Plainclothes police arrested the secretary of Odhikar, a local rights group, from in front of his Gulshan residence on Saturday night.
A team of Detective Branch (DB) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police, intercepted Odhikar secretary Adilur Rahman Khan as he reached near his house at Road No-117, House no-35 at Gulshan around 10:00 pm.
Director of Odhikar Nasriudin Elan told UNB that when Adilar Rahman came close to his house with his family members, 8-9 plainclothes men, who introduced themselves as DB police appeared there in a white microbus apparently, belonging to United Commercial Bank, and a blue and silver-coloured Mitsubishi Pajero jeep.
“They then asked Adilur Rahman to go with them,” Nasiruddin said.
Contacted, DMP Deputy Commissioner (Public Relations) Masudur Rahman said Adilur Rahman was arrested under section 57 of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Act.
Earlier a general diary (GD) was registered with Gulshan Police Station.
Source: UNBConnect
There is a saying, “If the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail”. It seems that Sheikh Hasina and some cronies have lost all senses. They do not know what to do except blaming the BNP and Jamat for all ills of the country and making untrue or exaggerated claims about their own ‘successes’. Now they are trying to suppress the compilation and publication of extreme human rights abuses in the country.
We must condemn the illegal detention of Mr Adilur Rahman Khan, Secretary of the largest and most prestigious human rights organisation in Bangladesh, Odhikar, and demand his immediate and unconditional release from detention. If previous example are any guide, Mr Khan may even be tortured in custody. You may kill the messenger, but that does not stop the message reaching the audience. Amardesh newspaper has been stopped and its editor Mahmudur Rahman is being been persecuted in the most barbaric way. But have these extreme measures brought any positive image for the AL government? Certainly not.
I totally agree with Mr. K. Malik’s observation – this government has completely lost its way and thus ‘hammer’ may be the only tool that it is relying on to survive and in the process and quite unwittingly, proliferating more nails that threaten to come back to prick them.
Adilur Rahman Khan’s arrest is one of its many heinous acts that characterize this government. However, as Mr. Malik rightly points out, “You may kill the messenger but not the message reaching the audience” regardless.
This government’s most recent attempt at wooing the voters by putting up, albeit illegally, billboards to announce its “development” activities is another exhibition of the state of intellectual hollowness that pervades it.
Someone needs to tell these morons that people do not vote by looking at the billboards but from the impressions they develop through personal lived experiences and we do not need a Mahatma Gandhi to tell us how miserable these lived experiences are these days.
My sincere advice to this government shun the path of repression and instead, test your legitimacy to rule by holding a free and fair election under a neutral care taker government. There is absolutely no question of holding any election under this government, this will be like assigning the fox to guard the hens!!