A court has sent Obaydur Rahman to jail in a case filed over abetting the suicide of Mariam Khatun, the second wife of Satkhira-4 Member of Parliament (MP) GM Nazrul Islam.
Following his arrest, Obaydur Rahman was produced before the Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday. Inspector Mohammad Salauddin of the Detective Branch (DB) of police, the investigating officer of the case, submitted an application to keep him detained in prison.
In response to the investigating officer’s plea, Metropolitan Magistrate Ariful Islam ordered Obaydur Rahman to be sent to jail. No lawyer represented him in court.
On September 20, Mariam Khatun’s hanging body was recovered from a flat belonging to MP Nazrul Islam. Mariam’s father, Masum Billah, filed a case with Sher-e-Bangla Nagar Police Station over the incident, naming Obaydur Rahman as an accused.
Obaydur Rahman is Mariam’s maternal uncle and formerly worked as MP Nazrul Islam’s driver. The plaintiff, Masum Billah, alleged that his brother-in-law Obaydur pushed his daughter to her death.
The case was initially investigated by the local police before being transferred to the Detective Branch (DB).
In his prayer to the court, current investigating officer Mohammad Salauddin stated that evidence had been found linking Obaydur Rahman to Mariam’s suicide. The investigation also revealed that Obaydur had been involved with MP Nazrul Islam in various capacities even before Mariam’s marriage.
The investigating officer added in the application that an appeal for a remand order to interrogate Obaydur would be submitted in the future for the sake of proper investigation, making his detention in jail necessary.
MP GM Nazrul Islam and his first wife, Maksuda Islam, have already been arrested in connection with this case. Following a one-day remand, Maksuda Islam was sent to jail, while Nazrul Islam remains in police remand.
The court has set October 22 for the submission of the investigation report in the case.
In July last year, MP Nazrul Islam revealed his second marriage after an intimate video involving Mariam Khatun went viral. Subsequently, Nazrul began living with Mariam in a flat at an MP residential building adjacent to Manik Mia Avenue.
On September 20, Mariam’s hanging body was recovered from that flat. Police retrieved several notes from the scene, believed to have been written by Mariam. According to case sources, the notes contained various allegations against Nazrul Islam.
Earlier, Obaydur Rahman had filed an attempted murder case against MP Nazrul Islam, in which Nazrul was out on bail.
