HC to hear 10-year-old rule

The High Court (HC) on Monday fixed for hearing soon a rule, issued 10 years back over the government's move to identify the motive behind the murder of journalist couple Sagar Sarowar and Meherun Runi.

The HC bench of Justice Md Mozibur Rahman Miah and Justice Ahmed Sohel ordered the officials concerned to include the matter in its hearing list following a prayer, moved by writ petitioner's lawyer Manzill Murshid for fixing a date to hear the long-pending rule.

The rule will be in the hearing list of the court since Monday, and it may be heard any day as per serial of the cause-list, said the lawyer.

Following the writ petition, filed by Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh (HRPB), the HC on February 28, 2012 issued the rule. It asked the government to explain within two weeks as to why it should not be directed to identify the motive behind the murders of Sagar and Runi and to bring the killers to justice.

The government authorities concerned are yet to give reply to the HC rule, said Advocate Manzill Murshid.

Sagar, News Editor at private TV channel Maasranga, and his wife Runi, a Senior Reporter at ATN Bangla, were killed in the wee hours of February 11, 2012 at their home in Dhaka's West Rajabazar area.

Their four-year-old son Mahir Sarowar Megh was present at the apartment at the time of the murder.

Runi's brother Nousher Alam lodged the murder case at the Sher-e-Bangla Nagar Police Station. The investigation was later handed over to Detective Branch (DB) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police, and then to RAB.

The submission of the murder case probe report got deferred for 87th time recently. RAB were supposed to submit the probe report to Dhaka's Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM) court, but once again failed to do it. The court announced April 26 as the next date to submit the report.

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