Death of indigenous teenage: The Daily Star executive editor, wife sent to jail

CHT DESK:

A Dhaka metropolitan magistrate court on Wednesday sent The Daily Star executive editor Syed Ashfaqul Haque and his wife Tania Khandaker to jail in a case filed with Mohammadpur police station over the death of their teenage indigenous domestic worker at their house.

Dhaka Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Hasibul Haque passed the order on Wednesday (7 February), rejecting a five-day remand prayer from police and granting interrogation at the jail gate within three days.

Earlier on the day, sub-inspector Nazmul Hasan, also an investigation officer in the case, produced the couple before the court, seeking a five-day remand for interrogation.

Nazmul Hasan said, “We are investigating. It was a mysterious death. We have talked with some witnesses and get some important information.”

“We found injury marks on Preeti’s body. We can make comment details after getting the autopsy report”, he said.

However, the mobile number provided as the number of plaintiff Lokesh Urang in the FIR was found not to be his own. When called at the number, an unknown person received the call and said that he did not know Preeti or Lokesh Urang.

Contacted, Preeti’s uncle, Nagen Urang said “My niece was tortured and murdered. We are demanding proper investigation and exemplary punishment who killed Preeti.”

He stated that Preeti had a sister and a brother, and due to a lack of work in the tea garden, their parents needed to look for employment elsewhere.

Earlier, police recovered the body of Preeti after she had fallen from the residential building adjacent to the Geneva Camp on Shahjahan Road on Tuesday morning.

Locals staged demonstration outside the house after the incident, alleging Preeti was murdered and demanding justice.

Later, Ashfaq, Tania, and four other members of the family were taken to the Mohammadpur police station for interrogation.

The couple was shown arrested in the case but the four others were released after interrogation.

The victim’s father, Lokesh Urang, filed the case with the police station on Wednesday morning against the preeti’s employer, Ashfaq and his wife Tania.

In the case statement, the victim’s father said his daughter had been sent to Dhaka two years ago to work as a maid, aiming to alleviate their family’s financial struggles. Throughout this period, Preeti never visited her family, with Lukesh relying on occasional phone calls to the house owner to stay in touch.

Preeti, a member of the indigenous Urang community in Moulvibazar’s Kamalganj upazila, had been working as a domestic aide at Ashfaqul’s house for about two years.

Mystery surrounds the death, as in a similar way, on August 6, 2023, another domestic help, Ferdausi, fell from the balcony of journalist Syed Ashfaqul Haque’s house and was seriously injured.

She was rescued and treated first at the Suhrawardy Hospital and later at the Dhaka Medical College Hospital for a long time.

The victim’s mother, Josna Begum then filed a case with the Mohammadpur police against Syed Ashfaqul Haque, his wife Tania Khandkar, and another person named Asma Akhtar Shilpi.

The Daily Star in a statement said, “We are deeply saddened to learn about the incident in which a young house help met with a tragic death at the residence of our senior colleague and Executive Editor Syed Ashfaqul Haque.”

“We express our deepest sorrow at the unfortunate occurrence and convey our deepest condolence to her bereaved family. We await the outcome of the investigation,” it said.