A Dhaka court yesterday accepted a charge sheet against cricketer Shahadat Hossain and his wife Jesmine Jahan Nitto in a case filed over torturing their 11-year-old domestic help.
Metropolitan Magistrate Nuru Miah accepted the charge sheet after the general recording section of Dhaka Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court produced it before the court.
The court later sent the case documents to the chief metropolitan magistrate for his approval to transfer the case to Dhaka Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal 5 and start the trial in the case.
Officer-in-Charge (investigation) Md Shafiqur Rahman of Mirpur police station, also investigation officer of the case, submitted the charge sheet against Shahadat and his wife on December 29, last year.
On October 6, Shahadat was sent to jail by a Dhaka court after he surrendered before the court, two days following the arrest of his wife Nitto in connection with the same case.
Later, Shahadat secured bail from the High Court on December 8 on health grounds while his wife Nitto got bail from a Dhaka court on December 1.
According to the case documents, on September 6, journalist Khandkar Mozammel Haque found Shahdat’s domestic help Mahfuza Aktar Happy, 11, lying injured on a road in Sangbadik Colony of Pallabi in the capital.
He rescued the child who told him that cricketer Shahadat and his wife Nitto have been mercilessly torturing her for a long time.
The journalist then took her to Mirpur police station and filed the case against the couple under Section 4 (2) of the Women and Children Repression Prevention Act 2000.
On September 20, the housemaid Happy gave judicial statement before the Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Snigdha Rani Chakraborty on how she became a victim of physical abuse by the cricketer and his wife.
Bangladesh Cricket Board suspended Shahadat on September 13 after the allegation against the cricketer came into light.
