It was late in the afternoon of April 26 in 2021, just after 3pm, that Gulshan Thana police were called to a posh apartment block on a side street off Gulshan South Avenue, on Road 120.  When they got there, they found Nusrat Jahan Tania, a resident of Cumilla, who was there to pick up her sister, Mosharrat Jahan Munia, 21, but was failing to get into her flat. Despite knowing her sister was coming to pick her up, Munia was not answering the doorbell. Tania had asked the flat’s owner, who lived in the same building, for a spare key, but strangely, they failed to provide it. It was then that the decision was made to call in the police, in order to break down the door to Munia’s flat and get in. Tania already had a sinking feeling about the whole situation. It wasn’t as if she was there to pick up her sister on a whim. Munia had been calling her since 9am that morning, sounding distressed and asking her elder sister, the only guardian she had left in the world, to come and take her back to Cumilla as she was in great danger after being ‘betrayed’ by her lover.    That lover happened to be Sayem Sobhan Anvir, managing director of the Bashundhara Group, one of the country’s largest business houses. Although otherwise married with children, Anvir had been carrying on an extramarital affair with Munia, almost 20 years his junior, on and off for around two years at that point. He had put her up in the flat on Road 120, which was owned by his friend, two months earlier. Prior to that, he had rented out a flat in Banani, where Munia had stayed for almost a year. In between, she had been forced to return to Cumilla after Anvir’s family found out about the affair. Munia was picked up and threatened with dire consequences unless she ended the affair and went back to Cumilla. That was when she was forced to vacate the Banani flat and go back to Cumilla, around the middle of 2020. But somewhere around February 2021 he had turned up at their home in Cumilla and taken Munia back to Dhaka, commencing her stay in Gulshan. As the door to this flat was broken down in police presence that day, Tania’s worst fears came true. Munia’s body was found ‘hanging’ from the ceiling fan in her room, with a dupatta tied around her neck. Tania immediately noticed that to say she was ‘hanging’ was a stretch, since not just her feet, but even her knees were almost touching the bed on which this apparent scene of a suicide had been staged. UNB has viewed crime scene photos that confirm this, but they are too graphic to publish. Based on what she saw in Munia’s flat and her prior knowledge, Tania wanted to file a murder case against Anvir under Section 302 of the Penal Code that night at Gulshan Thana.  But the Gulshan police flat-out refused to record such a case against Anvir. It was the first of a series of missteps by the police that would become a hallmark of the case. Eventually, well past midnight, they would relent on recording a case under Section 306 - the much lesser crime of abetting or instigating suicide. Read: Munia Murder Case: HC accepts petition for reinvestigation against PBI’s report clearing Anvir Later that year, in August, the Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Rajesh Chowdhury relieved Anvir of the charge under Section 306, after the investigating officer of the case, Gulshan Thana OC Abul Hasan, submitted a final report to the court giving a clean chit to Anvir. But this was only the beginning. Munia's sister, Nusrat Jahan, said, "Since I started seeking justice, I have been receiving threats over the phone. Even now, they are telling us not to speak about this anymore. I was never afraid for my life back then, and I’m not afraid now. Just last week, I received another threat call. We have filed a general diary (GD) three times regarding this. My husband and I have been threatened with death. I have stopped receiving calls from unknown numbers. Munia was not just my sister; she was like my child." Nusrat's husband, Mizanur Rahman, said, "I receive calls from various numbers asking me and my wife to withdraw the case. We live in constant fear. My wife is scared, so I have forbidden her from answering any unknown numbers.” Advocate Sarwar Hossain, who filed the petition in the case, provided details of Munia's relationship with the prime accused, Sayem Sobhan Anvir. Hossain said, "Anvir took an interest in Munia and promised to marry her. From June 2019 to April 2020, they lived together as a couple in a residence in Banani. Munia then went to Comilla but was brought back to Dhaka by Anvir. From March 1 until her death on April 26, 2021, she was kept in a flat in Gulshan. Munia stayed in the Banani house for 9 months and in the Gulshan flat for 6 months. Evidence suggests that only Anvir could enter the Gulshan apartment during that time." Hossain added that when Munia was found dead, her feet were reportedly touching the floor, suggesting she had been hung in a forced position. The initial case was filed under Section 306 of the Penal Code, charging provocation to suicide, but Hossain argued it should have been a case of murder under Section 302. The case was later reviewed and refiled under the Women and Children Repression Act and Section 302 following a fresh petition. The investigation was handed over to the Police Bureau of Investigation (PBI). However, the initial final report, filed under Section 306, was challenged, and an appeal was made on May 8, 2024. The appeal was accepted, and the case will now be heard in the High Court to determine whether the petition for a fresh investigation will be granted. Forensic findings played a crucial role in the investigation. The autopsy report revealed that sperm from a male was found on Munia’s body, suggesting that she was raped before her death. The investigation also revealed that Munia had been three weeks pregnant at the time of her death, further complicating the case by suggesting a double homicide if the fetus was also considered a victim. CCTV footage and testimony from the housemaid confirmed that only Anvir could have been present in the apartment during the time leading up to the murder. Read more: Munia’s sister still undaunted in search  for justice; demands Anvir's arrest and reinvestigation Sarwar Hossain argued that these findings, including evidence of sexual assault and pregnancy, confirmed that Munia was murdered, and the manner in which she was found hanging suggests a staged scene. Lawyer Masud Salauddin has been representing Munia’s family in the case from the very beginning. He said, "In the one and a half years since the case started, there have been about 10-12 hearings, but nothing has progressed in the case. After the submission of the final report, the accused were acquitted. We filed a petition against that, and we are now waiting for the hearing on that petition." Meanwhile, sources confirmed that several police officers who had previously worked on the case are no longer in their positions. Attempts to contact them for further comment were unsuccessful. PBI Additional SP Tanzina Akhter was contacted, but after initially agreeing to provide information, she later declined to comment, stating that former officers handling the case were unwilling to speak on the matter.

The special tribunal to protect women and children in Dhaka has summoned the investigating officer of the Munia murder case to appear before it in person on Sunday to explain, to the court’s satisfaction, the lack of visible progress on four particular points of the case, including why No.1 accused Sayem Sobhan Anveer has not been arrested yet.  Bashundhara Group Managing Director (MD) Sayem Sobhan Anvir and the other seven accused in the rape-and-murder case of Mosarat Jahan Munia, a 21-year-old  college student with whom Anveer was carrying on an extramarital relationship at the time of her death, in Gulshan last April. The court would also ask for the IO’s explanation on what is preventing the arrest of the others. Besides, the court would also seek an explanation of why the DNA of Anveer (or anyone else) has not been matched with DNA samples collected from Munia’s body, room, or clothes, nor to confirm whose child she was carrying. Post-mortem report confirmed she was 2-3 weeks pregnant. Also, police did not seize enough CCTV footage of the house where Munia lived in Gulshan and the surrounding buildings to learn who went in and out of the apartment on the day of her death, last April 26. The court will also seek explanation on this. Read: Munia rape-murder: Model Piyasha placed on 2-day remand The court directed the IO, PBI inspector Golam Moktar Ashraf Uddin , to appear in-person and explain these four points after a petition was filed by Advocate Masud Salahuddin, the lead counsel for Nusrat Jahan Tania, Munia’s elder sister and sole guardian in the world, who is the plaintiff in the case. Meanwhile, former model Faria Mahabub Piyasha, the no.7 accused who became the first person to be remanded across two cases over Munia’s death, was sent back to jail on Thursday after two days in remand through the court. She was already in police custody for her involvement in an unrelated case. The IO in his forwarding report to the court said Piyasha gave important information about the incident which was being verified. But according to Masud Salahuddin, when Tania as the plaintiff called the IO to enquire, he told her they were having difficulty managing women officers to interrogate Piyasha satisfactorily. “So we entered a petition with the court seeking explanation on those four points,” Masud Salahuddin told UNB. Read: HC rejects Bashundhara MD’s anticipatory bail plea over Munia death case It may be mentioned here that two of the accused, Ibrahim Ahmed Ripon (no.8), the owner of the flat where Munia lived (and where she was found killed), and Sabrina Sobhan (no.3), Anveer’s wife, have secured anticipatory bail from the High Court, although the same was rejected in the case of Anveer. When Anveer’s counsel Yusuf Hossain Humayun was arguing on his behalf during the hearing on September 29, the senior judge of the bench stopped him and said  "The autopsy report says there were multiple injury marks on the body. We have several other matters to hear. For now we are granting bail to one of the accused [Sabrina]." While rejection of anticipatory bail does not necessarily compel the arrest of a person by the investigating agency, the reference to the injury marks in the court’s observation is said to be highly indicative of its own interpretation of the case. As police continued to dither and over a week had passed,  the order was passed summoning the IO to explain his actions, or inaction, on Wednesday (Oct 6) – the same date when the investigation report of PBI in the case was due, but the IO did not even show up  on the court premises. Apart from the summons to the IO, a new submission date of November 2  was also set for PBI’s investigation report.