This should not be read as an obituary. But widely acclaimed Bangladeshi social activist and photographer Shahidul Alam has vanished into the black hole of security detention. At his Aug. 12 appearance for a court order to extend his arrest by the dreaded Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), a limping Shahidul declared he was tortured, and his clothes washed to remove bloodstains. He is hauled back into the malevolent void again, where no one can hear or see what is being done to him.