The wife of a Bangladeshi opposition politician who went missing a week ago has appealed to the prime minister for help in tracing her husband.
Bangladesh Nationalist Party spokesman Salahuddin Ahmed was allegedly detained by plain-clothed detectives in Dhaka.
“I have come to request the prime minister’s help… like me she is also a mother and a wife and will understand my pain,” Hasina Ahmed said.
Ms Ahmed said earlier that she was concerned for her husband’s life.
Mr Ahmed – who had been in hiding for months before his disappearance – is one of numerous Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) officials to have disappeared in recent months.
Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan told the BBC Bengali service earlier this week that the government had no information on his whereabouts and was trying to find him.
The government insists that it is not responsible for any of the disappearances, but rights groups say that many activists are picked up by the security forces on the orders of their political superiors and some may have been killed.
“If my husband has committed any offence or if there’s a case against him, then he should be produced before the court and tried in due process,” a petition signed by Mrs Ahmed and handed over to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said.
Mr Ahmed was a former member of parliament and served as communications minister for the government of BNP leader Khaleda Zia from 2001 to 2006.
More than 100 people have been killed since Ms Zia announced a transport blockade in January as part of a campaign to force Sheikh Hasina into holding new elections, which are not officially due until 2019.
The BNP and 19 other parties boycotted elections of January 2014 because they feared that the vote would be rigged.
Source: Dhaka Tribune
