The Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) has missed all 14 dates that had been fixed for the submission of the investigation report in the sensational murder of journalist couple Golam Sarwar Sagar and Meherunessa Runi.
In the latest development, Administrative Officer of Scholastica school Tanvir Rahman, an accused in the murder case, was granted interim bail for seven days on July 1. The joint bench of Justice Naima Hayder and Justice Mohammadullah heard the bail petition and granted him bail.
Sagar, news editor of Massranga Television and Runi, a senior reporter of ATN Bangla, were killed in their apartment on February 11 last year.
At first, the Detective Branch (DB) of police was tasked with the investigation. But later the DB admitted its failure and the onus of probing the case was transferred to Rab on April 18 last year.
Jafar Ullah, a senior assistant director of Rab, is in charge of the investigation now.
According to lawyers and the case documents, Metropolitan Magistrate SM Ashiqur Rahman accepted the “bail bond” which was produced before Dhaka’s Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court in line with the bail order of High Court.
However, the document that was sent to the CMM court did not mention the section of the case.
“I asked the defence lawyer who submitted the bail order document to re-submit it mentioning the case section written down on it. But he did not comply with the directive,” Judicial Bench Clerk of the Court Md Faruq Chowdhury told the Dhaka Tribune Tuesday.
Bail period of the accused, Tanvir, ended on Monday. If the accused got out of jail, he needed to surrender himself to the lower court Tuesday.
When asked about the bail, Rab’s legal and media wing Director ATM Habibur Rahman said they heard about the order. “What can we do if the court grants him bail? It has everything to do with the court, nothing with us,” he said.
On filing of the report, the official said they were investigating into the matter with sincerity and would submit it very soon. August 21 is the next date for submitting the probe report.
So far, eight people were arrested in connection with the sensational murder case. They are Tanvir, Enamul Haque, Rafiqul Islam, Bakul Mia, Md Sayeed, Kamrul Hasan, Polash Rudra Paul and Peda Mintu.
Lawyer Kishore Kumar Basu Chowdhury, who is representing Tanvir in the lower court, told the Dhaka Tribune that although Tanvir was shown arrested on October 9 of last year, he had in fact gone missing on October 1 on his way back home.
Earlier on October 10, the Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court granted police eight days to question Tanvir.
On April 24 of last year, the court ordered fresh autopsy of the bodies responding to an appeal by the then investigation officer.
Two days later, the corpses were exhumed to conduct a viscera test.
However, experts did not find presence of any poisonous element or chemical in the bodies.
In June last year, samples collected from a knife, knife handle, socks of Sagar, a blanket, pants of Sagar and Runi, and some other clothes were sent to a USA laboratory for DNA testing. Some other samples were also sent to the laboratory on the following month.
