SAGIRA MORSHED MURDER Charges pressed against relatives

The Police Bureau of Investigation on Thursday pressed charges against four people over the murder of Sagira Morshed Salam in the capital’s Ramna 30 years ago.

PBI inspector Md Rafiqul Islam submitted the charge sheet to the Dhaka Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court.

The accused are Sagira Morshed’s husband’s elder brother Hasan Ali Chowdhury, his wife Sayedatul Mahmuda Shahin, Shahin’s brother Anas Mahmud Rezwan and Maruf Reza, said Ramna police station general recording officer for CMM court subinspector Nizam Uddin Fakir.

All the accused confessed to the murder before a Dhaka court on November 13 and on November 14.

On July 25, 1989, 34-year-old Sagira was shot dead in broad daylight when she was going to Viqarunnisa Noon School on Bailey Road by a rickshaw to pick up her daughter Faharat Chowdhury from the school. Farahat was a Class II student then.

Immediately after the murder in July 1989, it was circulated that muggers killed her and her husband Abdus Salam Chowdhury filed a case with the Ramna police station against unidentified assailants.

The police then submitted a charge sheet to the lower court concerned against one Minto alias Mantoo alias Maran and the trial court on January 17, 1991, framed charges against him. 

At one stage of the trial, the court on May 23, 1991 directed police to further investigate into the case after involvement of another person came up.

On July 2, 1991, a High Court bench stayed the trial proceedings in the case after hearing a petition filed by Maruf Reza, whose name was recorded in the statements of the prosecution witnesses during trial, challenging the trial court’s directive to police for further investigation in 1991.

Maruf Reza is a relative of the then home minister Mahmudul Hasan.

Maruf was later exempted from the case. Mantoo was also arrested and later released from jail on bail.

On June 26 this year, a High Court bench of Justice M Enayetur Rahim and Justice Md Mostafizur Rahman vacated the stay order and cleared the way for the trial court to resume the proceedings.

The bench also ordered to PBI to complete further probe into the case in two months and directed the trial court to complete its proceedings in three months.

The PBI, after their investigation, arrested the four in early November, and the arrested confessed that Sagira was killed over an internal feud in her extended family.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net