University teacher Mubashar Hasan says he was ‘kidnapped’

Mubashar Hasan, the North South University teacher who has returned home one and a half months after going missing, says he was ‘kidnapped for money’.

The teacher, nicknamed Caesar, spoke to the media in front of his house in Dhaka’s Banasree on Friday morning after returning around 1am.

He says the ‘kidnappers’ kept him in a dark room and fed food brought from restaurant.

Caesar, visibly shaken, said he could not identify his captors.

The university teacher went missing on Nov 7 amid reports of many people, including politicians, a journalist and a businessman, going missing recently.

His family filed a general diary at Khilgaon Police Station when he did not return from the university that day.

His colleagues and peers in Dhaka University’s journalism department demonstrated demanding quick action to trace him.

Many pointed finger at the law enforcers, who have denied the allegation of picking him up.

Utpal Das, the journalist who returned home on Tuesday after remaining missing for over two months, also said his captors had demanded money.

Utpal said he was dropped blindfolded from a microbus at a CNG station in Narayanganj’s Rupganj.

Caesar, too, says his captors dropped him blindfolded from a microbus in airport area on Thursday night.

He said the abductors had an altercation among themselves over money on the microbus.

He said he later went home by autorickshaw and his family paid the fare.

About the place he was kept in, Caesar said the room had a sealed off window and he did not see daylight before Friday.

Asked about the motive behind his abduction, the teacher, who was involved in a research project on religion and militancy, said, “The main issue was money. They might not have understood my family profile.”

He said the abductors took away Tk 27,000 from him on the day of capturing him.

He also said there was a disagreement among his abductors on whether to keep him alive or to kill him.

“Somehow, I came to understand that something happened to them…someone of them went missing. They were very much afraid,” Caesar said.

He also said his captors might have phoned his family once, but he did not know what was discussed.

Caesar, who had worked as a journalist also, thanked the media and the teachers for helping his family.

Caesar is the sixth person to return home after going missing recently.

One of the six, businessman Aniruddha Roy, claimed he was a ‘victim of vengeance’.