Magistrate appointed to exhume Harris Chowdhury’s body

An executive magistrate has been appointed to exhume the body of BNP leader Harris Chowdhury buried in a Savar graveyard.

Dhaka Senior Assistant Commissioner and executive magistrate Rafe Mohammad Chhora confirmed the matter on Saturday. 

Earlier on September 5, the High Court directed the authorities concerned of the government to exhume a body buried in a Savar graveyard three years ago and conduct a DNA test to determine if it belongs to BNP leader Harris Chowdhury.

The director of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the police was instructed to comply with the order.

Harris Chowdhury, a prominent politician who served as the Political Secretary to former Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia and was the Joint Secretary General of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), had been a fugitive since the military-backed interim caretaker government assumed power on January 11, 2007.

Confusion surrounding Chowdhury's death arose when his cousin Ashiq Chowdhury posted on Facebook in January 2022, claiming that Harris had died in the UK and was buried there.

On the contrary, quoting his daughter, some media outlets reported that Chowdhury had died from post-Covid-19 complications on September 3, 2021, in a Dhaka hospital and was buried in Dhaka.

The writ petition was filed to eliminate the confusion over the death of her father, said Chowdhury’s daughter.