Businessman goes missing in Rajshahi

Abdus Salam, a wealthy businessman of Rajshahi's Bagmara upazila with controversial connections, went missing on Sunday, his family alleged.

His family members and hundreds of people from his village Cheukhali formed a human chain on Taherpur-Sikdari road in the village. The demonstrators agitated for two hours and demanded he be traced.

According to a general diary filed by his wife Afroza Begum with Bagmara Police Station yesterday, Salam left home for Bhabaniganj bazar in the morning, but never returned.

Talking to this correspondent over phone, Afroza Begum said an eyewitness told her that some people in a black microbus and two motorcycles abducted him from Polashi village around noon while he was returning home.

“I found his mobile phone switched off at 3:00pm,” she said.

Officer-in-charge of Bagmara Police Station, Nasim Ahmed said they were trying to track his phone to find his whereabouts.

Abdus Salam was listed in local police records as a member of banned militant outfits Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh and Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh, Nasim Ahmed added.

He joined Awami League in 2008 when the party came to power, and became vice president of Goalkandi union AL and agriculture and cooperatives secretary of the upazila unit.

He was nominated by AL for contesting the Goalkandi Union Parishad election on May 7, 2016, but his nomination was cancelled and the polls at 16 unions of Bagmara upazila were withheld, after four people were killed in clashes among two AL groups divided over Salam's nomination. 5454545