Court Revokes Permission to Exhume Film Actor Salman Shah's Remains
The death of Salman Shah, a famous actor of Dhallywood, remains controversial. Collected photo.
The court has revoked its previous order allowing the exhumation of film actor Salman Shah's remains from his grave. On Tuesday, Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Jewel Rana issued the order following an application by the plaintiff.
The plaintiff's lawyer, Abid Hasan, confirmed the matter. On the day, the plaintiff, Mohammad Alamgir Kumkum, applied to the court to revoke the permission for the exhumation. After hearing arguments, the court granted the application.
The application stated that nearly 30 years have passed since Salman Shah's death. After such a long period, the possibility of recovering any remains due to natural causes is extremely slim. Furthermore, during the exhumation conducted on January 13, 1997, following a court order, the body was found in a highly decomposed state.
The application also mentioned that Salman Shah was buried in the premises of the shrine of Hazrat Shahjalal (Rah.) in Sylhet, where his remains currently rest. The initiative to exhume the body again could hurt religious sentiments and potentially create public unrest. The plaintiff, Mohammad Alamgir Kumkum, and the informant, Neela Chowdhury, also have objections to this matter.
Earlier, on May 20, the investigating officer of the case, Inspector Ziaul Morshed from the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of police, applied to the court for permission to exhume the body. On May 24, the court granted that application, ordering the exhumation, preparation of the inquest report, and autopsy in the presence of an Executive Magistrate.
On October 20 last year, the court ordered that the case filed over Salman Shah's death be treated as a murder case instead of an unnatural death case. Following this order, on the night of the next day, Mohammad Alamgir Kumkum, on behalf of Salman Shah's mother Neela Chowdhury, filed a murder case as the plaintiff.
The case names Salman Shah's former wife Samira Haque, her mother Latifa Haque Lucky, businessman Aziz Mohammad Bhai, actors Don, David, Javed, Faruk, Ruby, Abdus Sattar, Saju, and Rezvi Ahmed alias Farhad, as accused.
Salman Shah's body was recovered from his Eskaton residence in the capital on September 6, 1996. At that time, his father, Kamaruddin Ahmed Chowdhury, filed an unnatural death case. Later, in 1997, when an application was made to investigate the case as a murder, the CID began an investigation following a court order.
The CID submitted a final report to the court on November 3, 1997, ruling the incident a suicide. On November 25 of the same year, the court accepted that report. Later, a revision petition was filed against this decision. In 2003, the case was sent for a judicial inquiry, and after 11 long years, the judicial inquiry report submitted in 2014 also deemed the death as unnatural.
After Kamaruddin Ahmed Chowdhury's death, Neela Chowdhury was included as the plaintiff in the case. In 2015, she filed a petition of discontent against the judicial inquiry report. Subsequently, the Police Bureau of Investigation (PBI) investigated the case. On October 31, 2021, the court accepted the PBI report and disposed of the case. Later, on June 12, 2022, a revision petition was filed against that order in the Dhaka Metropolitan Sessions Judge Court.
