Dhaka – Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) members launched a drive in Shibbari area of the city on Monday evening to rescue poet and columnist Farhad Mazhar who was reportedly kidnapped from the capital. A team of Rab-6 started the drive around 6:30 pm after tracking the location of his mobile phone, said its commanding officer Khandkar Rafiqul Islam. The Rab force looked for the columnist at several houses of the area but could not trace him till filing of this around 7:30 pm. The drive was continuing. Earlier in the early hours, Farhad Mazhar was reportedly kidnapped by unknown miscreants from Adabar area in the capital. Quoting family members, Mohsin, a sub-inspector of Adabar Police Station, said Farhad Mazhar came out of his residence, ‘Haq Garden’, at Adabar Link Road after receiving a phone call around 5 am. His wife later got a phone call from the unknown miscreants demanding Tk 35 lakh as ransom for his release, he said. Having failed to know the whereabouts of Farhad Mazhar till 10 am, his family members went to Adabar Police Station and informed the police about it. – UNB news agency Our staff reporter adds – Pro-opposition intellectual Farhad Mazhar went missing Monday morning, which his family claims, an act of abduction from near his Adabar residence in the capital.
Police said Farhad Mazhar went missing since he went out of his residence at dawn.
Farhad Mazhar is known as a pro-opposition intellectual and political analyst.
Deputy Commissioner of Police Biplob Kumar Sarker told reporters that Farhad’s wife Farida Akhtar told him that her husband had been abducted.
He said the footage of the CCTV cameras installed in front of Farhad’s residence shows that he was “going out of the residence on foot, clad in a normal dress, at 5:05am in the morning”.
The police officer then asked Farida to file a general diary with Adabar police station.
The family sources, however, said he usually wakes up early in the morning, but doesn’t go outside the residence at that time. He usually goes out after eight or nine in the morning.
Farhad Mazhar has remained vocal against the government’s “onslaught on freedom of expression”, called up his wife at 5:29am over cell phone and said: “I am being taken away. They will kill me.”
Biplob said the police are trying to trace him through tracking his phone. “His locations are being changed frequently. We’re trying to find him.”
Farida, the founder of 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 before the computer table, said his family sources.
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 3 million (Tk 30,00,000) for her husband’s release.
Adabar police station’s sub-inspector Ali Aktar told reporters Farhad’s wife Farida Akhtar informed the police about the disappearance of her husband around 10:00am.
After receiving a verbal complaint, police visited his house and found a CCTV footage that shows Mazhar leaving the house around 5:07am “in normal gesture”, the police official said.
A general diary was filed with Adabor Police Station in connection with the incident, DC Biplob said.
A family friend contacted Adabor police later in the day to notify the matter, Sub-inspector Aleya Akhter of the station said.
Senior officials of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (Tejgaon Division) and Adabor police have visited Farhad’s place in Shyamoli and spoken to Farida. Farida is the executive director of Ubinig. – Staff Reporter
