The High Court on Monday issued a rule asking the government to explain why former Chattogram Superintendent of Police (SP) Babul Akter, arrested in a case over the murder of his wife Mahmuda Khanam Mitu in 2016, will not be granted bail.

A divisional bench of Justice AKM Asaduzzaman and Kazi Ejarul Haque Akondo issued the rule after hearing the bail petition of Babul Akter.

Read:Mitu murder case: Babul Akter denied bail again

The respondents were asked to respond to the rule in the next two weeks.

Senior lawyer Mansurul Haque Chowdhury and lawyer Mohammad Shishir Monir appeared for his bail while Deputy Attorney General Md Aminul Islam and Assistant Attorney General Md Jahangir Alam and Md Humayun Kabir represented the state.

Earlier on January 6, a Chattogram Court denied bail to Babul Akter in the case. He was shown arrested on January 9.

On June 5, 2016, unidentified assailants gunned down Babul's wife Mitu at the port city's GEC intersection while she was going to drop her son Mahir Akhter, 7, for a bus of Chittagong Cantonment Public School and College.

Soon after the crime, Babul filed a murder case at Panchlaish Police Station against three unidentified men.

The case was transferred to the Police Bureau Investigation (PBI) in 2019 after Mitu's father, himself a retired police officer, filed a complaint against the CMP's mishandling of the case.

Read: Ex-SP Babul shown arrested in case filed by him

On May 12, 2021, the PBI submitted its final report and arrested Babul Akter in another case filed by Mitu’s father and since then he has been in prison.

Babul Akhter also filed a ‘naraji petition’ against the PBI report on October 14.

On November 3 last year, a Chattogram Court rejected the final report of Police Bureau of Investigation (PBI) the murder case and ordered it to conduct further investigation.

PBI in an investigation found Babul’s involvement in his wife's murder.