File photo of Shahidul Alam Mehedi Hasan/Dhaka Tribune
Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) Detective Branch later confirmed that they had picked him up for interrogation
Celebrated photographer Shahidul Alam has been picked up from his home in Dhanmondi.
He was picked up around 10:30pm Sunday in a car, a source at Drik, Shahidul's photography agency, told the Dhaka Tribune.
Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) Detective Branch later confirmed that they had picked him up for interrogation.
Additional Commissioner of DMP (DB) Abdul Baten told UNB that a team of detectives detained Shahidul from his Dhanmondi residence for interrogation over his Facebook posts over the ongoing student protests.
Ramna Division Additional Deputy Commissioner Abdullahel Kafi confirmed that a member of Shahidul's family had informed the police that Shahidul was picked up from his home.
“Police has not detained him, and we do not know anything about this. We are investigating this allegation,” he said.
Drik issued a statement around 1am today, saying Shahidul was forcibly abducted from his house in Dhanmondi.
“According to security guards of the apartment building and other eyewitness reports, there were roughly 30 to 35 men, in plain clothes, who claimed to be from the Detective Branch (DB),” the statement said.
The men went upstairs, brought down Shahidul, who was screaming as he was forcibly pushed into the waiting car, a HiAce, with the words Popular Life Insurance, written on the outside, the Drik statement said.
“They taped up the CCTV camera, and took away the CCTV camera footage. The guards were manhandled and locked up.
“His partner Rahnuma Ahmed, was in a neigbouring flat, raced downstairs on hearing the scream, but the car carrying him and two other cars waiting outside, sped away,” it said.
CapuchinMan on August 5th, 2018 at 22:02 UTC »
Wow I feel like this country normally goes under the radar because of their position in world politics. I suppose that's what let the government to assume that they can murder and rape their citizens with impunity.
shopnobaaz on August 5th, 2018 at 18:21 UTC »
Everyone needs to understand this is not an isolated event. This government has ruled the country for more than nine years now. A tenure of corruption, mismanagement and suppression. All kinds of opportunity for freedom of expression have been taken away. Opposition leaders have been jailed, kidnapped and killed by the state law enforcement agencies. Even civilians with no political affiliations have been arrested for merely sharing of a post/photo on facebook which goes against the ideologies of the ruling party. Recently there was a mass movement by the university students to reform quota system which was handled in a similar fashion to this by using the brutal force of law enforcement agencies and cadres of the ruling party. The prime minister stood in the parliament and promised to abolish the quota system and then refused to do so. Meanwhile, they systematically attacked the leaders of the movement and their families who again had no political affiliations. But the government have tried to label them as opposition-backed protesters. Recently, the dead body of one of the leaders of the movement was found who was reportedly abducted by the law enforcement agencies. (http://en.prothomalo.com/bangladesh/news/180878/JU-student-s-body-in-Buringanga-mystery)
Both these movements started as apolitical peaceful movements but the ruling party has turned them into political and violent movements by labeling protesters as BNP-Jamaat and beating them up by their cadres and police(leading opposition alliance in the country).
Besides, this it is also believed by the general people that tens of thousands of opposition activists have been abducted and killed(although the official number is much less, we have reason to believe the official number doesn't reflect the reality).
In the last couple of months plenty of innocent people have been killed in the name of anti-drug campaign. They were literally killed without any trial or proof of carrying drugs after death drugs were placed near the dead body. Not saying all the victims were innocent but who deserves to die like that? And the government have been able to control the outrage thus far by controlling the media. Even today all live broadcast of the protests have been banned.
There are many other issues including Pilkhana tragedy(killing of 57 army officers), Sagar-Runi murder(two prominent news reporters of the country who were murdered at their home and till date no one has been caught in relation to those murders), using BGB(paramilitary force for guarding borders),RAB( elite anti-crime and anti-terrorism unit of the Bangladesh Police). Systematically destroying the country's share market and banking sector(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Bangladesh_share_market_scam https://www.dhakatribune.com/business/economy/2018/01/13/cpd-identifies-2017-year-banking-scam http://en.prothomalo.com/economy/news/169442/2017-a-year-of-banking-scams-CPD)
And a lot more!
shopnobaaz on August 5th, 2018 at 18:18 UTC »
The Interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9j3EgLm62Q