Well-known Bangladeshi government critic Farhad Mazhar, who was reported missing on Monday, was found on a Dhaka-bound bus in Khulna city at 11.30 pm the same day, BBC reported. A team of Rapid Action Battalion-6 was deployed on a rescue operation in search of the poet-columnist after his family had reported him missed.
On Monday, Mazhar had called his wife to tell her he was being taken away by a man, and that he feared for his life. The police had said that his wife had received a ransom call demanding 35 lakh taka (Rs 28.1 lakh).
CCTV footage from Shyamali, Mazhar’s neighbourhood in Dhaka, showed him walking away with a man early in the morning. However, it is still unclear whether he had been abducted.
The police have expressed doubts over Mazhar’s alleged abduction, reported The Financial Express Bangladesh. “He was carrying a bag with some clothes and some money in it. He didn’t even forget to take his mobile phone charger,” Deputy Inspector General (Khulna Range) Didar Ahmed said while addressing reporters on Monday night.
The 69-year-old writer is a supporter of the main Opposition party in Bangladesh, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party. BNP Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi had alleged that officials of the government’s law enforcement agencies had picked him up. “As the government is scared of his write-ups, it targeted him,” he claimed.
BNP officials have alleged that thousands of their activists and supporters have been arrested by the government since 2014, when the party boycotted the general election over fears that it would be rigged. There have also been allegations that authorities had detained BNP supporters and held them in secret jails.
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