The High Court today gave the government-formed taskforce six more months to submit a complete report before the court on the investigation into the killings of journalist couple Sagar Sarwar and Meherun Runi.

The HC bench of Justice Fatema Najib and Justice AFM Saiful Karim passed the order during a hearing of a writ petition filed by Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh in 2012, seeking necessary orders for a fair probe and to ensure justice in the incident.

During the hearing, Attorney General Md Ruhul Quddus Kazal sought six months’ time on behalf of the taskforce to complete the probe.

He told the court that the taskforce is at the final stage of the investigation, but after August 5, 2024, they could not reach the persons assigned to investigate at the time of the killings.

“The investigation into such a murder case is not being completed, which is very painful,” Barrister Ruhul Quddus Kazal said.

The attorney general, however, informed the court that the taskforce has submitted a progress report on the investigation to the HC bench through the Supreme Court registrar general’s office.

Advocate Mohammad Shishir Manir, the lawyer for the informant who filed the case in connection with the Sagar and Runi murder, prayed to the High Court to give only three months to the taskforce to submit the probe report and to call its officials before the court to explain why they could not complete the investigation.

Writ petitioner’s lawyer Manzill Murshid prayed to the court to ask the taskforce to submit the progress report to the court by swearing an affidavit so that they (lawyers) can see it.

Around one and a half years ago, the High Court directed the interim governmentto form a taskforce to conduct the investigation into the killings of journalist couple and to submit the probe report before it within six months.

“There is no significant progress [of the investigation]. That’s all I can say,” Md Mustafa Kamal, additional inspector general of police and chief of the Police Bureau of Investigation (PBI), who is leading the taskforce, told this correspondent recently.

Earlier, the Detective Branch of Police and Rapid Action Battalion, which were assigned to investigate the same case, failed to identify the killers and submit a full-fledged investigation report to the courts concerned.

Sagar Sarwar, news editor of private television channel Maasranga, and his wife, Meherun Runi, senior reporter at ATN Bangla, were murdered in their rented flat in West Rajabazar on February 11, 2012.

Runi’s brother filed a murder case with Sher-e-Bangla Nagar Police Station the following day, without naming any suspects.

Hours after the gruesome murders, the then home minister Sahara Khatun, now deceased, had announced that the killers would be arrested within 48 hours. More than 14 years have passed since then, but the investigation into the case has yet to make headway.

Contacted, Investigation Officer Md Azizul Haque, also an additional superintendent of police at the PBI, earlier told this correspondent that the investigation into the case is ongoing, but declined to provide further details.

Earlier this month, a Dhaka court on April 1 deferred the submission of the investigation report in the case for the 125th time, as the IO failed to do so on that day.

The court also set May 7 as the new date for submission.

Earlier, on October 23 last year, the High Court blasted the taskforce for failing to submit its full-fledged probe report in the case.

“Thirteen years have passed since two people [Sagar and Runi] were murdered. Who killed them? Nothing could be known. Even the investigation into this case has not been completed yet. People all over the country are looking at this case. How many more years will it take to complete the investigation?” the HC bench of Justice Fatema Najib and Justice Fatema Anwar told the state counsel and the taskforce representative.

The HC bench, however, had granted six months’ time to the taskforce for the last time to complete the investigation and submit its report.

Previously, the HC on April 22 last year granted the taskforce an additional six months to complete the investigation and submit its report.

On September 30, 2024, another HC bench led by Justice Farah Mahbub, now a judge of the Appellate Division, ordered the home ministry to transfer the case’s investigation responsibility from Rab and constitute a taskforce. The order was made following a government petition seeking modification of a previous HC order on transferring the case from the DB to Rab.

The taskforce was directed to complete the investigation and submit a report to the court within six months. That deadline expired on March 31 last year.