#Title

The first night of curfew and a surprise abduction
FROM PAGE S2
There were three likely spots where the CCTV footage should have picked up the vehicles—a motorbike workshop, an electronic sales and repair shop and a pharmacy.
First, I approached an employee of the workshop saying that last night my brother’s motorbike had been snatched from this area and wanted to see the footage. He could not be less bothered by my plight. “Come back after lunch and speak to the owner.”
I went to the electronics shop and got the same response. The owner and attendant looked at each other. One said they can’t operate the monitor and the footage is not clear at all.
It is difficult to say how, but I had a feeling that people would cooperate if I told them the truth that I wanted to find out who abducted the student leader from their area. It’s an instinctive feeling that grew from the pit of my stomach. So, I blurted out, “I want to find out who has abducted Nahid, a key organiser of the protests.”
I could tell from their eyes that my hunch was right. The attendant came forward and explained -- in an almost conspiratorial undertone -- how to operate the CCTV monitor. I spent more than two hours trying to identify the cars. They were right. The footage was too blurry to make anything out for certain. The duo suggested I go to the pharmacy, which might have better-quality footage. It had remained shuttered for the whole time that I was there. But they told me where to find the owner.
A bit of cloak and dagger
I found the owner of the pharmacy at an under-construction building. At first, the pharmacy owner refused. But it did not take too much effort to convince him either. He said, “Come back tomorrow.”
And so, I went back the next day. It was July 22. I called the pharmacy owner and he told me to meet a boy across the street who would help with my quest. The young man asked me for a pen drive. When I requested the boy to show me the footage, I found out it would take more than that. The boy mentioned that the CCTV setup was at a widow’s house and that strangers were not welcome there. It all felt like a little cloak and dagger.
I gave him the pen drive and waited for an hour before the young man came back. He said there had been a power outage when Nahid was being detained. “There may be nothing of use at all.” I came back with a broken heart. It had been really close.
Back at the office, my computer couldn’t read the format of the file that I brought with me after so much trouble. So, I sought help from the in-house experts. The first file was literally blank. It had a full hour’s worth of black screen. But I struck gold with the second one.
You could clearly see a car with Rab-3 written on its side. I was not able to see the number plate at first. But then a law enforcer opened the boot of the car and the number became visible.
I had got what I needed. But, as a newsman, I knew it was not that easy to produce a story. The process of collecting supporting information and comments from law enforcers was painstakingly slow.
Who abducted Nahid first?
The story was finally published on July 30. “Who picked up Nahid for the first time?” read the title. It was printed during a time when Nahid had been detained for a second time -- this time by the detective police and was being paraded in front of TV along with five other coordinators in a bid to break the morale of the protesters. Of course that never really worked out.
A couple of months later, I got a phone call from Rab 3. It was after the interim government had taken over and Nahid had become one of the more visible advisers. The caller wanted to have the footage. Now, they wanted to identify the culprits behind abducting the “honourable adviser”.