If you can't return Salahuddin, then resign

The government should resign if it fails to "return" missing BNP leader Salahuddin Ahmed, Bikalpa Dhara Bangladesh (BDB) President AQM Badruddoza Chowdhury said yesterday, warning that his disappearance would be a bad example for the country's politics.

"It is the government's responsibility to find Salahuddin and return him to his family," he said after a meeting with Salahuddin's wife Hasina Ahmed at her Gulshan residence.

Turing to the upcoming mayoral elections in Dhaka and Chittagong cities, the former president said, "I doubt whether the city corporation polls will take place at all, and even if they do, a question will arise that to what extent they will be free and fair."

Reiterating her previous claims, Hasina Ahmed yesterday told reporters, "I am hundred percent sure that the law enforcers picked him up. I am requesting to return him to us."  

Family members allege plainclothes law enforcers flashing identity cards of detectives picked Salahuddin up from a house in Uttara on March 10.

Following a petition by his wife with the High Court, five law enforcement agencies submitted five separate reports to the attorney general's office on March 15, saying they had not arrested or picked up the BNP joint secretary general.

On Thursday, Hasina Ahmed submitted a memorandum to the PM, seeking her intervention to trace her husband. She also sought an audience with the premier but is yet to get one.