Preeti's death: Ashfaqul, wife denied bail

A Dhaka court today denied bail to The Daily Star executive editor and his wife in a case filed over the death of Preeti Urang, a teenage domestic worker who fell from their residential building in the capital's Mohammadpur on February 6.

Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Farah Diba Chanda passed the order after hearing on bail petition filed by the defence lawyer.

On February 18, another Dhaka court sent the couple -- Syed Ashfaqul Haque and Tania Khondoker -- to jail after Investigation Officer Mohammad Shariful Islam, an inspector of the Detective Branch (DB) of police, produced them before the court on completion of a four-day remand in the case, seeking their confinement in jail custody.

Previously, on February 13, police produced the couple before the court with a 10-day remand petition and the court granted a four-day remand in police custody in the case filed by the victim's father, a tea garden worker, under section 304A of the Penal Code, which deals with death caused by negligence.

Preeti Urang, 15, from Moulvibazar, died after she fell through an opening on the couple's eighth-floor flat around 8:00am on February 6.

Police took Ashfaqul and Tania into custody within hours of the incident.

The couple were first produced before a Dhaka court with a five-day remand petition on February 7, but the court asked the police to interrogate them at the jail gate within three working days.

Preeti's death came around six months after a seven-year-old house help at the same couple's house suffered injuries as she tried to flee through an opening of the eighth-floor flat.

The victim's family filed a case over the incident, but police filed a final report with the court as they did not find any evidence to bear out the charges in the case, filed under the Children Act, 2013.