bdnews24.com :
Nusrat Jahan Tania, the sister of college student Mosarat Jahan Muniya, has filed a petition expressing “no confidence” in the final police investigation report that absolved Bashundhara Group Managing Director Sayem Sobhan Anvir of culpability in her suicide. Her rejection means that she believes the investigation into her sister’s death was unreliable.
Nusrat, the plaintiff in the case over inciting her sister’s suicide, petitioned the court of Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Rajesh Chowdhury on Tuesday to reassign the case to a separate investigative body.
The court will make a decision on the matter after examining the case documents, Advocate Masud Salahuddin, who represented the plaintiff, told bdnews24.com.
“The investigation was conducted in a biased manner. Various video and audio recordings have gone viral online. The investigation has deprived Muniya’s family of justice. If the investigation is not reassigned to a separate investigative body, the child of a Liberation War freedom fighter will be denied justice.”
The plaintiff’s lawyer explained the objection to the investigation report, stating that the case should not only fall under section 9 (1) of the Women and Children Repression Prevention Act, but also section 9 (2) of the law and also section 302 of the Penal Code.
“Suicide related to rape falls under those laws.”
Police had recovered a variety of evidence after Muniya’s death, including mobile phones, her diaries and CCTV footage, the lawyer said. Police had previously said that the CCTV footage showed Anvir coming and going from the flat.
“The investigation authorities did not mention examining the CCTV footage in their report, or note its observation and analysis of it. They did not look at the autopsy report, or, they did not pay attention to it. They did not discuss their findings with the plaintiffs either.”
The ‘final report’ in the case was submitted to the court on Jul 19. “The investigation did not find evidence of Bashundhara Group MD Sayem Sobhan Anvir inciting the suicide of Muniya and so, the final report has recommended his name be dropped from the case,” Sudeep Kumar Chakravarty, deputy commissioner of the Gulshan branch of Dhaka Metropolitan Police, had said at the time.
Another of the plaintiff’s lawyers, Barrister M Sarowar Hossain, had attempted to submit their rejection of the investigation report on Jul 29, but was unable to due to the lockdown that halted regular court proceedings.
When lockdown restrictions were lifted and the court resumed regular operations on Aug 8, Tania’s lawyers urged the court not to accept the police report and sought more time to submit their rejection petition, technically known as “Naraji petition”. The court accepted the appeal and set Aug 17 as the date for submission of the rejection.
Muniya, the college student, was found dead in a flat in Dhaka’s Gulshan on Apr 19.
The victim’s sister, Nusrat Jahan, filed a case with Gulshan Police Station accusing Anvir of inciting the suicide.
Muniya was an HSC candidate at a college in Dhaka. After losing her parents, she was living in the capital alone while other members of her family were in Cumilla.
According to the case filed by Muniya’s family, Anvir had an “affair” with Muniya and used to visit her at a Gulshan flat he rented for her.
They allege that he had promised to marry her, but later refused, threatened her and asked her to leave, which spurred her to suicide.
The Bashundhara Group MD has not made a statement to the media regarding the incident. Though an interim bail petition on his behalf was submitted to the High Court near the end of April, it was not heard due to the lockdown.
