Dhaka, Sept 9 – A group of parents and guardians held a press conference yesterday in where they claimed their sons were picked up by the Detective Branch of police on the early morning of September 5. The press conference was held at the conference room of the Crime Reporters Association of Bangladesh (CRAB) headquarter under the banner of “Helpless families of 12 missing sons.”
The parents requested the law enforcers to produce the student before a court if they are guilty. They informed the journalists present there that the DB police have so far denied its involvement with the picking up of those students.
Journalists contacted Mashiur Rahman, Deputy Commissioner of DB (North) and he said, “The detective branch of police didn’t conduct any such operation on the morning of September 5.”
According to the statement of the parents and the guardian, those 12 students along with some others were picked up by DB police from three spate messes in the two areas during a drive on the morning of September 5 The messes were located in the city’s Tejgaon and Mohakhali area.
The twelve “detained” students are Jahirul Islam Hasib, Saifullah Bin Mansur, Gazi M Borhan Uddin, Al Amin, Mujahidul Islam, Jahangir Alam, Tarek Aziz, Mahfuz, Raihanul Abedin, Tarek Aziz, Iftekhar Alam, and Mehedi Hasan Rajib.
Talking with Journalists, Rafiqul Islam, father of Raihanul Abedin said his son was picked up from the Rasulbagh mess in Tejagon in the early hour of the morning on September 5.
“After I heard the news, I rushed to the mess from my home in Khilkhet. I had learned from the people present there that plain clothed DB men had picked up my son among others.”
Rafiqul went to the police station of Tejgaon and Mohakhali but none of the police officials present there could inform him of an update on his son’s whereabouts. “When I went to the DB police, they denied of picking up my son.’
Asked, Rafiqul said his son was not involved in political parties. “He was a student of Civil Engineering in Dhaka Polytechnique Institute and was in the seventh semester there. I have no clue why he was being picked up.”
Like Rafiqul, Rashed Alam, brother of Iftekhar Alam who was detained too doesn’t have any idea why his brother, a student of chemical engineering of Dhaka Polytechnic Institute, was picked up on the same morning by from the mess known as Yusuf Kutir in Tejkuni para.
Upon hearing the news, Rashed who was in Noakhali at that time came to Dhaka to find out what happens to his brother. “We came to know that DB police had picked up my brother but when we went to the DB police, they denied.”
Rashed said few other students who used to stay in Yusuf Kutir were also detained by the DB on the same morning but they were later released. “One of those who was released told me that he was tortured by the DB who tried to get the information whether that student was involved in spreading any rumour during the student-led protest for safer roads.” – Staff Reporter
