Shahidul Alam picked up by DB

Detectives detained noted photographer Shahidul Alam last night for interrogation over his Facebook posts on the ongoing student protest.

Additional Commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DB) Abdul Baten confirmed that a team of Detective Branch of police picked up Shahidul, founder of Drik Picture Library, from his Dhanmondi house, reports UNB.

According to a Drik statement, Shahidul was forcibly taken away from his house around 10:00pm. 

Quoting eyewitnesses, it said some 30-35 plainclothes men identifying themselves as DB personnel went upstairs and brought Shahidul down.

He was screaming as he was forcibly pushed into a car with the words “Popular Life Insurance” written on it.

They taped up the CCTV cameras at the building, and took away the hard disks containing CCTV footage.

Shahidul's family sources said his wife Rahnuma Ahmed learnt from the guards that the plainclothes men arrived there in three vehicles.

Shahidul, also founder of Pathshala South Asian Media Institute, came under attack allegedly by Bangladesh Chhatra League men while videoing an attack on students campaigning for road safety near City College in the capital's Dhanmondi on Saturday afternoon.

Soon after the incident, he took shelter at a nearby guesthouse from where he went live on his Facebook page to share the incident.

“I was attacked a little while ago near City College because I was taking a video of Chhatra League students shouting 'Joy Bangla' and slightly before that attacking students,” he said in the video clip which went viral.

Later, Shahidul uploaded a photo of his vandalised camera on Facebook, saying “Remains of my OSMO,” hash-tagging “we want justice”.

Since that incident, he went live on his Facebook page, which has around 5,000 followers, at least seven times till 10:00pm Saturday.

Shahidul, an internationally renowned photographer and a social activist, gave an interview to Al Jazeera English where he criticised the government's role in the ongoing student movement.