives raided a location in Khulna’s Baira but did not find Mazhar, said SM Shafiullah, Khulna Additional Superintendent of Police, whose team has been getting instructions from the headquarters in Dhaka.
After Mazhar went missing, a complaint was filed by one of his relatives around 10am, said Mohsin Ali, Sub-Inspector (SI) of Adabar Police station.
Mazhar later called his wife on her mobile and asked her to manage Tk 35 lakh for ransom, he said.
Farhad’s wife Farida Akhter said, “Her husband said he’ll be killed unless his abductors are paid Tk 35 lakh.”
According to Farida, half an hour after Mazhar, also a researcher, went out of the house, at Shyamoli’s Ring Road, he called her through his mobile phone and said, “Save me, they have kidnapped me. They will kill me”.
She could not name any suspect behind the abduction.
A source close to Farhad Mazhar said Farida, the founder of non-government organisation Ubinig, saw her husband working on the computer when she woke up around 4:30am. She woke up again around 5:00am, but then she did not see her husband in front of the computer table. Mazhar called his wife at 5:29am. Farida received a phone call later at 6:21am, which was followed by another call, and she was told to pay a ransom of Tk 35,00,000 for her husband’s release.
BNP has already pointed the finger at the government, blaming Mazhar’s disappearance on “one of its agencies”.
“We don’t think this happened without the government’s knowledge. Surely one of its teams or agencies is involved in this incident,” said BNP’s Senior Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi at an emergency media briefing at the party’s headquarters in Naya Paltan.
“Such incidents happen repeatedly and the government’s silence is deplorable,” said Nur Khan Liton, a prominent rights activist, while talking to the media.
According to family sources, Mazhar received an economics degree in the US after graduating in pharmacy from Dhaka University. He returned to Bangladesh to start a neo-agricultural movement through his organisation UBINIG.
Mazhar, known for his grey ponytail and preference for ‘lungis’, has been editing a publication called Chintaa, or Thought.
