Mubashar says he was abducted
The NSU assistant professor returns home after 44 days
North South University (NSU) teacher Mubashar Hasan, who had been missing for about one and a half months, returned home early yesterday. Mubashar returned just two days after Utpal Das, a journalist who also remained missing for about two months, returned home on Wednesday. Utpal, a senior correspondent of news portal purboposhchimbd.news, went missing after leaving his office on October 10.
Mubashar, an assistant professor of the political science and sociology department at NSU, went missing on November 7 after attending a meeting of the governments A2I project in the citys Agargaon area.
Mubashars sister Tamanna Tasmin told The Independent that her brother returned home by a CNG-run auto-rickshaw around 1am.
It was around 12.45am to 1am. We were about to go to bed. Suddenly, my brother made a call and asked us to come outside with Tk. 500 to pay the auto fare. Finally, he was home safe and sound, she said.
Replying to a question, Tamanna said: My brother is in sound health. But he is in shock. He is tired and traumatised. He has spoken very few words even to us.
Talking to reporters in front of his Banasree residence, with his father, sister, and uncle by his side, Mubashar described his ordeal. He said the abductors had locked him up in a dark room since November 7. They often argued whether to kill him.
Breaking down in tears, the NSU professor said there was only one window in the room, which was always kept shut. I slept on a dirty mattress. They served me stale food, which might have been bought from a restaurant, Mubashar narrated.
Asked about the motive for his abduction, the teacher, who was involved in a research project on religion and militancy, said: The main issue was money. They might not have understood my family profile.
I heard some of the men talking about money. They took the Tk. 27,000 in cash which I had on me, he claimed.
I was blindfolded when they dropped me off somewhere on Airport Road. They told me that if I looked back, they would kill me, he added.
Replying to a query on what exactly happened on the day he was abducted, the NSU teacher said that he was on his way home in an Uber taxi on November 7 when some men stopped it.
When I reached Begum Rokeya Sarani, a group of people waylaid the car and asked me to get off the vehicle saying it was a stolen car.
Then I got off the car and was looking for another vehicle. Suddenly, someone rubbed an ointment in my eyes from behind and forcibly pushed me into a microbus. Then they held something to my nose and I lost sense, he kept saying.
When I got back my senses, I discovered myself in a locked room and my hands were tied with a rope. There was a dirty quilt in the room and the windows were locked from outside. I spent the entire period in that room. There was another room adjacent to the room I was kept. Sometimes I heard five-six people were talking among themselves, Mubashar added.
During the six-minute conversation, he also praised the role of the media in reporting the matter.
Mubashar, who has researched on political Islam, graduated from Dhaka Universitys journalism department. He worked as a journalist for an online news portal in Dhaka for two years before leaving the country for higher studies. He completed his masters and PhD degrees from universities in the UK and Australia.
Meanwhile, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal yesterday praised the law enforcers for their efforts over the return of some of the missing persons.
I would say they have returned because the law-enforcing agencies were active. Our law enforcers and intelligence agencies are working on these cases, he answered to a query by reporters. He was attending a programme in the capital.
