Emotional reunion in Shillong
BNP leader Salahuddin Ahmed, who is undergoing treatment at a Shillong hospital in the Indian state of Meghalaya, had a reunion with his wife Hasina Ahmed yesterday evening after over two months.
An emotional moment arose when Hasina finally saw her husband from outside the window of the prison cell. The couple touched each other's hands through the window with tears rolling down Hasina's cheeks.
Meghalaya police arrested Salahuddin on May 11 as he was "hanging around aimlessly" in Golf Links area of Shillong nearly two months after his disappearance.
Hasina stayed with Salahuddin for around half an hour, journalists from Bangladesh and India who were at the hospital told The Daily Star.
Claiming that Salahuddin is "critically ill", she told reporters that they wanted to take him to a third country for better treatment through legal process.
Subrata Acharya, India bureau chief of Somoy TV, told The Daily Star that Hasina entered the hospital around 8:30pm (Bangladesh Time) along with two others.
After visiting her husband, she thanked the Indian government for providing her husband with shelter and treatment.
"We've already talked with lawyers and will bring them along to the hospital tomorrow while meeting my husband," Hasina was quoted by Subrata as saying.
Meanwhile, Salahuddin talking to journalists for the first time since he went missing on March 10 yesterday said that after riding a car for about 12-14 hours with his eyes blindfolded and hands tied, some people left him at the Shillong golf course.
He, however, could not say anything about the identity of the people who had carried him there.
In reply to another query about how the Meghalaya police found him, he said, "After I was left at the Shillong golf course, I requested some locals to take me to a police station. They phoned the police and then policemen took me to a station."
He also criticised the government for "having the Interpol's National Central Bureau in Dhaka in sending a 'letter of request' to its New Delhi office".
In the letter sent on May 14, Interpol Dhaka requested its New Delhi office to arrest Salahuddin who had already been arrested by Meghalaya police.
“I did not commit any crime. I am not an accused or a listed criminal. Nor am I absconding,” he told reporters while he was being taken to the main building of Shillong Civil Hospital for a CT scan from the ward of under-trial prisoners.
He said his return to Bangladesh has become uncertain due to this letter.
The BNP leader also said that after finding him near the Shillong Golf Course, police had thought he was a mental patient.
Since he had no valid papers or travel permit with him, police booked him under the Foreigners Act.
Subrata said local lawyer IC Jha has been appointed as the public prosecutor [PP] for the case. Local police have served all documents to the PP, he added.
If Salahuddin gets clearance from his doctor, he will be produced in court today, Shillong police sources said.
On Sunday, Salahuddin's party colleague Abdul Latif Jony, who went to Shillong on Friday, claimed that Salahuddin seems to be suffering from memory loss.
However, BBC Bangle Service yesterday reported that after finishing various health check-ups, Dr DJ Goswami said they did not find any sign of Salahuddin's memory loss.
"He is normal while talking [with others]," said the doctor.
According to the BNP leader's family members, some plainclothes law enforcers had picked him up from an Uttara house on March 10. The allegation, however, was denied by law enforcers and the government.
On May 12, Hasina Ahmed told the media that her husband had called her from a Shillong hospital.
Meanwhile, BNP's international affairs secretary Assaduzzaman Ripon at a press conference at its Nayapaltan headquarters yesterday said the party expected that the government would help them bring Salahuddin back home as well as ensuring his proper treatment.
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