/ ‘Captors kept watch on my family’

M Maroof Zaman Former diplomat Detention: Dec 4, 2017 to Mar 16, 2019
On the evening of December 4, 2017, around 6:45pm, M Maroof Zaman, former Bangladesh ambassador to Vietnam, was on his way from his Dhanmondi home to receive his daughter at the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport.
While driving, he noticed a microbus tailgating and attempting to ram his car.
Near the airport, his car was intercepted, and two men in plain clothes got off the microbus, assaulted him and dragged him out of his car.
They forcibly placed Maroof into the microbus, where several other individuals blindfolded him, tied his hands, and covered his face with a cloth.
Under duress, he had to call a family member to instruct him to hand over his laptops to a “technician” who would visit his home.
“They wanted my laptops. I initially resisted, but after the assault I had no choice but to cooperate. They eventually took my laptops from my home,” he told The Daily Star.
After driving for about 20 minutes, the microbus stopped, but he could not see where they were as he was blindfolded.
Maroof, also a retired captain of Bangladesh Army, said he was confined to a small, filthy room furnished with a wooden bed, a CCTV camera, and four fans. The space was barely livable.
“Many people were detained in this room at different times, and some had written their names, addresses and dates on the walls. These writings were painted over every three months.”
During his captivity, the former diplomat, 67, faced interrogations more than nine times.
“They [abductors] questioned me about certain people I didn’t know. They enquired about some agreements between India and Bangladesh. They also wanted to know how I became aware of an Indian intelligence agency training members of a Bangladeshi intelligence agency.
“They repeatedly enquired why I wrote anti-government articles on international online platforms,” said Maroof.
While being held, Maroof realised that he was in a cantonment area and those carrying out duties there were from the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI).
He got some clues such as a water bottle marked “Sena”, medications, and a copy of the Holy Quran with military references.
“After I finished one bottle of water, they [captors] gave me another one with the label ‘Sena’. The medicine they gave me had ‘Defence Medicine, Trading Prohibited’ written on the strips.
“When I requested a Quran from the person who looked after the detainees, he handed me one, which had ‘Section Headquarters Library’ stamped inside.
“They used the term ‘Boro Bhai’ to refer to senior officials for confidentiality,” he said.
Maroof said he once heard someone outside his room loudly saying — “Guard, Sabdhan”.
He also heard planes and trains quite often early in the morning.
During an interrogation, interrogators hit him in the face.
“My mouth started bleeding and my teeth were damaged. They also struck me with sticks, injuring my hands and legs. They did not provide any medical treatment.”
He also learned that his captors had been keeping track of his family’s activities.
“One day, an officer told me that my daughter was at a restaurant on Dhanmondi-27. He said she had enrolled in a private university.”
Throughout his captivity, he suffered from various ailments, including skin conditions, a hand ligament injury, and mouth sores.
Maroof’s ordeal finally ended on March 16, 2019.
“I was asleep in my room when a man awakened me around 1:00am. They took me to an interrogation room and warned me not to reveal anything about the last 15 months,” he recounted.
His captors returned his clothes but kept his laptops. They then drove him to near his house in Dhanmondi around 2:00am, and instructed him not to look back.
Maroof resigned as captain from Bangladesh Army in 1982. He was sent into forced retirement as an ambassador in 2013.
The former diplomat demanded formation of a commission to investigate all the incidents of enforced disappearance that occurred over the last 15 years.