BNP’s Salahuddin returns to country from India after 9 years

BNP Standing Committee member Salahuddin Ahmed returned to Bangladesh today after spending nine years in Shillong, India.

He reached the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport at around 2:00pm, BNP media cell member Shayrul Kabir Khan confirmed the matter.

Salahuddin’s wife Hasina Ahmed and some BNP leaders, including its vice chairman Barkatullah Bulu, senior joint secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi and joint secretary general Khairul Kabir Khokon, received him at the airport.

Salahuddin was acquitted on 28 February last year by the verdict of the Shillong Judge Court. Later, he got the travel permit on 12 June. 

BNP leader Salahuddin disappeared from Dhaka on 10 March 2015. The next day, the Shillong police filed a case against him for trespassing into India. 

On 26 October 2018, an Indian court acquitted him of the illegal entry case. However, Salahuddin’s return to Bangladesh was banned when the state appealed the court’s verdict.

After nearly seven years of trial, the verdict in the case was announced on 28 February last year where he was acquitted. 

The Assistant High Commissioner of Bangladesh in Guwahati issued his travel pass on 6 August, clearing the way for his return.

In 1991, Salahuddin Ahmed was the APS of then Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, also the BNP chairperson. He was elected Member of Parliament from Cox’s Bazar in 2001. He was made state minister for communication during the BNP-Jamaat coalition government. 

When he was arrested in Meghalaya, he was the joint general secretary of BNP. The BNP made him a member of the party’s standing committee while he was in jail in India.