BANGLADESH

The High Court has ordered the Inspector General of Police Hassan Mahmood Khandker to hand over responsibility of probing the murders of journalist couple Sagar Sarowar and Meherun Runi to the Rapid Action Battalion.

The bench of justices A H M Shamsuddin Chowdhury and Jahangir Hossain gave the order on Wednesday after Detective Branch officials admitted that they have failed to make any progress in murder investigation.

Maasranga Television news editor Sagar and ATN Bangla senior reporter Runi were killed on Feb 11 at their rented apartment in the city's West Rajabazar.

A case was filed against unidentified miscreants with the Sher-e-Bangla Nagar police station over the incident. The DB police have been investigating the case.

After the Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh (HRPB) filed a writ petition on Feb 28 as there had been no visible progress in the investigation, the High Court issued a rule upon the government to explain why it should not be directed to find out the motive of the killing and to arrest the killers.

The court also directed the police to submit the progress report of the investigation into the case before it. Two progress reports were submitted to the office of the deputy attorney general by the DB police and the inspector general of police (IGP) on Mar 21 and Mar 22 respectively.

Deputy attorney general A B M Altaf Hossain placed the report before the court on Tuesday. The court after seeing the report said that no progress was there and summoned deputy commissioner Monirul Islam and investigation officer of the case Rabiul Alam to appear before the court on Wednesday.