Don lands in jail in Salman Shah murder case

A Dhaka court on Sunday sent actor Ashraful Haque Don to jail in connection with the murder case involving popular Bangladeshi film star Chowdhury Mohammad Shahriar Emon Shah alias Salman Shah.

Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Md Jewel Rana passed the order after Inspector Arifur Rahman from the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (South) produced the accused before the court, seeking his detention.

Public Prosecutor Omar Faruq Faruqui confirmed the development. However, no lawyer appeared for the accused during the hearing.

Earlier, the immigration department detained Don at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport while he was reportedly attempting to travel to Saudi Arabia to perform Umrah. He was later handed over to the CID.

This is the first arrest of any accused in the murder case, which was filed on 20 October last year after a court order to file a fresh case nearly 29 years after the actor’s death.

According to case records, after the death of Salman Shah, his father, Komoruddin Ahmed Chowdhury, initially filed an unnatural death (UD) case on 6 September 1996.

Read More

3 more testify in corruption case against S Alam, 12 others

Later, on 24 July 1997, a petition was filed to convert the complaint into a murder case. The court then directed the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) to investigate the matter.

On 3 November 1997, the CID submitted its final report to the court, stating that the death was a suicide, which was accepted by a Dhaka court on 25 November of the same year.

However, Komoruddin Ahmed Chowdhury filed a revision petition rejecting the report. On 19 May 2003, the court ordered a judicial inquiry into the case, and the report was submitted on 3 August 2014, in which the allegation of murder was rejected.

However, Neela Chowdhury continued to pursue the case and filed another no-confidence petition against the judicial inquiry on 10 February 2015.

The case was later investigated by the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), which the court ordered to stop after the prosecution raised objections.

Later, the Police Bureau of Investigation (PBI) also investigated the case and submitted its final report on 25 February 2020. Neela Chowdhury again sought a further investigation to determine how her son had died. In the meantime, a Dhaka court accepted the PBI report and ordered the accused to be discharged from the case.

Later, Salman’s family filed a revision petition with the Metropolitan Sessions Judge’s Court. Following this, Dhaka’s 6th Additional Metropolitan Sessions Judge’s Court passed an order to file a fresh case and ordered Ramna Model Police Station to submit the probe report on 20 October last year.

Following this, Salman Shah’s maternal uncle, Md Alamgir Kumkum, filed the case with Ramna Model Police Station.

Along with Salman Shah’s wife Samira Haque, businessman Aziz Mohammad Bhai, Latifa Haque Luci, film actor Don, David, Javed, Faruk, Rubi, Abdus Sattar, Saju and Rezvi Ahmed were made accused in the case.

The submission of the probe report has been deferred for the eighth time since then, and the next scheduled date has been fixed for 30 August.