Abducted Brac staff yet to be traced
Bangladeshi Brac employees Akhter Ali and Mohammad Shahjahan Ali, who were abducted in Afghanistan two days ago, are yet to be located.
There was no government move as of last night to expedite their release and Brac officials in Dhaka failed to say anything specific about their fate.
Unidentified gunmen abducted the two in Ghanzi province of Afghanistan Thursday afternoon.
Their family members said they went to the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (Brac) head office in Dhaka and tried to communicate with officials but none was available.
Shahjahan's only son, Sharif went to the Brac office but failed to get any information as yesterday was the weekend holiday.
“I came to Dhaka from Ghatail [in Tangail] today [yesterday] to know what actually happened to my father but there was none to tell me anything," he told The Daily Star.
Shahidul Haq, father of Akhter Ali, said, "We are really concerned about my son's fate." He said he along with his family is now in Dhaka to get information about Akhter.
Members of both families would go to the Brac office in Dhaka today in the hope of getting information about the latest developments.
Brac officials and Afghan authorities were making joint efforts to locate the two Brac employees, said officials in Dhaka yesterday.
They said telecommunication with Ghanzi province remains snapped for the last few days and this prevented them from having information of the latest developments regarding the kidnapping.
"Akhter and Shahjahan were abducted at gunpoint by four men from Brac Afghanistan's Moi Mobarok branch office in Ghazni City," said a Brac press release yesterday. They went to the office according to their regular office visit schedule.
The gunmen severely beat up manager of the branch office Hasmatullah, an Afghan national, said the press release issued by Zia Hashan, manager of Brac media affairs.
Akhter and Shahjahan have been working as area managers for the last three years in Ghazni, south-west of Afghan capital Kabul. Akhter hails from Ahmedpur of Boalia upazila in Rajshahi while Shahjahan is from Alamnagar under Gopalpur upazila in Tangail.
This is the third time Bangladeshi Brac officials have become victims of atrocities in Afghanistan. One Brac official was shot dead and another was kidnapped in September last year.
Afghan interior minister Hanif Atmar assured Brac officials of assistance when they contacted him and sought his cooperation Thursday night.
Brac Afghanistan authorities informed the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan and the Afghan Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development of the matter.
The Brac press release said a high-level team was sent to Ghazni from its Afghanistan head office in Kabul to gather information and to liaise with the Afghani authorities, including the governor and chief security officer of Ghazni province, to expedite their release.
Senior Brac officials will also meet Afghan Minister for Rural Rehabilitation and Development Ehsan Zia today.
Brac officials in the press release claimed that they have been communicating with the families of Akhter and Shahjahan to keep them informed of the latest situation and to provide all necessary support.
Our Kushtia correspondent reports: Akhter's family, who were living in Stadiumpara in the town, went to Dhaka Friday.
Akhter is married to Shamsunnahar and is the father of 11-year-old Nishat Anjum Oyishee. He moved to Afghanistan in November, 2005. He visited his family in April this year and was supposed to come home next month.
Ashraf Ali Palash, younger brother of Akhter, said that he talked to Kabul-based Brac official Akhteruzzaman over telephone. "He told me that the abducted officials are still alive and they might be released soon," said Palash.
Brac, the largest NGO in the world, has a huge network in Afghanistan with over 251 offices in the 24 provinces of the country. Around 4,300 Afghans and Bangladeshis are working there. Around 200 of them are Bangladeshis.
Since 2002, Brac has been working in Afghanistan with programmes like micro-credit for the poor and in sectors like health, education and empowerment of women.
The Taliban, which controlled Afghanistan until it was ousted by a US invasion in 2001, has been behind a string of abductions of Afghan and foreign nationals in the war-torn country. The Taliban have tried to use hostages to barter with the government. They have killed a number of hostages.
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