The Detective Branch of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police picked up two more leaders of the Students Movement Against Discrimination — Sarjis Alam and Hasnat Abdullah — Saturday evening.
Confirming the matter, DB additional deputy commissioner Md Zunayed Alam Sarkar said that they were taken into custody for security reasons.
‘We will also interrogate them about the recent issues,’ he said.
Earlier on Friday, the Detective Branch took three student leaders — Nahid Islam, Abu Baker Mazumdar, and Asif Mahmud — into their custody forcibly from Gonoshasthaya Nagar Hospital in the capital’s Dhanmondi area.
The government claimed on Saturday claimed that the three leaders were brought in custody to ensure their security, while the family members of the detained students said they made no such request to law enforcement agencies.
Nahid’s father, Badrul Islam, told ¶¶Òõ¾«Æ· on Saturday afternoon that they did not ask the government or any law enforcement agencies to provide his son with security.Â
‘We do not even know whether my son was arrested or not. He is sick and needs treatment. The police went to our house on Thursday afternoon. We are living in a state of fear,’ he said.
Another family member of Nahid claimed that police had forcibly taken them away from the hospital even though they were ill.
The agency members also seized the phones of Nahid’s mother and wife.
Home minister Asaduzzaman Khan said that they were feeling insecure and that some people were giving advice, while some of them were facing threats.Â
‘We have taken one or two of them for their own security,’ he told reporters in his house in Dhaka.
We also need to interrogate them to find out who was threatening them. We will take the next course of action after the interrogation,’ the minister said.
He, however, did not confirm whether the trio had been formally arrested.
Asaduzzaman claimed that their families also complained about the threats they had been receiving.Â
Nahid, Abu Baker, and Asif also went missing last week when student protests seeking quota reform turned violent.
Nahid and Asif returned carrying injuries in their bodies and narrated to the media, including ¶¶Òõ¾«Æ·, how they were tortured by their captors. Both of them suspected that DB might be behind their abduction.
Addressing a press conference at the DB office in the capital’s Mintoo Road area, Dhaka Metropolitan Police detective branch chief Harun-or-Rashid admitted that they had taken Nahid, Asif, and Baker Majumdar to their custody on Friday night to ensure their security.
‘They [the protesters] several times wrote on Facebook that they were feeling insecure. One of their family members also alleged threats,’ he said, responding to a question from a journalist.
He added that they would also interrogate about their communication with Gono Odhikar Parishad faction president Nurul Haque Nur and Jamaat-e-Islami secretary general Mia Golam Parwar.
‘We want to know what was discussed with them,’ Harun added.
Twelve teachers belonging to a platform called University Teachers’ Network went to the DB office to inquire about the three students but the DB chief did not meet them.
Physicians at the hospital seeking anonymity told ¶¶Òõ¾«Æ· that their health conditions did not allow them to discharge student leaders, who needed to continue their treatment.
Hours after their detention, Mary Lawlor, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, said in a post on social media platform X that she was ‘deeply disturbed’ by the development.
‘Deeply disturbed by reports from Bangladesh that three leaders of the Students Against Discrimination movement have been forcibly taken from hospital by police. They were reportedly in hospital in the first place due to police torture. This madness must stop,’ she said.
Nahid was admitted to the hospital on June 21 with injuries 26 hours after he was allegedly picked up by DB police at about 2:30am on Saturday from his friend’s house in the capital’s Khilgaon area.
He found himself semi-conscious in the Purbachal area on Sunday morning.
Asif reappeared on Wednesday morning, about five days after he went missing, and he was also admitted to the health facility that day.
Abu Baker Mazumdar, who went missing from the capital’s Dhanmondi area on Friday night, also reappeared on Wednesday.
In a Facebook post, he alleged that he was forced to issue a statement, but he did not do so.
Protest leaders alleged that they had taken their key leaders so that they could not arrange the next course of their movement.
Students’ protests that had been continuing since early July seeking reform in quotas for government jobs turned violent following an attack on protesters by the ruling party student body, the Bangladesh Chhatra League, on July 15.
The resulting backlash prompted the government to launch a brutal crackdown on protesters, leaving more than 200 people killed and thousands injured in clashes in the past week.Â
The government shut down the internet, imposed a curfew, and called in the army to end the protests before arresting more than 5,000 people, mostly leaders and activists of opposition political parties, on charges of carrying out vandalism and damaging some key infrastructure.
