Three persons forced him into the vehicle blindfolded

Poet, writer and political commentator Farhad Mazhar had gone out that morning to buy some medicine. As he left home and walked down the road, a white microbus drove up and stopped in front of him. Three persons grabbed him, forced him to the vehicle and blindfolded him. They drove him directly to Khulna.

At around seven in the evening the abductors dropped him off at the Shibbari intersection and gave him a bus ticket. This was the statement given by Farhad Mazhar in the chief metropolitan magistrate’s court on Tuesday, confirmed court sources.
Farhad Mazhar told the court that he may have been abducted in order to put the government into a false position. The abductors had simply dropped him off without taking anything from him. He did not know the three persons who abducted him.

Investigating officer of the case, Adabar police station’s inspector (investigations) Aminul Islam, told Prothom Alo that Farhad Mazhar had stated three persons had abducted him. They haven’t been identified as yet. The police were searching for them. They had abducted him and taken him to Khulna. Later he got on a bus to come to Dhaka.

The police brought Farhad Mazhar before the court at three in the afternoon. His wife Farida Akhtar filed an abduction case with the Adabar police station in the city.

The police placed a petition for his deposition to be recorded as a victim. He gave his deposition to the Dhaka chief metropolitan magistrate Ahsan Habib over a span of two and a half hours, under section 164.

He was later released with an undertaking of Tk 10,000 and the court gave him permission to go home on his own accord. He is presently under treatment at Ibrahim Cardiac Hospital. At the court, plaintiff of the case Farida Akhter told Prothom Alo, “I have by husband back. I’m happy with that.”

Farhad Mazhar was rescued around 11:30 Monday night from Abhaynagar in Jessore on a Dhaka-bound Hanif Paribahan bus that had left from Khulna. His relatives said that some persons had left him early morning on Monday in front of the Huq Garden house in Adabar of Shyamoli of the capital city.

According to police and court sources, Farhad Mazhar had said in court that he had eye problems and needed to use eye drops. He had gone to buy this medication on that fateful morning. There was a hospital near his house, next to which there was a pharmacy. He had been walking to the pharmacy when the microbus came up and he was dragged inside. He was blindfolded and made to sit in the middle. Two abductors sat, one on each side of him.

He was told to sit with his head down. While the vehicle was moving along, he called his wife with his cell phone. He told his wife that he had been abducted and they were going to kill him. The abductors snatched the phone away from him.

Farhad Mazhar told the court that after he was picked up, the vehicle proceeded without any stop. He said he had told the abductors to take money and release him. They asked him where he would get the money from. He said his wife would arrange it. They then asked him for Tk 3.5 million (Tk 35 lakh). He called up his wife for the money.

Farida Akhter told Prothom Alo, Farhad Mazhar has spoken to her five or six times after he had been abducted. His voice initially had been filled with fear. Farhad Mazhar told the court that he was dropped off around seven in the evening Monday and given a Hanif Paribahan bus ticket.

The abductors threatened him, saying that they would be nearby and that he should not delay. They ordered him not to tell anyone and to go straight to Dhaka.

Farhad Mazhar then got onto a rickshaw. He asked the rickshaw puller where he was and learnt that he was at Khulna’s Shibbari intersection. He ate at a restaurant there and then got on the Hanif Paribahan bus. Farhad Mazhar said he hadn’t been abducted for money. They hadn’t asked him for money he had made the offer. Exhausted, he fell asleep in the bus. When he woke up, he found many people around him. Someone asked him if he was Farhad Mazhar. He said he was Farhad Mazhar. He was taken down from the bus and taken to the local police station by RAB and the police.

Farhad Mazhar in his deposition said he did not know the abductors. He said he did not have enmity with anyone, but there were several reasons why he may have been abducted. He apprehended that those who disliked the present government could have abducted him in order to put the government into a false position. After all, they didn’t want money from him. They didn’t take anything from him at all.