At least, confirm his arrest
“Being threatened with arrest”, Selina Akhter accompanied some people in “plainclothes” from her in-laws' home in Cumilla to a relative's residence in Dhaka's Dania and handed over her brother Sohagh Bhuiyan to them at 7:00am on Sunday.
They assured Selina that Sohagh will be released soon, but as of 7:00pm yesterday police did not admit his detention or arrest.
Sohagh, Shahjahanpur thana general secretary of Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal, is an accused in three cases filed following the November 14 clashes in front of BNP's Nayapaltan office. After the violence, a picture of Sohagh, with a stick in his hand and buttons of his shirt open, went viral on social media.
His father Selim Bhuiyan said, “We are sure that detectives have picked up my son. I want police to at least admit that they have arrested him.”
Selim, a shop-owner in Shahjahanpur area, said plainclothes people went to his daughter's in-laws' house at Patwar Bhuiyan Bari in Cumilla's Nangalkot around 2:00am on Sunday.
“They threatened to arrest my daughter and her mother-in-law and forcibly took her to Nangalkot Police Station that night,” Selim told The Daily Star yesterday. He also alleged that under constant threats, his daughter Selina agreed to accompany the plainclothes people, some of whom were women.
She and her two-year-old daughter came to a relative's home at Dania, from where Shohagh was detained, he said. He claimed that the people in plainclothes said they were members of the Detective Branch of police.
Fearing police harassment, Selim said, he and his wife went to a relative's house in Noakhali after they came to know that police were looking for his son.
He said after he heard that Sohagh has been detained, the family came back to Dhaka on Sunday. Since then, the family members have visited DB office, Motijheel and Paltan police stations, but police did not confirm Sohagh's arrest. “We even visited a Dhaka court with hope that police may produce him there,” he added.
As per the existing law, it is mandatory for law enforcers to produce any arrestee before a court within 24 hours of arrest.
Wishing anonymity, a joint commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police said Sohagh may have been arrested. He said he would make an official comment on the matter today.
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