Our father the murderer

The daughters and family members of slain Chandpur Mahila Awami League leader Shahin Sultana Fancy yesterday at a press conference alleged that their father has killed their mother with the help of his second wife.

Reading out a written statement at Chandpur Press Club, Fancy's youngest daughter Dr Fatema Shahin Pushpa said, “My father advocate Jahir Uddin -- joint secretary of Chandpur district AL and former president of the district's Bar Association -- murdered my mother between 7:30pm and 8:30pm on June 4 in her house with the help of his second wife Zulekha Begum.”

Fancy's elder daughter Farzana Shahin Padma, elder son-in-law Arifur Khan and Fancy's brothers Naimuddin Khan, Nasir Uddin Khan and Forkan Uddin Khan were present at the press conference.

Dr Fatema in the statement said her mother -- a member of Bangladesh Mahila AL central committee, the founder president of Chandpur Mahila AL and principal of Faridganj Gollak Adarsha Degree College -- and father often locked in altercations ever since her father established an illicit relationship with Zulekha, a divorcee, and secretly married the latter four years ago.

“My mother, my siblings and I never accepted my father's immoral affair and his getting married [the second time] later on… For this reason, my father often tortured my mother physically and mentally.”

“My father used to openly threaten my mother with death and his second wife also used to issue death threats to my mother over mobile phone. My sisters and I heard and witnessed this,” Dr Fatema said.

Demanding exemplary punishment for the killers, she said after the premeditated murder, their father and his second wife destroyed murder evidence from the crime scene and tried to portray the killing as suicide.

Shahin Sultana Fancy, 55, was killed on June 4 with a sharp weapon in her residence, within 300 yards of Chandpur police superintendent's office.