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A Dhaka court has deferred the verdict in the murder case against former Jatiya Party MP Golam Faruk Ovi over the 2002 murder of 24-year-old model Syeda Tania Mahbub Tinni.
Published : 15 Nov 2021, 11:30 AM
Dhaka Additional District and Sessions Judge Keshob Roy Chowdhury was to announce the decision on Monday, but the victim’s father Syed Mahbubul Karim and her uncle Syed Rezaul Karim petitioned to provide further testimony in the case.
The judge then set Jan 5 as the date for their depositions.
The verdict had previously been scheduled for Oct 26, but was deferred to Nov 15 after the state petitioned to present additional arguments. But on Monday, the decision was deferred again.
“Tinni’s father only gave partial testimony, and her uncle has not testified before,” said Bhola Nath Dutta, assistant public prosecutor at the court. “They came to court and asked to provide further testimony, so the court has deferred the verdict and it will not be issued today.”
Tinni’s uncle, Syed Rezaul Karim, said: “We did not know that the state lawyer had been changed. The previous public prosecutor did not contact us or summon us when it was time for us to present our testimony. We only learned the date of the verdict when it was published in the newspapers and came to court today.”
Faruk, a Chhatra Dal leader in the nineties who was later elected to parliament under a Jatiya Party ticket, is the only suspect in the case. Ovi, who had been sentenced to 17 years in prison over a separate case, fled to Canada and is currently living there.
The court has appointed a state lawyer on his behalf.
The body of Tinni, a popular figure in advertisements at the time, was recovered from under the China Friendship Bridge on the Buriganga River on Nov 10, 2002.
The case was filed by the police and later transferred to the CID.
The investigation was transferred from one official to another until the chargesheet was finally submitted on Nov 8, 2008.
The chargesheet stated that Ovi had killed Tinni in an attempt to hide their affair.
Ovi had been sentenced to 17 years in prison in a weapons case in 1992, but fled the country after receiving bail from the High Court. Interpol issued a red notice on Ovi in 2007, but he has yet to be returned to Bangladesh.
Ovi was a Dhaka University student and member of the Chhatra Dal Central Committee during the anti-Ershad movement. At the peak of the movement in 1990, following the death of physician and political activist Shamsul Alam Khan Milon, Ovi joined Ershad’s party.
He was elected to parliament from Barishal in the 1996 elections.
Several other suspects, including Tinni’s husband, were interrogated over the course of the investigation, but only Ovi was charged.
According to the chargesheet, Ovi sowed discord among the couple and then used it to ‘trap Tinni in an affair’. But he never planned to marry her, and when she pushed him to do so, he killed her in a ‘pre-meditated’ manner and dumped her body under the bridge.
Ovi was indicted on Jul 14, 2010, finally starting the case. Eighteen of the 41 suspects named in the chargesheet have given their testimony in the years since.
More to follow
