Kalabagan O-level student death case: investigating officer's testimony ends, next date November 25
The testimony of the investigating officer has ended in the case filed over the death of a Mastermind School O-level student at a friend's home in Dhaka's Kalabagan. Police Bureau of Investigation (PBI) Inspector Khaled Saifullah is the investigating officer in the case. The incident took place more than five and a half years ago.
Defence lawyers finished cross-examining the investigating officer in the court of Judge Sohail Rana of Dhaka's Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal-7.
Tribunal bench assistant Ishtiaq Hossain Jony said the investigating officer began giving testimony yesterday and finished today. The next date for recording testimony has been set for November 25.
Ishtiaq Hossain Jony said that of the 55 witnesses listed in the charge sheet, testimony of 21 has been completed so far.
Accused Dihan's lawyers Borhan Uddin and Faruk Ahammad finished cross-examining investigating officer Khaled Saifullah. Dihan is in jail and was produced before the tribunal during the hearing.
On January 7, 2021, at noon, the girl was taken in an ill condition by her male friend to Anowar Khan Modern Hospital in Kalabagan. When doctors declared her dead, the hospital authorities informed the police and the body was sent to the Dhaka Medical College Hospital morgue.
Police said that day that the girl had gone to her friend's home saying it was for 'group study' and that no one else was at the home at the time. Several pieces of evidence were seized from the home. Her family alleges she was raped and then murdered.
That night, the victim student's father filed a case at Kalabagan police station naming her friend Iftekhar Fardin Dihan as the accused.
According to the complaint, on the day of the incident the girl's mother left home for work at around 8:30am and her father left for business about an hour later. At around 11:45am the student phoned her mother saying she was leaving home to fetch study papers from coaching.
According to the complaint, at around 1:18pm Dihan phoned the girl's mother to say the girl had come to their home, suddenly fell unconscious and was taken to the emergency department of Anowar Khan Modern Hospital. The mother reached the hospital at around 1:52pm.
The case states that in the autopsy the next day doctors found injury marks on the girl's genitals and signs of excessive bleeding, and that this bleeding caused her death. Dihan later gave a confessional statement in court 'admitting' responsibility for the incident.
On November 8 of the same year, investigating officer Khaled Saifullah submitted a charge sheet accusing Dihan. On February 16, 2022, the same tribunal framed charges against him and ordered the trial to begin.
