New Age 25 December 2022
A police team attempted to enter the building resided by Maayer Daak cofounder Sanjida Islam Tulee and her family in the capital’s Shahinbagh on early Wednesday saying that they were checking whether there was any foreigner.
Sanjida told New Age on Friday that a police officer with a pickup van arrived at their building at about 1:00am on Wednesday and asked the security guard to open the gate.
‘The police officer asked the security guard to open the gate, saying that he wanted to check if any foreigners were at our apartment. The police officer repeatedly insisted our security guard open the gate. But the security guard refused to follow his command and advised him to come in the morning,’ Sanjida said, sharing CCTV footage.
She said that as the guard refused, the police officer left but returned after a while and asked when the main gate would be opened.
‘The Tejgaon police officer-in-charge visited our house before the US ambassador visited us on December 14. If the police have any query, they can do it in the daytime,’ she said, ‘it’s intimidation’.
Sanjida and family members are running a campaign against enforced disappearance after the disappearance of her brother, the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s Dhaka city ward 38 unit general secretary Shajedul Islam Sumon, in December 2013, and others.
Tejgaon police station officer-in-charge Apurbo Hasan claimed that their team went to the house because a foreigner employed by the World Bank resides there.
‘We are asked to check whether foreigners in their respective areas are safe,’ he said.
Sanjida said they had no foreign tenants or neighbours in the nine-storey building.
The incident took place a little over a week after the United States ambassador to Bangladesh, Peter Haas, hurriedly concluded his meeting with families of the victims of enforced disappearance in the capital’s Shahinbagh on December 14, following security concerns triggered by the gathering of some ruling party supporters surrounding his meeting place.
The ambassador went to the house of Hazera Khatun, the co-founder of Maayer Daak and Sanjida’s mother, which is located near the multi-storey property where Sanjida lives with her family.
