BNP leader Salahuddin Ahmed has told two of his relatives who met him at a hospital in Shillong that he had been brought there blindfolded after change of vehicles for several times.
This was said in a report released by the BBC Bangla, translated by UNB on Thursday.
Salahuddin, BNP joint secretary general who was arrested by Meghalaya police on Monday after nearly two months of his disappearance, reportedly said to his relatives that he was brought down from a vehicle blindfolded near Shillong Pologround.
After removing the blindfold, the BNP leader said, he talked to local people and came to know that he was in Meghalaya’s capital.
Salahuddin’s two relatives, amid tight security, were said to have met him at Shillong Civil Hospital where the BNP joint secretary general has been undergoing treatment in police custody.
The BBC’s Amitabh Bhattasali talked to Salahuddin’s two relatives as they came out of the hospital after meeting Salahuddin. One of them is Ayub Ali, a resident of Kolkata, who claimed to be a distance brother of the BNP leader. The BBC report, however, did not mention the name of the other relative.
The report quoted the two relatives as saying that Salahuddin turned himself to police and gave his identity, though the Shillong police have been claiming for the last two days that local people found the BNP leader as he was hanging around aimlessly and informed them. They have also been claiming that they took Salahuddin to a mental hospital after arresting him.
BNP and Salahuddin’s family members had been claiming that law enforcers picked him up from a house at Uttara on the night of 10 March, an allegation denied by the law enforcers and the government.
It was the first version of Salahuddin since he was found at Shillong as he has been kept at the hospital amid strong police vigil. Even the doctors and nurses attending Salahuddin have been declining to give any information about him other than his health condition.
Dr DJ Goswami, a cardiologist of Shillong, told the BBC that they found some medicines produced in Bangladesh in Salahuddin’s possession.
The physician also said the BNP leader has been suffering from cardiac and prostrate complications and the medicines found with him are used for such diseases.
Besides, two officials of Special Branch of the Meghalaya Police grilled Salahuddin for nearly two hours on Thursday afternoon, but they did not disclose their findings.
Meanwhile, BNP assistant office secretary Abdul Latif Jony went to Meghalaya on Wednesday to meet Salahuddin.
A BNP leader, wishing anonymity, told UNB Jony left here for Meghalaya’s capital Shillong on Wednesday morning in an Air India flight.
The BBC report also claimed that two BNP leaders — Jony and Swapan — and some relatives of Salahuddin Ahmed went to India. They are yet to meet the BNP joint secretary general.
Source: Prothom Alo