DHAKA — A Dhaka court has ordered that the 1996 death of film star Salman Shah be reclassified as a murder case, nearly 29 years after he died, the family’s lawyer said.
Judge Md. Jannatul Ferdous Ibn Haque of the 6th Additional Metropolitan Sessions Court of Dhaka issued the order on Monday, said Abid Hasan, lawyer for Salman Shah’s mother, Neela Chowdhury.
The court granted a revision application filed by Chowdhury in the original unnatural-death case and directed Ramna Model Police Station to register the case as a murder. The order attached the complaint of the actor’s father, Kamar Uddin, and the confessional statement of Rizvi Ahmed, alias Farhad, who is said to have been involved.
Salman Shah died on Sept. 6, 1996. His former wife, Samira Haque, said the death was a suicide. On July 24, 1997, the actor’s father, Kamar Uddin Ahmed Chowdhury, filed a case alleging his son had been killed.
The Chief Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court in Dhaka had ordered the Criminal Investigation Department to investigate the death and the murder allegation together. Based on the CID’s final report, the CMM court ruled on Nov. 25, 1997, that the death was a suicide. The actor’s father rejected the ruling and later filed a revision petition.
A judicial investigation of the revision case began in 2003. After 11 years, on Aug. 3, 2014, Metropolitan Magistrate Imdadul Haque filed a report calling the death an unnatural death.
After Kamar Uddin Ahmed Chowdhury died, Neela Chowdhury was added as the complainant. In 2015 she filed a no-confidence application against the judicial investigation report at the CMM court, and the case was assigned to the Police Bureau of Investigation.
On Feb. 25, 2020, PBI inspector Sirajul Islam filed a final report, which the court accepted on Oct. 31, 2021, closing the case.
On June 12, 2022, the complainant’s side again filed a revision case at the Dhaka Metropolitan Sessions Judge Court against the closure order. The petition alleged that a planned murder had been covered up under the influence of several people and labeled a suicide or unnatural death, and called for a proper investigation to establish the truth.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report