Missing ex-JCD leader found after 3 months
Around three months after going missing from the capital, a former central committee leader of Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal was found in Faridpur early yesterday.
Rab claimed to have arrested Anisur Rahman Talukder Khokon, a former organising secretary of JCD central committee, along with two others in front of a restaurant on the Dhaka-Khulna highway in Faridpur Sadar upazila.
"The trio were arrested with 15 petrol bombs, 25 crude bombs and eight cell phones in front of a restaurant on the Dhaka-Khulna highway in Faridpur Sadar upazila around 3:00am yesterday," said Rab's Faridpur company commander Khaled-uz-Zaman, also an additional superintendent of police.
Family of Khokon, however, alleged Rab had picked him up from his Adabar residence in the capital on March 5.
A group of seven to eight plainclothes men "abducted" him when he returned home two months after he had gone into hiding on "security grounds" during the BNP-led 20-party alliance's nationwide blockade since January 6, Khokon's family had alleged soon after the incident.
But the elite force had been denying the allegation from the beginning.
In a press release issued yesterday, Rab claimed the arrestees confessed that they had been involved in subversive activities across the country since January 5. They had been staying outside the capital, the statement read.
Contacted, Rab-8 commanding officer Lt Col Faridul Alam told The Daily Star that Rab did not know anything about the abduction.
"The trio had been handed over to the local police station following their arrest from the area," he said.
Khaled-uz-Zaman said, "Among them, Khokon is a charge-sheeted accused in two cases filed with Sutrapur and Paltan police stations in Dhaka."
The two other arrestees were identified as Shohag Gazi and Ali Bhuiyan Jony.
Gazi is a JCD activist in Jessore and Jony a JCD leader in Gendaria, said Abdus Sattar Patwary, publicity secretary of JCD central committee.
Imran, Khokon's younger brother, told The Daily Star that some locals, who knew Khokon, called them over the phone, saying they had seen his missing brother while he was being taken to Kotwali Police Station in Faridpur.
A case was filed against the trio under the explosives act.
Akram Hossain, Khokon's father-in-law, said Khokon's brother Mukhlesur Rahman and some other relatives met him at the Kotwali Police Station.
"The relatives have sent some photographs where it was seen that Khokon has thinned drastically," he said.
Sub-inspector Kamaruzzaman of Kotwali Police Station said that they produced the trio before a Faridpur court after Rab handed them in the afternoon.
The court sent them to jail, he said.
Days after his abduction, Rab in a press briefing regarding arrest of alleged arsonists and recovery of explosives, had claimed that Khokon was one of the financers of arson attacks on people and vehicles during the blockade.
Earlier, BNP leader Salahuddin Ahmed was found in Shillong, the capital of north-eastern Indian state of Meghalaya, around two months after he had gone missing from his Uttara residence in the capital on March 10.
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