Families embarrassed

M M Jasim :
The list of missing people provided by the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) has been embarrassing members of many families and decreasing their social dignity as a number of people in the list are not missing and not related to the militancy, sources said.
Of the missing people, they said, some are now staying at their village homes, some hiding due to feud with their family members, while many had left for Malaysia with the hope of building their fortune through illegal sea routes.
On July 20, the elite force released a list of 261 people missing from different parts of the country in recent times.
The government has been gathering information about the youths reportedly missing for sometime, as investigations revealed a trend of such youths joining militant groups.
The family members of the missing persons have blamed the government agencies for not investigating properly about the missing persons. Some family members said that their sons, daughters or brothers and sisters had left the homes due to family feud. A number of family members filed many general diaries to find out them, but the police did not work properly, they alleged.
Suddenly, the law enforcing agencies released the name of the missing persons without any investigation and suspected them having links to the militancy.
In Jhenaidah, members of law enforcing agencies found 29 people missing and suspected them as involved in militancy. But 24 of them are staying at homes and they are expatriates. The two persons died. The rest of three persons are still missing.
In Chuadanga, the names of two missing persons have been revealed. But actually no one is missing. Of the missing persons one is mentally disable and another is working in Agricultural Department of the district.
In Rangpur, nine people have been identified as missing. Six of them are at homes and one is now in prison and other two persons’ address is not correct. That is why no missing people have any link with militancy in in the district.
Officer-in-Charge of Rangpur Kotwali Police Station ABM Jahidul Islam told the media that he did not find the addresses of the two persons. “The addresses given to the police station were incorrect,” the OC said.
In Jessore, 14 people were found missing. The family members also filed general diaries with the nearest police stations. But they are not militants. They went to Malaysia for wage through illegal sea routes.
In Nilphamari, the RAB found two people missing. But the list is wrong. Of them, one is a student of Rajshahi University and another is working at a shop.
Md Habibur Rahman has been missing for some days. His elder brother lodged a general diary in this regard. Later he returned home but his name is in the missing list.
 “The police did not investigate why and where he was stayed. They also did not make any call to us. This is a negligence of the police. And the RAB collected the list and published it without any cross matching. It is unexpected,” he said.
SM Ahsan Runel went missing but continued communication with his mother. His elder brother Dr SM Jahangir Alam, Commissioner of Taxation Department in Dhaka Division filed a diary with the Ramna Police Station. Ahsan returned home eight months ago. The police did not work to find out Ahsan. But they provide his name to the RAB in the missing list.
RAB’s media wing Director Mufti Mahmud Khan said, the RAB collected the name of the missing people from the respective police stations. It is the primary list. The list would be cross examined, he said.
 “They (261) are missing. We are not calling them militants,” Mufti Mahmud said.
Syed Mahfuzul Haque Marjan, a teacher of Criminology Department of Dhaka University, told The New Nation that the missing people’s list was not prepared perfectly.
 “When a law enforcing agency released a list usually we trust it. But when we find mistake in the list we disappoint. The family members of the missing people also feel embarrassed,” he said. It may be mentioned that the five gunmen who attacked an upscale cafe in Dhaka on July 1 and killed 20 hostages, mostly foreigners, had been missing for several months, according to their families.
One of the Sholakia attackers, who was shot dead by police during the June 7 attack, had also been missing for the past four months.
Following the recent terror attacks, the RAB released a list of 262 people and posted on its Online Media Cell’s Facebook page. After posting the list the RAB was crticised from many quarters for their mistake in the list.