A journalist of Prothom Alo newspaper was abducted in the middle of the night by a group of men in plain clothes. They introduced themselves as CID. The journalist's name is Shamsuzzaman Shams. He works as the Savar representative of the newspaper. Prothom Alo executive editor, Sajjad Sharif confirmed this incident to the media.
Sajjad Sharif told BBC Bangla, "Our Savar representative was arrested by CID in plain clothes at midnight yesterday. Since then we have not found any trace of him. We will take legal action in this regard."
However, CID or local police officials said that they are not aware of this detention.
At that time, Ariful Islam Sabbir, another journalist from another newspaper, was in Shams's house in Ambagan area of Jahangirnagar. He told BBC Bangla that a group of people in plain clothes with three microbuses took Shamsuzzaman Shams from his home at around 4 am. They also took away his laptop, two phones, pen drive, computer hard disk. At that time Sabbir was also questioned. They introduced themselves as CID team and said that they came from Dhaka.
Shortly after taking him away in the first round, the group returned home. Then they came back to the house and took the signatures of Sabbir and the landlord on a seizure list. Since then the mobile phone of Shamsuzzaman Shams has been switched off.
However, during the second visit to the house, a sub-inspector of Ashulia police station was with the team, witnesses said.
CID Dhaka Division Deputy Inspector General, Imam Hossain told BBC Bangla, "Nobody from CID's Dhaka division went to arrest Shamsuzzaman. I would have known if he had been arrested."
Officer-in-charge of Ashulia police station SM Kamruzzaman said that they do not know anything about this. They did not arrest anyone.
