The Bangladeshi opposition party chief spokesman, who had gone "missing" about two months ago, has been arrested and admitted to a mental hospital in the bordering state of Meghalaya, his family claimed today.
Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) joint secretary general Salahuddin Ahmed had gone missing on March 10 after he was allegedly picked up by detective police personnel from a house in Dhaka.
His wife Hasina Ahmed told reporters that she received a phone call from Ahmed, and that the BNP leader is at the Meghalaya Institute of Mental Health & Neurosciences (MIMHANS) Hospital in Shillong.
"My husband told me that he is alright and we are trying to reach him as soon as possible. We seek cooperation from all," she said at her Gulshan home.
Bdnews24 quoting Meghalaya police reported that Ahmed, who is in his mid 50s, was arrested from Golf Links in Shillong late yesterday.
Ahmed has been hospitalised and investigations were on as this appeared to be a case of illegal trespass into Indian territory without valid travel documents.
Ahmed's wife has said that police had refused to accept their complaints before moving the High Court over the issue.
She had even sought Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's intervention to trace her husband.
Hasina had said then that the BNP leader was not arrested, but was being sought by the security forces. She also hinted that the BNP had orchestrated his "disappearance."
However, the BNP had backed the family's allegations, saying that Ahmed was nabbed on "government's instructions."
Ahmed, a former Cox's Bazar MP and state minister, had served as an assistant private secretary to Zia during her 1991-96 tenure when he was a junior civil servant.
He functioned as BNP's spokesperson after the arrests of acting Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir and Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Ahmed Rizvi.
