Crime & Justice

10 years on, Bangladesh journalist couple’s murder remains a mystery

By Azad Majumder

Dhaka, Feb 11 (EFE).– The sensational double murder of a Bangladeshi journalist couple remains shrouded in a far-from-resolved mystery 10 years after unknown assailants stabbed them to death in a Dhaka neighborhood.

Sagar Sarowar, the news editor of private television channel Maasranga, and Meherun Runi, a reporter with ATN Bangla, were murdered in a rented apartment this day in 2012.

Their five-year-old son Mahir Sarowar Megh was in his room when his parents died.

“We carefully took him away. He has created his world for himself, plays cricket, designs jerseys,” said Nowsher Roman, the younger brother of Runi.

“But he has become a teenager now and started throwing few questions about the murder of his parents. He gets few things in YouTube and seeks explanations from us,” Roman told EFE.

Roman said they feel humiliated to seek justice since they have not completed the probe in 10 years.

“It is clear they (the authorities) don’t want it. We just hope justice will be delivered even after 20 years, 30 years.”

In January, a Dhaka court asked the investigating agency Rapid Action Battalion to submit by Feb.23 a probe report.

The investigation officer has so far taken 85 dates to complete the probe.

The double-murder sparked a nationwide outcry, especially among journalists.

The then Bangladeshi home minister Sahara Khatun had vowed to bring the killers to justice within 48 hours.

Khatun, who passed away in July 2020, was in office for another seven months after the murders.

The elite security force RAB took over the case on Apr.18, 2012, after police failed to make a breakthrough.

RAB changed six investigating officers.

Its current investigating officer Md Shafiqul Alam refused to comment.

A spokesperson said they had sent Buccal Swab of 25 suspects to the Independent Forensic Services lab in the US for DNA testing.

The victim families said RAB showed hardly any interest in recent years.

“Last year, they asked few basic questions, who were at home then, what was time. It is not time to ask these questions, it is time to hang the killers,” said Roman.

The delay has also disappointed fellow journalists.

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