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Who picked up Nahid first time?
ASIFUR RAHMAN
Key organiser of the quota reform protest, Nahid Islam, a Dhaka University student, was allegedly picked up by law enforcers early on July 20, although law enforcers deny their involvement.
However, video footage obtained by The Daily Star reveals that a vehicle of Rapid Action Battalion-3, one SUV, a microbus, and two motorcycles present near the Sabujbagh residence from where Nahid was picked.
Nahid was found battered and unconscious in Purbachal over 24 hours later. He claimed he was physically tortured until he lost consciousness.
After regaining consciousness under a bridge, Nahid managed to reach home by auto-rickshaw and was subsequently hospitalised.
But he was picked up again while undergoing treatment at Gonoshasthaya Nagar Hospital on July 26. This time, the Detective Branch (DB) claimed to have taken him and other coordinators of the quota reform movement into custody for “their safety”.
Before Nahid was picked up by the DB again, he told this newspaper that plainclothes men, numbering 25-30, detained him after 2:00am the night he was picked up for the first time.
They broke into his friend’s house, dragged him out, and took him inside a microbus, he said.
Before they blindfolded him, he spotted a Rab vehicle, he said, which is consistent with the eye witness accounts and the video this newspaper saw.
WHAT WE SAW
The Daily Star reviewed footage from various CCTV cameras near the building where Nahid was picked up from his friend’s residence.
The footage confirms that at least one Rab-3 vehicle was present at the scene between 1:51am and 2:12am on July 20.
Around 1:51am, two motorcycles, an SUV, a microbus, and a Rab van stopped in front of a camera near Nandipara Govt Primary School in Sabujbagh.
Nahid’s friend’s house, where he slept that night, was only 100-150 metres away from this location.
These vehicles came from the Nandipara intersection side and returned from the same side after around 20 minutes.
During this period, Nahid was picked up, according to witnesses and Nahid himself.
Notably, the nationwide curfew had already begun by then, and only ambulances and a few trucks were moving around the area, aside from the vehicles that arrived with the Rab-3 vehicle.
CCTV footage showed that both motorcycles had pillions and most of the car seats were occupied. The first microbus was closer to the house.
The SUV and the Rab-3 van waited for 10 minutes. Four to five men were seen waiting and talking on the phone behind the SUV.
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