Husband, forensic expert indicted

Criminal Investigation Department (CID) yesterday pressed charges in Wahida Sifat murder case against four persons, including her husband and the forensic expert, saying that it was "a murder not suicide."

The accused are Sifat's husband Mohammad Asif Pisli, father-in-law Mohammad Hossain Ramjan, a lawyer, mother-in-law Nazmun Nahar Nazli and assistant professor  Jubaidur Rahman of forensic medicine department of Rajshahi Medical College Hospital (RMCH).

The forensic doctor has been made an accused in the case as he allegedly submitted a "false" autopsy report to divert the murder case, Ahmad Ali, investigation officer (IO) and senior assistant superintendent of police (ASP) , told reporters.

The IO in the charge sheet, submitted to the chief metropolitan magistrate court of Rajshahi, said Wahida Sifat, a former student of mass communication and journalism department at Rajshahi University, was killed for dowry at her in-laws house in the city's Mohisbathan area on March 29 last year by hitting her head with a blunt weapon.

After the incident, in-laws took Sifat to the RMCH and told her family that she "committed suicide."  Hours after the incident, an autopsy was conducted at RMCH its report said that it was "suicide" which was "unusual", the IO told The Daily Star.    

On April 2, her uncle Mizanur Rahman filed the murder case with Rajpara Police Station and also challenged the autopsy report in the case. Later as per the court order, a three-member medical board exhumed Sifat's body in her parents' village in Rangpur and conducted another autopsy at Rangpur Medical College Hospital which revealed that Sifat was murdered.