Salman Shah was murdered
Famous Bangla film actor Salman Shah's mother Nilufar Chowdhury Neela yesterday claimed her son was murdered and sought Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's intervention in bringing the culprits to book.
“I want legal support and intervention from the prime minister,” Neela told a press briefing in London.
She said Rabeya Sultana Ruby, the woman who recently claimed that Salman did not kill himself as was believed, but was in fact murdered two decades ago, should be brought back to Bangladesh and interrogated.
“Please bring back her [Ruby, who is now in the US] for the sake of fair investigation into the killing,” she said.
In a video message from the US, Ruby claimed her brother 'Rumi' killed Salman at the behest of her Chinese husband and the family of Samira Haq, Salman's wife. A former neighbour and beautician for the film star, Ruby is one of the 11 accused of murder in a petition filed by Salman's mother. Samira is also an accused.
A former Jatiya Party politician, Neela lives in Britain with her younger son. She said proper investigation did not take place into her son's death. “Where is the inquest report?”
She alleged there was pressure from the high ups so that the case did not see any progress. “The case will be influenced even now,” she said.
“My son was murdered and it should be a murder case … Why would my son kill himself after drinking water at 7:00am?”
Shahriar Chowdhury Emon, known as Salman Shah to his legions of fans, was found dead in his Dhaka apartment on September 6, 1996. He was 25.
Police had filed an unnatural death case considering it a suicide, but the family objected to it and lodged a murder case. Salman's father Kamar Uddin had started the case, but after his death, Neela Chowdhury emerged as the plaintiff.
Contacted, Additional SP (Dhaka Metro) of the Police Bureau of Investigation (PBI) Bashir Ahmed, who is supervising the case, said first the Shahbagh Police Station and then the Detective Branch and the Criminal Investigation Department investigated the case.
A judicial inquiry was also carried out. “All investigation teams and the judicial inquiry team submitted reports with findings that it was a suicide,” he told The Daily Star last night.
The case was transferred to the PBI in December last year.
About Ruby's statement, Bashir said, “We're verifying it with utmost importance. If we find it [statement] to be authentic, we will use it for the next course of the investigation.”
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