Dhaka, May 4 A BRAC official was killed early Thursday in the western Afghan province of Ghor, Pajhwok news agency reported quoting the local police chief.
Mohammad Mohiuddin, area manager for the BRAC's Community-Based Livelihood Improvement Project, was killed when the Taliban stormed the BRAC office in Chaghcharan, the Ghor capital, just before dawn.
"It is a grave loss for me as well as the organisation," BRAC Afghanistan chief Khondoker Ariful Islam told bdnews24.com on Friday.
Islam said Mohiuddin had headed the project for BRAC in Ghor for the last two years and a half. "He was a close associate and was doing really good work," said the grieving BRAC country representative
He said notifying the family would be coordinated from Dhaka.
In Dhaka, BRAC media manager Zia Hashan told bdnews24.com that the Mohiuddin family, from Mymensingh, had been informed on Thursday morning.
Islam said he hoped that the body would be flown to Dhaka by Saturday. "We only managed to fly Mohiuddin's remains from Ghor to Kabul today."
BRAC chartered a UN flight to bring Mohiuddin's body to Kabul. The flight from Ghor had arrived a little before bdnews24.com contacted Islam, he said.
The Afghan police reportedly said that a wounded insurgent who had been arrested admitted the group's intention was to kidnap the Bangladeshis for swapping their associates.
The militants sought to swap the foreigners for their detained fighters, according to one escapee, Samiul Haq.
"The office head was killed on the spot, but I succeeded in fleeing soon after the assailants entered the building," Pajhwok quoted Haq as saying.
Samiul told the news agency that an Afghan BRAC employee, who was sharing the room with the office head, escaped unhurt.
According to Islam, there had been no warnings about any security threat from Ghor. "Nor did Mohiuddin give us any such indication."
The BRAC head in Afghanistan said the world's largest NGO had gained acceptability. "This is only the second such instance in over 10 years of our working here."
Considering that BRAC has 150 Bangladeshis working in its 3,000- strong workforce in the war-torn country, the frequency is admittedly low, Islam pointed out.
Set up as the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee in 1972, BRAC has operations from Afghanistan to South Sudan to Haiti, working in as diverse areas as livelihoods, education, microfinance.
BRAC STATEMENT
BRAC issued a media statement mourning the death of 41-year-old Mohiuddin, who left his wife and two children at Fulbaria in Mymensingh. "We are doing everything we can to assist his family during this difficult time."
He had been working there since 2009, it said.
"BRAC… has a direct programme presence in 23 provinces and through partnership with local NGOs in the remaining 11 provinces, including the ones where insecurity has been on the rise in recent times," the statement read.
"We are closely monitoring developments in Afghanistan with great concern as the overall security situation in the country is increasingly deteriorating. Safeguarding the interests and well-being of the Bangladeshi and Afghan staff deployed in areas where insecurity is rising, remains our top priority," it added.
MOHIUDDIN's NEPHEW
Shafikul Islam, a nephew of Mohiuddin, told bdnews24.com from Fulbaria by phone that they wanted the body back as quick as possible.
He said they would also seek proper compensation for his maternal uncle so that his family can survive in such a difficult time.
"This is a very hard time for us. We expect BRAC would do its best to stand by my uncle's family," he said.
He could not specify if there was any insurance or any other arrangement for any such case when Mohiuddin was contracted for the job.
"We have only one document that he has been appointed as an agriculturist in Afghanistan, we have found no other documents at his village home," he said.
"He has spent his life for BRAC and for the welfare of the people of Afghanistan. He should get proper honour for that. He is no more, that's the biggest truth," said Shafikul who runs a medicine shop.
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