High Court refuses to hear Sayem’s bail prayer during restrictions

Sayem Sobhan Anvir

Bangladesh desk:  The High Court on Thursday refused to hear the anticipatory bail prayer of Bashundhara Group managing director Sayem Sobhan Anvir in a case of abetting the suicide of a college girl, saying that the court would not hear any anticipatory bail prayer during the government-imposed restrictions to contain the Covid pandemic.

The online bench of Justice Mamnoon Rahman and Justice Khandaker Diliruzzaman told lawyers that the anticipatory bail prayer of Sayem along with the bail prayers of 14 others accused in other cases were wrongly placed in the list of hearing for Thursday.

At the outset of Thursday’s proceedings, the court also told lawyers that it would not hear any anticipatory bail prayer during the ongoing restrictions.

Sayem on Wednesday filed a petition seeking anticipatory bail in the case filed against him on charges of abetting the suicide of  Mosarat Jahan Munia, 21, in a flat at Gulshan Monday afternoon.

The High Court bench said, ‘We told you [lawyers] on Wednesday that anticipatory bail prayers would be heard because lawyers were pressurising us.’

‘We did not say when the hearing will be held,’ the court said, adding that some anticipatory bail petitions were wrongly included in the cause list for Thursday.

‘There is no scope for holding hearing of anticipatory bail prayers with the physical presence of accused amid the ongoing restrictions on movement of people due to the Covid outbreak,’ the court said.

Sayem’s lawyer Md Munsurul Hoque Chowdhury told New Age that he could not move the anticipatory bail petition of his client on Thursday as the HC refused to hear any such petition.

Munsurul said that Sayem did not appear before the HC bench for bail.

He said that the next course of action would be taken after consulting with his client.

The police said that they in presence of Mosarat’s family Monday afternoon recovered her body hanging from the ceiling fan in the Gulshan flat where she had been living since March 1.

Mosarat’s sister Nusrat Jahan, a bank employee from Cumilla, filed the case early Tuesday with the Gulshan police station against Sayem under section 306 of the Penal Code for abetting the suicide of the college girl.

The police said that Mosarat had been in relationship with Sayem for two years and she used to live alone in the flat where Sayem used to visit very often.

Dhaka Metropolitan Police’s Gulshan division deputy commissioner Sudip Kumar Chakraborty in a press briefing at his office on Thursday said that they were now preparing to formally interrogate the suspects and other people mentioned in the complaint submitted by the victim’s family.

They said that they would also interrogate people whose names would come during the investigation.

The police official said that they were still giving priority to Mosarat’s six diaries mostly written between 2020 and 2021.

He said that they were getting clues over the ‘bumpy relations’ between Sayem and Mosarat.

He said that they were considering the diaries as ‘suicide notes’.

The DC was unwilling to share information about the last phone conversation of the victim.

‘We are still analysing the call records,’ he said, adding that one of her phone was active and another was switched off on the day when her body was recovered.

He said that they were examining CCTV footage of the building and were trying to confirm the presence of the suspect in the building.

Between April 19 and April 25, Sayem visited the house once but he did not visit on April 26, he said.

He said that they collected bank account details of Mosarat as an audio conversation between the suspect and the victim over a dispute of Tk 50 lakh surfaced after her death.

Sudip said that they found some photos of Sayem and Mosarat together inside the flat rented at Tk 1 lakh a month with an additional service charge of Tk 11,000.

Nusrat’s husband Mizanur Rahman on Tuesday said that Sayem used to pay all expenses for Mosarat’s stay in Dhaka.

Nusrat in her complaint claimed that Sayem, a married person, also lured Mosarat that they would settle abroad after getting married as Sayem’s family would not accept the marriage with the college girl.

Before Mosarat’s body had been recovered, Nusrat came to Dhaka Monday afternoon after Mosarat had called her, saying that Sayem had deceived her, would not marry her and she was in danger.