Bangladesh: Cops abduct top Islamist leader’s son, says family

The police has abducted the son of a top Bangladeshi war crimes convict, his family said Tuesday, the latest in a series of forced disappearances of Opposition leaders’ children.

More than 30 plainclothes officers seized Abdullahil Amaan Azmi, formerly a decorated brigadier general in Bangladesh’s powerful Army, from his home in the capital Dhaka on Monday evening, his family said in a statement. “The officers cordoned off the whole street before breaking down the door and forcibly entering the family home, blindfolding the caretaker and severely beating him until he fell unconscious,” the statement said.

The police had no warrant and gave no reason for arresting Azmi, the family said. “No official acknowledgement of his arrest has yet been made, without which there are credible fears for a possible extrajudicial abduction,” the statement said.

The alleged abduction came weeks after similar incidents which were blamed on plainclothes policemen in Dhaka.

“We don’t know anything about these incidents,” a national police spokesman said.