BNP leader Salahuddin Ahmed’s return to Bangladesh depends on India’s decision: Kamal

The Bangladesh government is awaiting ‘India’s decision’ to bring back BNP leader Salahuddin Ahmed who was arrested in Shillong, State Minister for Home Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal has said.

“The foreign ministry has asked India to send back Salahuddin,” Kamal told reporters at the Secretariat on Tuesday.

“He will be brought back the moment India agrees,” he said.

“But his return might be delayed if he faces trial for trespassing,” he said.

“We are waiting for their (India’s) decision,” he added.

East Khasi Hills District SP M Kharkhrang on Monday said there was no question of letting off the former Bangladesh minister because he had been arrested for travelling without valid document.

The BNP leader’s wife Hasina Ahmed reportedly met him again at the Shillong Civil Hospital, where he is undergoing treatment in police custody, on Tuesday.

She told reporters that Ahmed was suffering from cardiac problems and kidney complications and should be taken to Singapore, where he had been treated for 20 years.

She also said she would speak to lawyers to know if it was possible to take her husband to another country.

On Monday evening, Hasina said, “My husband is very ill. We will try to take him to a third country for better treatment.”

Her brother-in-law Mahbub Kabir and BNP Assistant Office Secretary Abdul Latif Jony were among those who accompanied Hasina.

Ahmed ‘went missing’ in Dhaka two months ago. The BNP joint secretary general was arrested in Shillong on May 11.

The 54-year-old claimed a group of unidentified people had ‘abducted’ him and he could not remember what happened next.

Earlier, his family alleged plainclothesmen had picked him up from a house at Dhaka’s Uttara.