Search at Missing Ex-envoy's House: Who were the three persons?

Detectives yesterday collected CCTV footage from the house of missing former ambassador Maroof Zaman to find out who took his laptop, desktop and camera on Monday night.

Three well-dressed, tall men entered the Dhanmondi house and left with the devices. Earlier around 7:30pm, Maroof, who had left the house in a car to pick up his daughter Samiha Zaman from the airport, rang his land phone and told the house help to give the laptop to a person, said his family members.

The unknown men also searched different drawers, they said.

Landing at the airport from Belgium, Samiha repeatedly called her father but found his number switched off. Maroof, who retired as an additional secretary to the foreign ministry in September 2009, has been missing since.

A team from the Detective Branch of police, led by Assistant Commissioner Fazlur Rahman, collected the footage around noon yesterday. The law enforcers also talked to the family members of the former ambassador to Vietnam.

“We're analyzing the footage as part of our investigation to identify the people who entered the house …,” DB Additional Deputy Commissioner Rajib Al Masud told The Daily Star last night.

A police official, who examined the footage, said three middle-aged men in caps entered the house and left with a CPU and some others things.

Samiha lodged a general dairy with Dhanmondi police on Tuesday. Later that evening, Khilkhet police recovered Maroof's car abandoned near the 300-foot road in the area.

Sub-inspector Abu Zahed of Khilkhet police later filed another GD over the recovery of the vehicle. In the GD, the police official said they found the car doors left open wide.

Talking to The Daily Star yesterday, Samiha, who had gone to Belgium to visit her sister, pleaded the government to bring her father back.

Rifat Zaman, the ex-diplomat's brother, yesterday said his brother had no political affiliation. He said Maroof used to get transferred to his preferred countries because of his ailing wife, who died in 2012.

The incident comes high on the heels of some high-profile disappearances, including that of North South University Assistant Prof Mubashar Hasan, in the last few months. 

Dhaka University Chhatra Dal leader Mujahidur Rahman, who went missing after he left his home in Sher-e-Bangla Nagar on November 26, has not returned.

With Maroof and Mujahidur, 14 people including a journalist and a number of businessmen, went missing, in recent months. Four of them have returned.