Court asks Rab to complete probe by June 7

A Dhaka court yesterday asked Rapid Action Battalion to complete journalist couple Sagar-Runi murder investigation and submit a report to it by June 7.

Questioning the elite force's failure to finish the probe by now, Metropolitan Magistrate Shahriar Mahmud Adnan also expressed his dissatisfaction with the pace of the investigation.

The case's investigation officer Wares Ali Miah, also an assistant superintendent of police of Rab, failed to file any progress report yesterday as per the court's previous order on February 2.

In his order yesterday, the magistrate said since the very beginning of filing of the case on February 12 in 2012, the investigation agencies had been dealing with it but failed to  complete the probe. As a result, the trial of the case was being delayed.  

The court also cancelled accused Palash Rudra Pal's bail and issued an arrest warrant for him as he remained absent from the hearing yesterday.

Palash, a security guard at the building where the couple was killed, had secured bail from the High Court.

On September 18 last year, another Dhaka court expressed its dissatisfaction with the pace of the murder investigation.

It also ordered Rab to record statements of the couple's only son Mahir Sarowar Megh, Runi's mother and brother and also to scrutinise cell phone records of two security guards at the victims' home.

Following the court order, Rab took Palash and Enamul Haque, who was also a security guard at the building, on remand for interrogation, said sources.

Sagar Sarowar, news editor at Maasranga TV, and his wife Meherun Runi, senior reporter of ATN Bangla, were killed at their rented flat in the capital's West Rajabazar on February 11, 2012.

Police have arrested nine people for their alleged involvement with the killing.