Bodies of Bangladesh journalists exhumed after two and half months for autopsies

Dhaka, April 26 (Xinhua-ANI): After about two and a half months of the murder of Bangladesh's two popular TV journalists, the remains of their bodies were exhumed Thursday morning for fresh autopsies to find clues to the killings, local media reported.

The remains bodies of Meherun Runi, senior reporter of ATN Bangla television, and her husband Sagar Sarowar, news editor of Maasranga Television, were exhumed from their graves in capital Dhaka following a Dhaka court order, according to the reports.

The court on April 24 permitted the country's Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) to exhume the remains of the bodies of the journalists who were killed on early Feb. 11 night at home, following the elite force's petition.

RAB in its petition said that the viscera test reports of the journalists were not properly preserved by the previous investigation officers. So, it said, there is a need for exhumation of the remains of the bodies for fresh viscera tests and chemical experiments.

Amid weeks of protest by journalists, a High Court division bench of Bangladesh on April 18 ordered the relevant authorities to transfer the sensational murder case to RAB while it is also venting its frustration over the Detective Branch's failure to unearth killing mysteries and arrest killers.

Frustrated with pace of investigation, journalists across Bangladesh over the last two months staged a series of demonstrations that included pen-down and mass hunger strike, sit- in and procession like peaceful programs to demand immediate arrest and trial of the killers of their colleagues.

From the protest programs, they demanded for the arrest of the killers of their colleagues, fair investigation into the killings of all of their other fellows in the past and stopping repression on media men and freedom of the press in the country. (Xinhua-ANI)