Dhaka, Apr 26 (bdnews24.com) – The Rapid Action Battalion on Thursday exhumed the bodies of journalist couple Sagar Sarowar and Meherun Runi and sent them to morgue for forensic tests.
The elite force said they needed to dig the remains up to find out how they had died nearly two and a half months after their brutal murder.
The exhumation started around 10:20am at Azimpur Graveyard with executive magistrate Shahiduzzaman overseeing the work. The bodies were pulled up by 10:53am and taken to the Dhaka Medical College Hospital morgue by 11:30am.
The couple were killed at their rented apartment in Dhaka's West Rajabazar area on Feb 11.
A case was filed with the Sher-e-Bangla Nagar Police Station but the Detective Branch of police failed to make any visible headway into the investigation.
Amid weeks of protest by journalists and court intervention, the RAB were given the task to investigate the murder by the High Court on Apr 18 after police detectives admitted failure.
The RAB forensic wing's assistant superintendent of police Jafar Ullah, who is investigating the case, appealed for exhuming the bodies for visceral examination and other forensic tests as those had not been done earlier.
Magistrate Bikash Kumar Saha of Dhaka Chief Metropolitan Magistrate's Court approved the plea and asked for an executive magistrate to be assigned to supervise the whole affair.
Magistrate Shahiduzzaman was given the charge by Dhaka's additional district magistrate Manoj Kumar Roy.
RAB spokesperson M Sohail told journalists, "The investigating wing has a lot of questions. The corpses would be tested to find answers. If there is a lack of sufficient technology in the country then the bodies would be sent abroad."
Following the appeal for exhumation, he had said that the petition was made to find out whether Sagar and Runi were intoxicated before their deaths.
Dhaka Medical College Hospital's forensics chief Mokhlesur Rahman, assistant professor Kamrul Hasan and lecturer Parvez Iftekhar were there during the exhumation.
"We can have details on the evidence after seeing the condition of the bodies as they had been under the ground for the last two and a half months," Iftekhar said.
However, RAB forensics expert Shafiqul Islam said that since the bodies were wrapped in polythene during the burial, they expect that evidences would be in quite a good state.
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