Dozens witnessed; cops in the dark

Though around 30 people witnessed the abduction of two brothers in Mirpur's Darussalam early Friday, police still are clueless about the identity of the perpetrators.

Those who witnessed the abduction pointed fingers at a particular law enforcement agency, saying one of the abductors was wearing a sleeveless jacket with two letters inscribed on its back.

They, however, could not read what those letters were, as the man always kept a distance from the locals that night.

Of the government agencies that usually conduct drives to detain someone, only the members of the Detective Branch of police wear such jackets with "DB" written on its back.

Besides, some of them were carrying heavy firearms which were unlike anything used by patrol police, said Mohammad Rubel.

Rubel runs a tea-stall a few yards from the Golartek residences of the abducted book trader brothers, Omar Faruk and Firoz Sarder, and was the first to encounter the gang of abductors that night.

"Around 2:00am on Thursday night, a group of 10-11 people got off from a big white microbus at the entry of the [Golartek] lane, and came to my tea stall. One of them was wearing a lungi. I had only a few customers, mostly rickshaw-pullers at that time," he told The Daily Star yesterday.

"Brandishing firearms, they told me to close the shop. Then they took us along with two community security guards hostage. They searched us and seized the mobile phones of three," he said.

"Three men with firearms stood on guard while the others went towards the gate to the buildings where the brothers lived.

"The gate was locked. Having failed to open it, the men came back and asked me if I had any tool with which they could break open the lock.

"When I said no, they went back to the gate and two of them scaled the wall and got inside.

"About half an hour later, the men brought the two brothers out, forced them into the white microbus and sped away," Rubel said, adding that before leaving, the "mysterious men" returned the three mobiles they had seized.

Faruk and Firoz have been living in the neighbourhood for the last seven years. Faruk lived on the ground floor of a two-storey building with his wife, two children and parents while Firoz lived on the ground floor of an adjacent three-storey building with his wife and their twin sons.

Firoz's wife Meena said that she heard someone knocking on the door, shouting, "Fire! Fire!" and asking everyone to come out.

"When my husband opened the door, he saw two men outside. One of them asked his name. The moment he said his name, the man caught my husband by the collar and started beating him while asking where Faruk lived."

Despite heavy beating, Firoz was not giving them Faruk's whereabouts.

By then, the manager of the building and his wife had come downstairs, hearing the commotion.

"When I saw how mercilessly they were beating Firoz, I told them that Faruk lived in the next building," the manager's wife Shirin told The Daily Star.

"The two men then took the keys to the main gate from my husband. They opened the gate and let their fellows in. They were armed. Then they started kicking on the door of Faruk's house," she continued.

Once inside Faruk's home, they started looking for his mobile phone and seized his wife's, said Shirin.

They kept beating Faruk till he gave away his phone, which was put on charge at a neighbour's house, she said adding that after getting their hands on the cell phone, the men left with the brothers.

By then, all the residents of the two buildings had woken up. They all watched the gunmen taking away Faruk and Firoz.

Except for the two cellphones, they took nothing else, said the family members.

However, Officer-in-Charge Rafiqul Islam of Darussalam Police Station said they still didn't know who might have carried out the abduction. "We are trying our best to find the brothers."

There was no complaint, case or general diary against the two brothers, he said.