Quota demo leaders ‘picked up' by cops, now released

Three leaders of the recent quota reform movement who were allegedly picked up by detectives have now been released.

The leaders of the Bangladesh General Students’ Rights Protection Forum Faruk Hasann, Nurul Haq Nur and Mohammad Rashed – claimed that they were picked up from in front of Dhaka Medical College Hospital around 1:00pm when they were going towards Chankharpool after concluding a press conference in the morning.

Contacted, police acknowledged that three quota reformists were at Detective Branch office this afternoon after a newspaper report of this morning affiliated one of them with Shibir politics.

Debdas Bhattacharya, additional commissioner (Detective Branch) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP), said that the trio were indeed at their office this afternoon. “They came in for general inquiry and went away afterwards”.

After their release, Faruk Hasan, Joint convener of Bangladesh General Students’ Rights Protection Forum briefed reporters and said, “After our press conference, we were heading towards Chankharpool on a rickshaw to eat something around 1:00pm.”

“When we reached in front of the Dhaka Medical College Hospital emergency gate, around seven to eight motorbikes and two microbuses stopped us,” said Hasan.

Around seven to eight armed men, introducing themselves as the members of the Detective Branch of Police, told them there is a life threat on the trio and that is why they needed to be taken to the DB office for interrogation.

As soon as they got on the microbus, the three were blindfolded and taken to the Detective Branch office, they claimed.

“We were told that we would be shown videos to trace the people in the video,” Faruk said.

“But we were not shown any video and we were not interrogated either,” said Faruk.

The three were released around 2:30pm, he said.

Meanwhile, Jhenidah Sadar Police Station Officer-in-Charge Imdadul Huq confirmed that Nabai Biswas, the father of Rashed, has been taken in for questioning “following a newspaper report of today”.

This morning, the banner held a press conference protesting the Shibir tag on a leader of their activist and said such a claim is intended to divert the cause towards political gain.

Source: thedailystar