Daily Star executive editor Syed Ashfaqul Haque and his wife Tanya Khandkar have been remanded to jail in a case filed for ‘negligent death’ of a domestic worker.
On Sunday (February 18), the accused were produced in court after a four-day remand. After that DB Inspector of Police (Unarmed) Mohammad Shariful Islam requested to keep them in jail.
After the hearing, Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Rajesh Chowdhury ordered the accused to be sent to jail. Helal Uddin, Sub-Inspector of General Registration Branch of Mohammadpur Thana Court, gave this information.
Meanwhile, on the morning of February 7, the case was filed against Syed Ashfaqul Haque, executive editor of Daily Star, and his wife Tanya Khandkar, by Lukesh Oran, the father of housekeeper Preeti. The suit alleges wrongful death under Section 304(a).
According to the source of the case, a teenage domestic worker died after falling from the ninth floor of a residential building in Mohammadpur of the capital on February 6. At that time the locals gathered at the gate of the house and started protesting alleging that ‘the girl has been killed’. Later, the police took Ashfaq, Tania and six members of their family to the police station. Preeti, daughter of Lokesh Urang of Mittinga village in Kamalganj upazila of Moulvibazar, was a domestic helper at the residence of Syed Ashfaqul Haque, executive editor of Daily Star, for almost two years.
Incidentally, a similar incident took place at Ashfaqul Haque’s residence on August 6 last year. At that time, a 9-year-old domestic worker jumped and got seriously injured. The child’s mother filed a case against Ashfakul Haque, his wife Tania Haque and another woman named Shilpi at the Mohammadpur police station, alleging torture in the incident.