It’s sirens wailing and red beacons flashing, an ambulance entered Jessore Central Jail’s precincts around 9 pm BST on January 24. The rear doors of the ambulance were quickly thrown open as a wiry man with a wispy beard took slow and unsteady steps to the waiting vehicle. Inside the ambulance were two bodies, wrapped in white cloth.
The lifeless bodies were of 32-year-old Jewel Hasan Saddam’s young wife Kaniz Suborna Swarnali and nine-month-old son Shehzad Hossein Najib. On January 23, Swarnali took Najib’s life before using a chord to hang herself from the ceiling fan hook in her bedroom. She took her life following months of emotional distress and helplessness brought on by access to any income.
Jewel could barely spend two minutes with his deceased wife and son before the jail authorities put an end to this highly emotional moment. The reason: the Bagerhat District Commissioner Ghulam Mohammad Batein had simply forwarded a January 23 parole application by Jewel to his personal secretary who advised Saddam’s younger brother Mohammad Shahidul Islam to take the bodies to the prison. The parole application was signed by one Mohammad Hemayat Uddin.
“We hurried to the DC’s office around 4 pm so that Saddam could come home to see his wife and son for the last time. The DC simply forwarded it to his personal secretary who said that the only way out was to transport the bodies to the jail,” Shahidul Islam told Northeast News over phone.
After seeing them for the last time, the bodies were driven away to a graveyard in Bagerhat where they were buried around 11 pm on January 24.
As details of this heart-wrenching chain of events took Bangladesh by storm, there was outrage at the cruel and inhuman attitude of not only the Bagerhat district administration but also the Mohammad Yunus government for its scant regard for rule of law and the spate of arrests – in most cases without evidence – against Awami League and Chhatra League leaders and supporters across Bangladesh. Strong and widespread indignation was reflected on most social media platforms.
Thousands of Awami League and Chhatra League leaders at the national, district and village union levels have been arrested – and continue to be hunted down and apprehended – since the August 2024 when the Yunus-led interim regime took charge.
While the law-and-order situation across the country deteriorated, the ceaseless use of the police machinery to round up Awami League and Chhatra League supporters and workers has not stirred either Army or the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and the Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI) to demand a stop to this “persecution”.
Today, Home Ministry Adviser Lieutenant General (retd) Jahangir Alam Chowdhury refused to take questions from journalists on Saddam’s case and the manner in which he bade farewell to his wife and son. “I will not respond to questions other than the agriculture sector. Ask questions on the agriculture sector,” Chowdhury said dismissively. Several calls by Northeast News to Chowdhury’s WhatsApp number did not elicit any response. Deputy Commissioner Batein also did not take several WhatsApp calls by Northeast News.
While Western human rights organisations have maintained near-total silence over the mass arrest of Awami League and Chhatra League leaders and workers and their prolonged incarceration in prison, often on trumped up charges, including murder and attempt to murder.
Awami League records show that since August 2024, as many as 3.59 lakh party leaders and workers were arrested till June 2025. This indicates the massive drive, including police and RAB sweeps called ‘Operation Devil Hunt’, and the over-crowded conditions in Bangladesh prisons, including two located at Kashimpur and Keraniganj.
Saddam’s case details reveal the “reckless pursuit” of Chhatra League workers by the Yunus administration. He was arrested, jailed, rearrested and jailed again for five alleged crimes, which is violative of the principle of ‘double jeopardy’. These serial arrests and jailings took place despite bail being granted by the High Court Division of the Supreme Court.
Besides, Saddam was accused of committing a crime in August 2024 when he was actually in India on medical visa issued to him by the Indian Deputy High Commission in Khulna on June 16, 2024, and was valid till September 15, 2024. Indian immigration department stamps on his passport show that he crossed into West Bengal at Haridaspur (North 24 Parganas district) Integrated Check Post (ICP) on July 10, 2024.
Saddam applied for and was issued a triple entry medical visa on September 8, 2024, and it was valid till March 7, 2025. On this occasion too he travelled to Kolkata for availing medical treatment.
