Sagar-Runi Murder: Report submission deferred for the 130th time
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A Dhaka court has set November 5 as the next date for submitting the probe report in the case filed with Sher-e-Bangla Nagar police station over the murder of journalist couple Sagar Sarwar and Meherun Runi. With this, the submission of the report in the case has been deferred 130 times.
Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Ariful Islam set the new date on Wednesday.
The investigation report in the case was scheduled to be submitted today. However, Additional Superintendent of Police of the Police Bureau of Investigation (PBI) and the case's investigating officer, Md. Azizul Haque, could not submit the report to the court. He was present in court in person to provide an explanation. The court then postponed the submission of the investigation report and set November 5 as the new date.
The other accused in the case are: Rafiqul Islam, Bakul Mia, Masum Mintu, Kamrul Islam alias Arun, Abu Sayeed, the couple's two security guards Palash Rudra Pal and Enayet Ahmed, and their "friend" Tanvir Rahman Khan. Among them, Tanvir is on bail, and Palash went into hiding after securing bail. The rest are in jail.
Sagar Sarwar, news editor of Maasranga Television, and Meherun Runi, senior reporter of ATN Bangla, were killed on February 11, 2012. Afterwards, Runi's brother Nowsher Alam Roman filed a murder case with Sher-e-Bangla Nagar police station.
Initially, the investigating officer of the case was a Sub-Inspector (SI) of that police station. Four days later, the investigation of the sensational murder case was handed over to the Detective Branch (DB) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police. After investigating for more than two months, the DB failed to unravel the mystery. Later, on the instructions of the High Court, the investigation of the murder case was handed over to RAB on April 18 of that year.
On September 30, 2024, the High Court ordered the formation of a high-powered task force comprising experienced investigation officers from various forces to investigate the case filed over the murder of the couple Sagar and Runi. At the same time, it directed that the report be submitted to the court within six months after completing the investigation. Following the court's order, on October 17 of that year, a notification was issued by the Public Security Division of the Ministry of Home Affairs forming a task force as per the High Court's instructions. A four-member high-level task force committee was formed with the head of the PBI as its convener.
