Shifting the Lens

Shahidul Alam's radical ways of seeing Bangladesh

06 December 2018
The Drik gallery was host to South Asia’s first World Press Photo exhibition in 1993.
DRIK
The Drik gallery was host to South Asia’s first World Press Photo exhibition in 1993.
DRIK

On the night of 5 August, a couple of dozen men turned up at the photographer Shahidul Alam’s house in Dhaka. They dragged him from his apartment, bound and screaming, smashing surveillance cameras on the way out. Alam’s partner, Rahnuma Ahmed, was with a neighbour, so she could not react in time. By the time anyone fully realised what was going on, Alam had been thrown into a white van and driven off into the night’s darkness.

The following is an excerpt from “The Man Who Saw Too Much: Why the Bangladesh government fears Shahidul Alam,” by Kaamil Ahmed, published in The Caravan’s latest issue, alongside Alam’s visual account of Bangladesh’s extrajudicial killings. Subscribe now to read in full.

ON HIS BICYCLE, Shahidul Alam is easy to spot—floating through Dhaka’s congested arteries atop his slight fold-up bicycle, wearing a kurta and with his scarf flapping in the pollution-laden wind. He grew up in the residential area of Dhanmondi, one of three siblings born to middle-class parents. His father was a prominent scientist and his mother, a child psychologist.

Kaamil Ahmed is a foreign correspondent who reports on conflicts, refugees and the environment in South Asia and West Asia.

Keywords: Bangladesh Liberation war Bangladesh Free Speech Shahidul Alam Digital Security Act Chobi Mela Pathshala photography Drik 1971 War
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