Anxiety grips victim families

Desperate to know his abducted father's whereabouts in Libya, Mohammad Rubel started calling him since yesterday morning.

The phone rang at 9:07am but no one picked up. He called again at 12:10pm, 3:33pm and 5:30pm from his Dakkhin Gajaria village home in Jamalpur.

“Only at 3:33pm, someone received the call and spoke perhaps in Arabic. I understood nothing,” said Rubel, son of Helal Uddin, 40, one of the two Bangladeshis abducted allegedly by unknown militants from the Al-Ghani oil field, south of Sirte, on March 6.

The other abductee is Anowar Hossain, 38, of Goyeshpur village in Noakhali.

Seven other foreigners -- four Filipinos, an Austrian, a Czech and a Ghana national -- were also kidnapped.

Bangladesh foreign ministry in a press statement on March 9 said terrorist group ISIS had abducted them.

But State Minister for Foreign Affairs Shahriar Alam yesterday told journalists that no militant group in Libya claimed responsibility for the abduction of the two Bangladeshis.

Bangladesh embassy officials in Tripoli said they were in touch with embassies of the Philippines and Austria and also with the Libyan authorities for their rescue.

Families of the two are passing their days in fear and total uncertainty.

Rubel, 13, said he was not going to school as they were shocked after hearing the news of his father's abduction.

“Everybody is crying. How can I go to school?” said Rubel, student of class IX at Adarvita High School.

Aleya Khatun, wife of Helal, said her carpenter husband last came to Bangladesh 10 months back. Earlier, he had gone to Dubai in 2008, but returned home only after six months. Then in 2009, he went to Libya to seek his fortune.

He spent Tk 10 lakh for the job. He managed the money by selling his land and also by borrowing from relatives. 

“We still have a debt of Tk 5 lakh,” she told The Daily Star over the phone.

“Please help us find him [Helal Uddin],” appealed Aleya Khatun, mother of five children.

Anowar Hossain of Noakhali was a diploma electrical engineer. He had first gone to Libya in 2010 and then again in 2012, according to our Noakhali correspondent.

Earlier, he had worked in Saudi Arabia since 2001. Upon his return in 2007, he married Marufa Khatun. The couple have two children -- Rahin, 7, and Raisha, 5 -- who are studying at Matuail Creative International School in Dhaka.

After hearing the news of his abduction on Tuesday, she tried to contact Anowar several times over the phone, but did not get any response.

Then she contacted Anowar's friend Moinul Hossain in Libya who quoted Anowar's company as saying that ISIS took him hostage.

She last talked to Anowar on March 5 and everything was fine then. But everything turned upside down all of a sudden, she said, adding that she was passing days in anxiety.

Mahmud Iqbal, Anowar's brother-in-law, said he was in touch with foreign ministry officials in Dhaka and the Bangladesh embassy in Tripoli for the immediate release of his relative.