'Missing' list gets longer
With the reports of untraced persons continuing to surface on the media, another youth allegedly went missing in the capital on October 7.
Arafat Rahman, 24, reached the capital on September 17 from Nilphamari to visit his parents in Mohammadpur, said his father Mominul Haq.
He said Arafat went to attend a two-day Tabligh Jamaat in Amin Bazar area, on the outskirts of Dhaka on October 7.
But since then, he did not return and his phone was found switched off. A general diary was filed with Mohammadpur Police Station on October 10, Mominul said at a press briefing in the capital yesterday. The family also contacted Rapid Action Battalion-2 on October 29, two days after a message was sent to his elder brother from Arafat's facebook account, said the father.
It read: “I am being held at an unknown place for the last 20 days and I don't know if I can come back home.”
Mominul said Arafat's wife also received another message the same day, which read: “I'm fine. Please pray for me.”
Arafat, who got married in 2016, has a two-and-a-half-month-old girl. After passing HSC from Mirpur Commerce College, he used to work from his family home in Saidpur of Nilphamari. In a span of just three months, 10 people including a journalist had gone missing or were abducted since August 22 from the capital. Only two of them returned while the other eight are still untraced.
Journalist Utpal Das, 27, went traceless on October 10 on his way to office in Motijheel.
Meanwhile, Mithun Chowdhury, president of newly formed Bangladesh Janata Party, and his associate Ashik Ghosh have been missing since October 27, alleged Mithun's wife Sumona Chowdhury at a press briefing at Sylhet District Press Club on Tuesday. Sumona alleged that some people introducing them as law enforcers picked up the duo on a black microbus from Farashganj in the capital.
Moreover, four people went missing or were abducted from the capital within four days in August. They are managing director of RMM Group Aniruddha, Mcgill University student Ishrak Ahmed Fahim, Bangladesh Kallyan Party Secretary General MM Aminur Rahman, and businessman Syed Sadat Ahmed, also a BNP leader.
According to rights body Ain o Salish Kendra, as many as 540 people have allegedly fallen victim to forced disappearances between 2007 and July 2017 in the country and 347 of them are still missing.
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