Gazi Nazrul’s second wife Mariam sometimes had to sleep on balcony at NAM Bhaban: Police

Mariam Khatun, the second wife of parliament member Gazi Nazrul Islam, sometimes had to sleep on the balcony adjoining the lawmaker’s bedroom at NAM Bhaban, according to police.

DB police Tejgaon Division Inspector Mohammad Salahuddin, the investigating officer in the case, told the court that he learned this while interrogating Gazi Nazrul.

After completing eight days of remand over two spells in a case filed on charges of abetting Mariam’s suicide, Gazi Nazrul was produced before the Dhaka Chief Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court on Monday.

The investigating officer sought an order to keep him in jail. In his application, he mentioned that Mariam would sometimes sleep on the balcony. After the hearing, Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Mohammad Ehsanul Islam ordered that Gazi Nazrul be sent to jail.

In the application submitted to the court, the investigating officer said Gazi Nazrul told investigators during remand that the complainant in the case, Mariam’s father, was his relative and nephew.

He described Mariam as his granddaughter. Nazrul Islam would stay overnight at the complainant’s home whenever he came to Dhaka and conduct his parliamentary affairs from there. Through this, he developed a close relationship with Mariam and later married her, the application said.

The investigating officer further said in the application that Nazrul Islam married Mariam according to religious customs on 17 June. He later registered the marriage in his local area. According to the application, Gazi Nazrul lived at NAM Bhaban with his second wife Mariam and accused No. 2 in the case, Mst Maksuda Islam, his first wife.

“While living at NAM Bhaban with his first wife Maksuda Islam, Mariam would sometimes sleep on the balcony beside Nazrul’s bedroom,” the investigating officer said in the application. He also said that “many other important pieces of information” related to the case had been obtained from Nazrul during interrogation.

On the evening of 20 September, police recovered the body of Mariam, 19, the second wife of Gazi Nazrul Islam, 75, from a flat in Building No. 5 of NAM Bhaban, located opposite the Parliament complex. Police took Gazi Nazrul and his first wife Maksuda into custody that night. Later that night, Mariam’s father, SM Masum Billah, filed a case accusing Gazi Nazrul, Maksuda Islam and Mariam’s maternal uncle Obaidur Rahman of abetting her suicide.

The following day, acting on an application by Sher-e-Bangla Nagar Police Station SI Md Shamsuzzohha Sarker, a court granted four days’ remand for Gazi Nazrul Islam and one day for Maksuda Begum. That night, the investigation was handed over to the Detective Branch.

After the remand, Maksuda Begum was sent to jail on 22 September. Last Wednesday, SRB-2 arrested Obaidur Rahman, the victim’s maternal uncle and the third accused in the case, from outside Dhaka. He was subsequently sent to jail through the court.