The High Court on Wednesday issued an order allowing the investigation officer in the case filed over the killing of Mahmuda Khanam Mitu, the wife of police superintendent Babul Akhter, to question two children of the couple at the Magura district Social Services office, instead of the Office of Police Bureau of Investigation in Chattogram.
Unidentified assailants shot at Mitu at the Chattogram city’s GEC intersection in the morning on June 5, 2016, while she was going to drop her son Mahir Akhter, 7, for a bus of Chittagong Cantonment Public School and College.
Babul has been in jail after Mitu’s father Mosharaf Hossain filed a second murder case with Panchlaish police station in Chattogram on May 12, 2021, accusing Babul and seven others of killing his daughter on June 5, 2016.
Mitu’s father alleged that Babul killed his wife over an extra-marital affair.
A bench of Justice Jahangir Hossain and Justice Shahed Nuruddin issued the directive on Wednesday after hearing a petition filed by the children’s’ grandfather Md Abdul Wadud Mia challenging the legality of a notice issued on March 26 by investigator Abu Zafar Md Omar Faruk, also an inspector of the PBI, asking Wadud to appear before PBI with his grandchildren within 15 days.
The High Court asked the investigator to give Wadud three-day time before setting a date for recording statements of the two children at the office of the district social services.
The court asked Wadud to hand over his grandchildren to the probation officer of the social service office for ‘a reasonable time’ before the scheduled date of questioning.
The court asked the investigation officer to question the children—, son aged 12, daughter aged 7—following the procedures of the Children Act and to allow the grandfather and a female police officer to present during questioning by the investigator.
The court set July 26 to submit reports, if the children act was followed during the interrogation.
SC lawyer Mohammad Shishir Manir appeared for Wadud Mia.
