The chief spokesman of Bangladesh’s main opposition party who went missing in early March was found Tuesday in a hospital in northeastern India, his wife said.
Salahuddin Ahmed’s disappearance at the height of deadly anti-government protests drew widespread concern following similar disappearances of opposition activists in the past two years.
“He has been found at a hospital in Meghalaya. The hospital authorities called me just a moment ago and then I spoke to my husband,” Hasina Ahmed told reporter.
She could not describe the circumstances that led to Ahmed’s disappearance from a hideout in Dhaka and of his re-emergence at the Indian hospital, close to the Bangladeshi border.
There was no comment from the government or police.
Ahmed, a former junior minister, took over as the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) chief spokesman after two other senior members were detained in January at the start of a campaign of anti-government protests.
Hasina Ahmed told AFP her husband was picked up from a hideout in the northern suburb of Dhaka by a member of the country’s elite security force. But police and the government denied that he was in their custody.
From the hideout, Ahmed issued a series of hard-hitting anti-government statements, urging people to join the months-long transport blockade — called by BNP leader Khaleda Zia — aimed at toppling the government.