Murder case to be filed 29 years after actor Salman Shah's death

 
A Dhaka court has ordered the filing of a murder case in connection with the death of popular film actor Salman Shah, nearly three decades after his death rocked Bangladesh's entertainment industry.

The order was issued on Monday by Additional Metropolitan Sessions Judge Md Jannatul Ferdous Ibn Haque, according to Abid Hasan, the lawyer representing the plaintiff.

The court also granted a revision petition filed by Salman's mother regarding the case over her son's death.

According to the actor's father Kamaruddin Ahmed Chowdhury, the court has ordered that the confessional statement of Rizvi Ahmed alias Farhad, one of the people allegedly involved in the incident, be included in the case and that a murder case be formally filed based on it.

The court has assigned the Ramna Model Police Station to conduct the investigation into the case.

Salman -- whose full name was Chowdhury Mohammad Shahriar Emon -- was found dead in his Eskaton flat in Dhaka on Sept 6, 1996, at the height of his fame in Bangladesh's film industry.

Following his death, Salman's father Kamaruddin initially filed an unnatural death case. But on Jul 24, 1997, he appealed to turn it into a murder case, alleging that his son had been killed.

The court then directed the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) to probe the murder allegations alongside the unnatural death case. On Nov 3, 1997, CID submitted its final report, concluding that Salman Shah had committed suicide.

Rejecting the report, Kamaruddin filed a revision case, prompting the court on May 19, 2003, to order a judicial inquiry. After 11 years, Metropolitan Magistrate Imdadul Haque submitted his report on Aug 3, 2014, which also dismissed the murder claim.

After Kamaruddin's death, Salman's mother, Neela Chowdhury, pursued the case further. On Feb 10, 2015, she filed a "Naraji" petition, expressing dissatisfaction and objecting to the judicial report and named 11 individuals she believed might be linked to her son's death.