Engineer remains missing for 26 days
It has been 26 days since a mechanical engineer from Chittagong has remained missing.
On April 23, the 25-year-old left his residence in the port city's Dewanhat area for morning prayers and has been traceless ever since, according to family members.
The same day, his father filed a general diary with Double Mooring Police Station.
The youth is Md Sadman Soumik, son of Md Abdul Awal, 54, hailing from Balahar of Barisal, said police.
Abdul Awal is an officer at Bangladesh Railway in Chittagong. The family resides in Postarpar area of Dewanhat.
Sadman used to work as an assistant manager (technical) at “Prantik Marine Service” in Agrabad. He completed his BSc degree from Military Institute of Science and Technology (MIST) in Dhaka, according to police.
Police said the Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit and Chittagong Metropolitan Police (CMP)'s counter terrorism unit have been investigating the incident.
“An investigation is going on to find out if there is any militancy link,” Polash Kanti Nath, CMP additional deputy commissioner (operation), told The Daily Star.
The ADC added, “A day before Sadman went missing, he resigned from work. He also left all his belongings. Furthermore, all the data on his phones and laptop had been erased.”
According to the GD filed by the family, on April 23, Sadman left home for morning prayers. As he did not return, the family members started looking for him around 9:30am. They failed to trace him since he did not take his phone with him.
His father also went to his office the same day and found out that he had resigned on April 22 saying that he got a job at another company.
Asikur Rahman, assistant commissioner of CMP Double Mooring Zone, said, “Though Sadman resigned, he kept it a secret. Also, he took the SIM card of his mobile phone with him and left the set home.”
According to police, Sadman secured GPA-5 in both SSC and HSC exams in 2009 and 2011 respectively. Later, he got admitted to MIST in Dhaka. He used to stay at the university dormitory. He graduated in 2015, and joined a company in Uttara on August 18, 2016.
While working there, he used to stay at a mess in the capital, said police. Later, he joined a chemical company near his home on April 17, 2017 and worked there till August 10, 2017.
He joined Prantik Marine Service two days later on August 12, 2017.
Seeking anonymity, a CMP official said Sadman was very pious and used to offer prayers at a mosque near his house on a regular basis.
Quoting family members, he added that Sadman used to wake them up in the morning to offer prayers but the day he left the house, wearing a panjabi, he did not do so.
Assistant Commissioner Asikur Rahman said, “A few files containing religious videos were recovered from his laptop. But it's not enough to reach any conclusion.”
Meanwhile, the family members are passing days amid worry.
“I feel helpless now. I have provided all the information to police and other law enforcement agencies so that they can find my son. But it's been 26 days already,” said Sadman's father Abdul Awal.
Earlier, Nafis Ul Islam, 16, alias Abdullah, a student of Kazem Ali High School in Chittagong, went missing on October 6 after he left the house to offer prayers.
After he went missing, police said he was allegedly involved in militancy. On January 12, Nafis was killed during a raid in the capital's Nakhalpara area along with two others.
Meanwhile, two other youths -- Sabirul Islam Kanik, a student of International Islamic University Chittagong (IIUC), and Najibullah Ansari, a marine engineer, -- went missing in 2016 and 2015 respectively from their Chittagong residence, according to police.
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