BNP aide meets Salahuddin in Shillong, police question him

BNP leader Salahuddin Ahmed has told Meghalaya state police that he was confined in a small room of a house for a long time after his abduction from Dhaka.

Special Branch officials in Shillong told bdnews24.com that the BNP leader told them that the kidnappers later blindfolded him and drove him around for a few days, changing vehicles frequently.

Police had said on Monday after arresting Ahmed that locals had reported on his suspicious movement and drawn the attention of the police.

But Ahmed has told BNP Assistant Office Secretary Abdul Latif Jony that he had himself asked locals and reached the police.

Jony turned up in Shillong on Friday.

He was allowed to speak to Ahmed for about 15 minutes, after which police started formal interrogation of the BNP joint secretary general for the first time since his arrest on Monday.

Jony later told journalists that the BNP as a party was undecided on whether to press for Ahmed's repatriation to Bangladesh or face the case against him filed by Meghalaya police.

"It all depends on the family. Salahuddin's wife Hasina Ahmed should be here in a day or two and we will take a final decision when she is here," Jony said.

Only after his wife's arrival will the family decide to appoint a legal counsel to fight his case in India, Jony said.

Ahmed faces a case under the Indian Foreigners Act, 1946, for crossing into the country without valid travel documents.

Legal experts say many Bangladeshis who illegally migrate to India face prosecution under this law.

Ultimately, they are pushed back into Bangladesh on completion of their term in prison. Some get away in a few months, others take years.

Doctors in Shillong Civil Hospital are now saying Ahmed's heart beat is normal but his kidneys are a cause for worry and that he has dermatological problems.

But Jony says Ahmed has lost a lot of weight, maybe 15 kg, and appears very traumatised and stressed.

Some relatives of the BNP leader have also turned up in Shillong with food and fresh clothes for him.

Special Branch officials say Ahmed had initially told them he could not remember anything after his abduction.

"But now he says he was confined in a small room of a house somewhere in Bangladesh for around two months.

“Later he was driven out of that house blindfolded and his kidnappers changed vehicles frequently," a police official said.

But there are some 'contradictions' in what he had said so far, said the official, adding: "We will have to cross-question him."

But Meghalaya government is yet to receive any indication that Ahmed would be sent back to Bangladesh soon.

"We also have booked him for illegal trespass. We need to find out how he could cross the border undetected, either on his own or smuggled across by his abductors," said the official on condition of anonymity.

"Either way it is a cause for worry for us."

IANS adds from Shillong:

Doctors here say Ahmed's medical condition is satisfactory.

"Nonetheless, we are conducting some more tests after he complained of heart and kidney problems," Shillong Civil Hospital cardiologist DJ Goswami told IANS.

“But some of the earlier tests were very much satisfactory.”

Meghalaya Police chief Rajiv Mehta said Indian police received an Interpol notice for the arrest of Ahmed, but the nodal agency for Interpol in India - Central Bureau of Investigation – had not formally filed a chargesheet.

"There has been no chargesheet, but CBI has said that an Interpol notice has been issued against Ahmed and we are looking into the case," Mehta said.