Where is Zoha?

ACCORDING to our reports there has been no progress in finding IT expert Tanveer Hassan Zoha who has been missing for more than three days. The 32-year-old IT expert was allegedly picked up and whisked away by plainclothes men while he was returning to his Kalabagan house with a friend by a CNG auto-rickshaw around 1:00 am on Wednesday. Is it just a coincidence that his abduction came only a few days after he had talked to the media about the $81 million cyber heist of Bangladesh Bank reserve?

What followed Zoha's abduction is equally disturbing. Three different police stations of the capital allegedly refused to accept his family's application for filing a general diary. And the home minister's reported response that he was unaware of the matter offers cold comfort to Zoha's family and any law abiding citizen of the country. Who do we turn to for help when one of our family members or friends goes missing?

Zoha had reportedly identified himself as an official of the Bangladesh Bank's ICT division which the latter denied. And his uncle had claimed that he had regular contacts with various detective agencies to help them solve cyber crimes, which has neither been dismissed nor confirmed.

But who the IT specialist worked for is not important at this stage. The indifference with which the administration has seemingly dealt with the matter so far only undermines the rule of law rather than strengthen it. That a citizen of this country can be abducted with police stations refusing to take the complaint is indeed frightening and unacceptable. The law enforcement agencies have an obligation to come to the aid of the distressed family, trace him and find out who he was picked up by and why.