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Published : 25 Nov 2025, 03:00 AM
“On a deserted road, a hilly road, I was put down on a footpath and told ‘You are free now’.
“At that moment, I saw a vast field beside me. Later I learned it was called the Shillong Golf Link.
“Some people were out for their morning walk. I introduced myself. They called police, who then took me to the station.”
This is how Salahuddin Ahmed, a member of the BNP’s National Standing Committee, recounted being taken into custody by the Indian police after being freed from two months of detention in Bangladesh.
Recalling the ordeal, the former government official turned politician said: “After that, perhaps from hearing my words, they might have thought I was mad.
“Then they took me to a mental hospital. There, I gave the doctor my identity and requested him to note my phone number so that I could contact my country.”
Salahuddin’s wife Hasina Ahmed recalled the moment he called from Shillong. “I could hardly believe it. When he said hello, I cannot describe the feeling in words.
“I screamed so loudly that the driver of the car got scared and slammed on the brakes.”
The documentary captures the couple’s memories of the two-month “enforced disappearance”.
It aired at 7.15pm on Monday for 17 minutes on the Facebook page of the Chief Advisor's Office (CAO).
Alongside Salahuddin and his wife, their son shares the family’s suffering and vivid memories from that period.
The documentary, produced under the Ministry of Cultural Affairs, is titled “Ayna Ghor Files”.
It focuses on individuals who were “forcibly disappeared” during the tenure of the ousted Awami League government, detained in seceret detention facilities known as “Ayna Ghor” and other unknown locations.
The fifth episode details the ordeal of BNP leader Salahuddin and the suffering of his family.
Salahuddin was found in Shillong on May 10, 2015, 63 days after he went missing on Mar 10.
Due to legal complications, he remained in India for nearly nine years.
He returned home on Aug 11, 2024, after the fall of the Awami League government.
As part of the documentary, Salahuddin visited the Tamabil border in Sylhet on Oct 11, claiming it was the route taken to take him to Shillong on May 10, 2015.
Ten months after returning home, on Jun 3, he filed a complaint with the Chief Prosecutor’s Office of the International Crimes Tribunal over his disappearance, naming Sheikh Hasina and six others.
‘GIVE MY BODY TO MY FAMILY’
During his detention in “Ayna Ghor”, Salahuddin even feared for his life, which he recounts in the video.
He told his captors, “If I die, give my body to my family.
“I told them I have a heart stent and other complications. I don’t know how long I can survive in this environment. But if I die, make sure my body reaches my family.
“The reason I said this was that during Hasina’s ‘fascist’ era, the culture of disappearances had begun. Bodies were never recovered. They would ‘crossfire’ and make the body disappear. I prayed to Allah ‘O Allah, will my children, descendants, and relatives be able to visit my grave?’”
Describing the incident of being taken from his home in Uttara, Salahuddin said in the documentary: “Around 9–9:30pm on the 10th of March, 2015, several armed men in plain clothes, claiming to be from law-enforcing agencies, broke into the flat where I was staying – my friend Hasnat’s home.
“They tied my eyes and hands and took me away without letting me say anything.”
He was then held at an unknown location, spending 61 days in the dark cell of Ayna Ghor.
He describes the monotonous days and nights in that tiny room. After the fall of the Hasina government, Salahuddin returned home and could finally describe the room on camera.
He said, “From that house in Uttara, it might have been a 20–25 minute drive -- they kept taking me in circles. Eventually, they let me off the car and brought me inside a ground-floor cell. There were no stairs.
“It was a cell barely more than 5x10 feet, with a tap and a hole for toilet purposes. There was a light, a steel door, and a small gap below for food. Above, there was a small opening, and a fan was always running outside.”
His wife Hasina said police refused to file a complaint after he “disappeared”. “They told me they cannot register a GD without reasonable grounds. I pleaded, but they offered no help.”
“I had no choice but to approach the High Court. Advocates Khandakar Mahbub Hossain and Moudud Ahmed represented me for the writ petition. After a long struggle, the court finally ordered the government to find my husband. That was all I received. No official assistance came from the government.”
She added, “I went to every door to try to find my husband. I even went to the Prime Minister’s Office but was turned away at the gate.
“I went to RAB-1, where DG Benazir Ahmed sat, but he called me crazy and threw me out of his room.”
In the documentary, the couple’s son Sayeed Ibrahim Ahmed recalled the time his father was taken away.
“Police and the RAB personnel came to the house every one or two weeks, asking strange questions. They wanted to know if he was hiding. Officers demanded money to avoid harassment.”
Salahuddin added, “In Ayna Ghor, they questioned me daily: why we were protesting, opposing Hasina, and offered compromises.
“I told them I fear none but Allah in this world. I struggle for my country, for the rights of the people, for voting rights, and for all democratic and constitutional rights. I will compromise on nothing.”
He said, “Those interrogating me were surely Hasina’s henchmen, executing disappearances and killings on her orders. They never let me out of the room except once to clean, with my eyes tied while sitting on a chair for a few minutes.”
After two months, his wife’s relatives feared he had died, but she believed he was alive. “I knew my husband was alive,” she said.
Salahuddin said, “They held me captive for 61 days. On the day they finally put me in the car to take me somewhere, they said it might take two days to return. I couldn’t believe they would release me.”
He recounted being freed from Ayna Ghor and later detention in India.
Two months later, his wife met him in Shillong. “With permission from a local MP, I could only meet him for 10 minutes in the prison cell,” she said.
Ibrahim said, “My mother contacted international organisations like Amnesty. They assured help. Those involved in the disappearance perhaps considered the situation risky, so they may have crossed my father over the border and left him there.”
Describing the moment Salahuddin was found, he said: “It felt as if the whole world had returned to me.”
Salahuddin said, “My case proceeded in the Shillong court. In the meantime, I became seriously ill. Then they said I should be taken immediately back to the hospital, to be kept in the prison cell.
“Most of the time I felt I might not be able to return to my country alive. I had become gravely ill. I had two major surgeries -- one on my kidney and another on my neck.”
Recalling what happened after he secured bail from the Indian court, his wife said: “In Shillong, when I could not arrange any accommodation for my husband anywhere, I went to a rest house and contacted its owner. The owner agreed. The rest house was called Sunrise Guest House.”
Salahuddin continued in the video, “Although I was acquitted of the case on what I believe was the 26th of October, 2018, I was still not sent back to Bangladesh. A few months later, the Indian government appealed against the acquittal verdict in a higher court.
“Thus almost a year passed. Then, in 2024, came the unprecedented blood-soaked mass uprising of the century in Bangladesh. The country became free of ‘fascism’, and the ‘fascist’ Hasina regime was forced to flee. When I contacted the Delhi government through the Meghalaya state authorities, they took the necessary steps.
“By the infinite mercy of Allah, I was able to land at Dhaka International Airport on the 11st August, 2024,” he added.
