Three quota protest coordinators — Dhaka University’s Asif Mahmud, Abu Baker Mazumder and Rifat Rashid — have been found after five days.
Asif and Bakar both wrote on Facebook that they were blindfolded and left in Hatirjheel and Dhanmondi areas of the capital yesterday. Neither of them mentioned who took them.
Rifat wrote on Facebook that he “narrowly escaped” from being a victim of “enforced disappearance”.
He said he was picked up from Mahanagar residential area of Hatirjheel around 11:00pm on July 19. He was asked to announce a suspension of the protests. When he refused to comply, he was given an injection that made him lose consciousness.
Whenever he woke up over the last few days, he was given another injection, he wrote, adding that he was left blindfolded at the place from where he was taken.
Baker wrote on Facebook around 6:00pm yesterday that he was picked up from Dhanmondi in the evening on July 19. He was locked in a dark room and asked to announce that the movement should stop.
“I am safe with my family now. I will tell you everything in details after receiving first aid,” he wrote.
At half past seven, Rifat wrote on Facebook, “I am alive, not dead.”
As per the decision of other coordinators, he had spent days hiding in homes of different people, he said, adding that his phone had been tracked.
On Friday, another coordinator named Nahid Islam was picked up from Nandipara in the capital. He said he was left in Purbachal area after nearly 24 hours of physical and mental torture.
Source: The Daily Star
