Farhad Mazhar: Investigators grapple with confusions

Investigators are having trouble solving the Farhad Mazhar kidnapping mystery as the case is riddled with confusions and questions, said DB officials.

They need some clarification from Farhad but are failing to get it because he is still in hospital, said Golam Mostofa Rashel, additional deputy commissioner of Detective Branch.

"We're now waiting for his recovery to solve the puzzle,” he told The Daily Star yesterday.                          

Farhad Mazhar, a poet, columnist and political analyst, in his judicial statement said several unidentified men had forced him into a microbus and blindfolded him minutes after he came out of his Adabor home to buy medicine early Monday morning.

His wife Farida Akhter held a press conference at their home around 10:00pm on Monday, about an hour and a half before he was found in Jessore. She told reporters that she had received a mobile phone call from her husband at 5:29am after he left home.

Farhad again called her from his number around 6:21am and requested her to arrange Tk 30-35 lakh as ransom. The family received three to four more calls from him. The last one was at 7:30pm, she said.

An abduction case was filed with Adabor Police Station and DB is investigating it.

With no breakthrough made yet, a team from Detective Branch headed to Khulna once again to get some lead.

“The team will mainly record the statements of the staffers of the hotel where he had dinner before leaving Khulna by bus and the witness who last saw Farhad Mazhar roaming around,” the ADC said.

Investigators are now trying to collect CCTV footage to trace the microbus. They say no cameras cover the place of occurrence as mentioned by Farhad Mazhar. 

The writer has been receiving treatment at Birdem where he was taken on Tuesday. Visiting the hospital yesterday, this correspondent saw plainclothes law enforcers deployed in front of his cabin No 1106 of Birdem.

Shima Das Shimu, a relative of Mazhar, said Farhad could sleep for the first time in the last four days as doctors increased doses of sedative yesterday. However, he is traumatised and often wakes up from sleep.

Quoting hospital staff, she said a psychiatrist might see him today.

This correspondent visited Farhad's Adabor house but nobody opened the gate.