Student’s Death: Bashundhara MD, 7 others sued for rape and murder

Bashundhara Group Managing Director Sayem Sobhan Anvir was sued yesterday over the rape and murder of a college student in a flat at the capital's Gulshan.

Chairman of the group Ahmed Akbar Sobhan alias Shah Alam and six others were also made accused in the case on charge of abetting the crime.

The six other accused are: Shah Alam's wife Afroza Begum, Anvir's wife Sabrina Sayem, model Faria Mahbub Piyasha, Saifa Rahman Mim, the flat's landlord Ibrahim Ahmed Ripon and his wife Sharmim.

The elder sister of the victim filed the case with the Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal-8 of Dhaka.

After a hearing, Judge Mafroza Parvin took the case into cognisance and recorded the complainant's statements, court sources said.

The judge also directed the Police Bureau of Investigation (PBI) to investigate the case and submit a report before the court within seven working days.

Abu Yousuf, additional superintendent (legal and media) of PBI, told The Daily Star that they came to know the news from media, but they were yet to get any official documents.

The Bashundhara MD has been made the prime accused for allegedly murdering the college student after raping her, while Shah Alam and six others were accused of assisting Anvir in committing the offence.

The case statements said the victim was raped before death as her private parts contained injuries and blood, while her clothes were torn, which police had mentioned in the inquest report.

The prime accused, in collusion with the others, confined the victim to the Gulshan flat to execute the plan to kill her, the complainant said in her statements.

The accused all had the common intention to kill the victim after rape, she also mentioned in the case statements.

The autopsy report found the evidence of intercourse before her death, the case statements added.

Meanwhile, in a statement to the press, Bashundhara Group said the group's chairman, managing director and any other family members are not involved in the incident.

Signed by Mohammad Abu Toyab, adviser, press and media of Bashundhara Group, the statement said the case is conspiratorial and the complainant intentionally made the case with baseless, unrealistic and fictional information to belittle Bashundhara Group.

The statement said the Bashundhara Group will take the sufficient legal measures to fight this baseless and conspiratorial case.

The statement also mentioned that the complainant had earlier filed a false case implicating the Bashundhara Group managing director in connection with the unnatural death of her sister.

Police investigation had already revealed that the allegations were false and the investigators informed it to the court through reports. The court relieved the managing director of the charges, the statement added.

"Making the father, mother, son and daughter-in-law accused in such crimes suggest how fabricated and baseless the charges are," the statement reads.

On April 26, police recovered the body of the 21-year-old college student hanging from the ceiling fan of her bedroom in a Gulshan flat.

The victim's sister then filed a case with Gulshan Police Station against Anvir over abetting the death by suicide of the victim.

Two days after the body of the college student was recovered, Sudip Chakrabarty, the then deputy commissioner (Gulshan division) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police, said six diaries of the college student contained crucial evidence supporting the allegations brought against the accused.

"The victim's utter frustration and mental breakdown are reflected in her diaries, that we have seized. Her writings will be important evidence," the DC told reporters at his office.

Sudip said, "... She wrote [in the diary] about their relationship, the social barriers to recognition of the relationship, her expectation of a happy conjugal life with the accused and the barriers from his family."

She detailed her serious frustration in her diaries and these will be the key to establishing the case, he said at the time.

On July 19, investigation officer of the case and also Gulshan Police Station OC Abul Hasan submitted the probe report to Dhaka Chief Metropolitan Magistrate's Court and appealed that Anvir be relieved of the charges of abetting suicide.

About not conducting a DNA test of the lone accused in the case, the IO said in the report that it is not reasonable to collect and test a suspect's DNA samples solely on the basis of the complainant's allegations, without any supporting evidence.

On August 18, a Dhaka court accepted the final report and relieved Anvir from the charges of the case.