A Dhaka court has granted bail to the first wife of Member of Parliament Gazi Nazrul Islam while rejecting the lawmaker's own bail plea in a case filed over abetting the suicide of his second wife Mariam Khatun.
The hearing was held on Wednesday before Dhaka Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Md Sefatullah. Defense counsel Mahbubur Rahman informed the court that MP Nazrul and his first wife Maksuda Islam had reached an out-of-court settlement with the deceased’s family. The plaintiff Mariam's father SM Masum Billah appeared in court and stated he had no objection to granting bail to the accused. Following the hearing the court granted bail to Maksuda but denied bail to MP Nazrul, according to state prosecutor Omar Faruq Faruqi.
The case stems from the discovery of 20-year-old Mariam's hanging body on September 20 at Flat 203 of NAM Bhaban 5, near the Parliament complex where she resided with Nazrul and Maksuda. That evening, her father filed a case against MP Nazrul, Maksuda and Mariam's maternal uncle Obaidur Rahman accusing them of physical and mental torture that drove Mariam to suicide.
Police and the Detective Branch (DB) subsequently arrested all three accused. MP Nazrul was interrogated across multiple remand cycles before being sent to jail on September 28. Despite the reported settlement also legal proceedings surrounding the abetment charges continue under judicial review.
