“There is no freedom in this country. It is barbaric to invade and assault someone’s home just because of the way he expresses himself.” These are comments made by a spokesperson (who wishes to remain unnamed) of the Upazilla BNP headquarters, and they come after another raid last night involving the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) no less.

In what was a confusing, but uneasy few hours for the residents of Alongkarpur village, Baliakandi, Rajbari, a team dispatched by the local RAB headquarters shut down the whole area denying access in our out. Their objective was to locate one Md Sabbir Hossain, a local, whom they accuse of “actively partaking in anti-government activities”.

Mr Hossain, son of Moslem Uddin Biswas (a long time local of Alongkarpur) has been accused of producing deceptive and hostile content towards the current regime and publishing them across several media platforms including popular social media outlets. According to local sources, Mr Hossain is an active supporter of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). He apparently has also dabbled in politics quite early in his life, namely as one of the leaders of the Monsur Ali degree College Chatradal. Mr Hossain currently resides in the United Kingdom.

At around 12 am on Friday night after the locking Alongkarpur down, the RAB team proceeded to locate Mr Hossain’s family home, before infiltrating it and staying there for a good few hours. There are rumours that the RAB team engaging in destruction of valuables inside Mr Hossain’s home, but we were unable to confirm that for Mr Hossain’s family refused to speak to journalists following the incident. We were told Mr Hossain’s father is nowhere to be found in the immediate aftermath of the raid, but the rest of his family are fine for now. The whole ordeal though has made for a tense atmosphere inside Alangkarpur and it is likely to be that way for the next few days.

We approached the Rajbari RAB headquarters for comments and one of their spokespersons offered,“We cannot say much, for we are yet to concluded preliminary investigations on it. We are carefully considering all the information available to us, with regards to any possible conspiracy against our government”. We were told to vacate the premises immediately afterwards.

Anup Roy/56AR/23/Delhi