Salahuddin case getting 'CURIOUSER' and 'CURIOUSER'
The plot would have provided for an excellent script for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and an even more challenging mystery to Sherlock Holmes to solve how the BNP leader landed up where he did after two months of being incommunicado with the rest of the world.
The government's "we told you he is not with the police" is as surprising as BNP going into a mute mode after the appearance of Salahuddin in Shillong. But should we be surprised?
Given the curious happenings in the country that we have been witnessing for several years -- from politics to elections, both at national and city council and UZ levels, disappearances of political figures, some members of the law enforcing agencies acting as paid killers, submission of charge sheet for gruesome killings taking nearly a year, the delay due allegedly to the fact that some well linked persons are allegedly involved in the brutal killings -- we have stopped being taken by surprise anymore.
We had in these very columns dilated on Salahuddin's disappearance and had concluded with the hope that he would be the last of our citizens to go missing under dubious circumstances and that he does not meet the same fate as Ilyas Ali's, who, like some of his few other colleagues, seems to have proceeded on an never-ending journey like the sage Agastya or Agastya Muni. We are not sure about the former but we are all relieved that the phantom figure, that Salahuddin had become, has materialised, even if it happens to be in the most unlikely setting and place.
In this column too, we had by reasoning eliminated two of the three possible circumstances of his disappearance, with the third possibility, of state involvement meriting strong rationale for consideration. Therefore, when one commentator states that his appearance in Shillong after two months of going missing proves that Salahuddin was not in the custody of our agencies, it literally is jumping to conclusions without offering an iota of a cogent rationale why that is so.
Salahuddin's disappearances and appearance have raised many questions and it is for the government to provide answer to every one of those if only to prove that the finger being pointed at the police is being wrongly done.
Salahuddin is not the first prominent person to have landed up in India under doubtful circumstances, intentionally or otherwise. Two persons, by virtue of their involvement in or association with significant legal matters, had also landed up in India in similar fashion. I am referring to the case of Sukh Ranjan Bali and Nur Hossain. And it's not by coincidence that both these persons are involved in two very important criminal cases in Bangladesh, the former being an important witness at the trial of a war criminal. There is no certainty when Nur Hossain might return. And pending the absence of one of the main accused in the seven murder case, one wonders how justice can be meted out fully and without delay.
The first question is why should the BNP leader seek on his own volition to land up in India illegally? What could be Salahuddin's reason for seeking sanctuary in India? It could be perhaps to avoid the same fate as some of his colleagues. But he could well have attempted the legal way and if he was arrested, say for example, at the airport, then the matter would have been in public domain and there would not be the chance of his 'vanishing.'
It is not beyond the pale of possibility that Salahuddin wanted to create a sensation. And if the government would have us believe that the Salahuddin act was meant to embarrass the government one wonders why a person who was in hiding in Bangladesh and apparently outside the reach of all the agencies, would inflict an uncertain situation on himself by going to India illegally? Would one subject oneself to a legal procedure whose conclusion no one can predict? And should the government have not anticipated such a possibility and instructed those guarding the borders to have been more vigilant to prevent him from escaping?
Given the circumstances so far we have come to know, the situation of Bali, Nur and Salahuddin appears to be quite similar. It is for the government to prove that Salahuddin is a fugitive. And instead of waiting for the legal process to end, it should use its good offices with the Indian government to get Salahuddin back, if only to prove that Salahuddin was not in police custody, and that the government had nothing to do with his two-month absence or his landing up in Shillong.
The writer is Editor, Oped and Defence & Strategic Affairs, The Daily Star.
Comments