Ex-ambassador Maroof Zaman returns after 467-day disappearance
Former ambassador M Maroof Zaman reportedly returned home early Saturday after 467 days of enforced disappearance, the family said.
‘After 15 and a half months, or 467 days... my father is back. My sister and I are both profoundly grateful to those individuals who have supported us throughout this period,’ his daughter Shabnam Zaman posted on her Facebook at about 5:20pm on Saturday.
‘We would now like to request privacy so that we can process and heal. We have no further comments or details to share at this time,’ stated Shabnam without elaborating on how, where and when he returned.
Maroof disappeared while going to Dhaka airport on December 4, 2017 to pick one of his daughters.
Following the day, the family filed a general diary with Dhanmondi police station.
Dhaka Metropolitan Police deputy commissioner (Ramna division) Maruf Hossain Sardar, however, told New Age that they were not aware of the development as none of his family came up with the information.
After the retired diplomat went missing, the police investigators recovered his car abandoned at Khilkhet in the evening on December 4, 2017.
Law enforcers also retrieved CCTV footage of Maroof’s house in which three men were seen entering the house and leaving shortly afterwards with electronic devices. They wore caps and had their faces obscured with masks to conceal their identities.
Maroof was former Bangladesh ambassador to Qatar and Vietnam and counsellor at the Bangladesh High Commission in the United Kingdom. The former diplomat was a retired Bangladesh Army captain of the Signal Corps.
Whereabouts of two more former military officers, reportedly disappeared, were still unknown to their families.
On August 8, 2018, dismissed lieutenant colonel Hasinur Rahman was reportedly picked up by a group of people wearing ‘DB’ jackets on a microbus at Mirpur Defence Officers Housing Society on his way home.
His wife Shamima Akhter approached different authorities and filed a general diary with Pallabi police station.
‘We do not know where else to go,’ said Shamima.
Former brigadier general Abdullahil Amaan Azmi was picked up from his home allegedly by law enforcers on August 22, 2016.
He is the son of Jamaat-e-Islami leader Ghulam Azam, died in jail in 2014 while serving sentence for crimes against humanity committed during the 1971 Liberation War.
National Human Rights Commission chairman Kazi Reazul Hoque said that in many cases, victims returned home after the commission wrote to the government, but the whereabouts of some others were unknown.
He said that the commission would feel relieved if the perpetrators were identified.
News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net