Autopsy on PM Special Assistant Mahbubul Hoque Shakil inconclusive

The autopsy of Mahbubul Hoque Shakil, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s special assistant, has failed to determine a cause of death.

“We did not find any external or internal injury,” Dr Sohel Mahmud, assistant professor of forensic medicine at Dhaka Medical College Hospital, told bdnews24.com on Wednesday.

Stomach and muscle samples have been collected for viscera testing, he said. 

“His heart was larger than usual. We have sent samples to histopathology to know if it was cardiac arrest that killed him.”

The 47-year-old former Bangladesh Chhatra League leader was found dead inside Samdado, a restaurant in Dhaka’s Gulshan on Tuesday.

Police were seen detaining five workers from the restaurant, but Gulshan police OC Sirajul Islam refused a comment.

Authorities were looking into Shakil’s death, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal told a programme in Tejgaon on Tuesday evening. “The CID is investigating. We’ll find out if there is a mystery involved.”

His body was kept in the morgue at BIRDEM hospital on Tuesday night. After the autopsy, the body was taken to Dhaka University for a namaz-e-janaza.

He had gotten his honours and masters degree from the university in sociology.

Shakil, before being appointed a special aide to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in 2012, worked as her deputy press secretary.  

He was the chief executive officer of the Centre for Research and Information (CRI), Awami League’s research cell formed after the 2001 election.