Swapan Molla asked everyone he came across about his missing brother. He carried a newspaper with the picture of a bullet-hit man in bloodstained shirt at the Moushuri army camp in Narayanganj.
“The injured person in the picture might be my brother. The face of the person is not clear in the picture. Like him, my brother was also wearing a white shirt,” he said.
Swapan did not have any photo of his brother Shamsher Molla.
He showed the picture to journalists and others, and enquired them about Shamsher, who went missing since the army left the camp after the clash on Saturday.
Swapan came to know that three injured persons were taken away to unknown destinations from the Moushuri army camp. They were hit by bullets during Saturday’s protest against a army housing scheme.
“I went to Moushuri but the police there could not help me,” he said.
Shamsher is not the only person missing. At least three other people went missing since the incident.
Family members of the missing persons claimed that law enforcers shot them and picked them up from two spots in Rupganj union after they opened fire on agitating villagers protesting against “forced purchase of land” by army personnel.
Saidul Islam, 18, son of Lehaz Uddin of Rupganj village, had been missing since he joined the protest near a bridge in the village on Saturday morning.
Lehaz Uddin and a number of villagers alleged that Rab members shot Saidul during the protest and whisked him away by a pick-up.
Saidul quit a Madrasa a year back to help his father run a tea stall at Ichhapur Bazar.
Kabir Hossain, an eyewitness of the incident, said Saidul was hit by a bullet in the shoulder when Rab personnel opened fire on the villagers, who prevented them from entering the village by the bridge shortly after 11:30am.
Kabir said Rab personnel put Saidul in a van and took him away.
“I want my son’s body,” cried Saidul’s mother Sajeda Begum at the yard of her house.
Masudur Rahman, 32, of the same village also went missing since the incident. His father Shahor Ali claimed that his son was shot and picked up by Rab men.
Relatives and neighbours of Saidul and Masudur thronged their houses to comfort their family members.
Meanwhile, the family members of Zumman, who had been reported missing, traced him at the Combined Military Hospital.
“He is critically injured,” said Ruman, brother of Zumman of Rupganj village.
