The Police Bureau of Investigation (PBI) has arrested former Chattogram Superintendent of Police (SP) Babul Akter in connection with the 2016 murder of his wife Mitu in broad daylight in the Port City.

The arrest took place Tuesday, when he was taken to Chattogram from Dhaka for interrogation by PBI.

PBI inspector Santosh Kumar Chakma said Babul Akhter was interrogated at the PBI metro regional office in Pahartali before he was arrested.

On the morning of June 5, 2016, Mitu was hacked to death at the GEC Mor area in Chattogram as she went to drop her son at his schoolbus pickup point.

In the immediate aftermath of the incident, a narrative was fed by Akter, a highly-decorated officer for his role in the police's long-running effort to eliminate extremism and militancy, and his supporters to depict Mitu's death as a revenge killing by the extremist elements - despite practically no precedent to suggest such a motive. 

Akter, who was in Dhaka at the time, returned to Chattogram and filed a murder case against unidentified persons at Pachlaish Police Station, alleging his wife may have been killed for his anti-terrorist activities.

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The case however took a sensational turn after investigators uncovered the involvement of a 'source' - underworld elements used by police officers to keep tabs on society's criminal underbelly - used by Akter.   

Although his fellow police officers learned enough at the time reportedly to refuse working with Akter, he was let off the hook with merely the loss of his career in law enforcement. 

The case was transferred to the PBI from the Chattogram Metropolitan Police in 2019, after Mitu's father, himself a retired police officer, filed a complaint against the CMP's handling of the case. 

Akter was called in for questioning a number of times by PBI since the transfer, but never placed under arrest. The PBI is yet to reveal what changed to compel the step taken today.