The High Court (HC) on Tuesday ordered that one of the two Japan-born daughters will stay with father Bangladesh-born US citizen Imran Sharif and another with Japanese mother Nakano Eriko.

Of them, the elder daughter will stay with her mother while the younger one with her father.

The single bench of HC judge Justice Mamnoon Rahman passed the order after accepting a review appeal in this regard.

Senior lawyer Barrister Akhtar Imam, Rashna Imam, and Advocate Nasima Akter Lovely stood for engineer Sharif in the court, while Barrister Azmalul Hossain accompanied by Advocate Mohammad Shishir Monir represented the Japanese physician mother.

Lawyer Shishir Monir told reporters that the parents will have access to meet their children.

On 29 January last year, a Dhaka family court in a verdict ordered that the daughters will stay with their mother. Durdana Rahman, judge of Dhaka's Second Additional Assistant Judge and Family Court passed the order.

Later, Sharif submitted a petition with Dhaka District and Sessions Judge Court challenging the family court order.

On 16 July of the same year, when the District and Sessions Judge court rejected the father’s appeal seeking his daughters’ custody, he submitted another petition with the HC.

The HC passed the order today after hearing.

After 12 years of marriage, on 18 January 2020, Eriko appealed for divorce from Imran over the marital dispute.

On 28 January 2021, she also filed a case with a Tokyo family court for custody of their three children.

But on 21 February, Imran returned to Bangladesh with the first two daughters from Japan. Meanwhile, a Japanese court passed a verdict for keeping the children under their mother’s custody.

On 19 August 2021 - days after coming to Bangladesh - Eriko filed a writ petition with the HC seeking custody of the girls.

On 21 November 2021, the HC bench of Justice M Enayetur Rahim and Justice Md Mostafizur Rahman ruled that the Japan-born daughters of Imran and Eriko would stay with their father.

However, the mother could exclusively meet the daughters three times a year for 10 days at a time and Imran, the father, will bear her travel and accommodation expenses, said the court.

On 13 February 2022, the Appellate Division ordered that the custody of the two girls will be decided by the family court and until then the two children will remain with their mother.

Eriko tried to leave Dhaka with her two daughters on 23 December. But, she was turned away by the police from the airport after she tried to take the children in defiance of the court order.