Family worried about Salahuddin’s fate in Bangladesh

Giasuddin Amed, elder brother of BNP senior leader Salahuddin Ahmed, today expressed concern that his brother will not remain “safe” if he returns to Bangladesh.

“There are several BNP senior leaders remaining behind bars, who are not getting proper treatment causing threats to their lives. We fear that the government will throw Salahuddin into jail and will not provide proper treatment,” Giasuddin told The Daily Star.

Echoing his in-law Hasina Ahmed’s apprehension that her husband is not safe in Bangladesh, Giasuddin also said they cannot take Salahuddin back to Bangladesh at the present political situation.

“Instead, if the court and law permits, we want to take him to Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore as early as possible where he had undergone treatment for his cardiac and kidney problems several times,” he also said.

Meanwhile, Salahuddin’s wife Hasina Ahmed, a former BNP lawmaker, today appealed to a specialised medical institute in Shillong, Meghalaya not to release and handover her husband to police before completion of her husband treatment.

Talking to Dr Vaskar Borgohain, medical superintendent of North Eastern Indira Gandhi Regional Institute of Health and Medical Sciences (NEIGRIHMS), Hasina Ahmed said Salahuddin has been suffering from different heart and kidney complications and his treatment might hamper in police custody, sources at the institute told The Daily Star.

Around two months after his disappearance from a Uttara residence in Dhaka on March 10, BNP spokesperson Salahuddin re-appeared, just as mysteriously, across the border, in Shillong, the capital city of Indian North-eastern state of Meghalaya.

Shillong police said the 54-year-old former state minister was arrested on May 11, after locals reported them a “suspicious” person loitering in the Golf Link area in the tourist city.

Police at first admitted him to a mental hospital and later shifted him to Shillong Civil Hospital on May 12. On advise of SCH authority, Salahuddin again was shifted to NEIGRIHMS on May 20 for better treatment and is currently undergoing treatment there guarded by Meghalaya police round the clock as he was facing a case for violating the Foreigners Act.

A Shillong court on Friday held in abeyance a bail petition moved on his behalf by his wife, and directed the police to submit a report by May 29.

State minister for home affairs Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal has already said the BNP leader would be arrested after his return back to Dhaka and would be tried on charges of instigating violence during the BNP-led-20-party alliance sponsored three months hartal and blockade since January 6.