Shimu homicide: Duo carried the body in car all day

After killing Raima Islam Shimu, her husband Sakhawat Ali Nobel and his friend Farhad, the accomplice to the homicide, switched off the actress's cell phone, crossing the Green Road area to evade capture. Later, they crossed the Bosila bridge and Hazratpur-Alipur bridge before dumping Shimu's lifeless body into a roadside bush. On their way back to the city they threw away her phone and purse.

On 20 January, Nobel and Farhad gave confessional statements to Senior Judicial Magistrate M Saiful Islam and Senior Judicial Magistrate Mishkat Shukrana respectively, detailing the horrifying accounts of the murder.  

Shimu entered the showbiz industry with her husband's permission. With the birth of their first child, the couple started having problems as Sakhawat wanted his wife to quit the industry. After they had their second child, Sakhawat started to exert pressure. He had, meanwhile, begun suspecting that Shimu was involved in an extramarital affair with an official at a private TV channel.

On 16 January, the day of the incident, when the couple had an altercation over Shimu being busy on her cell phone, Sakhawat's friend Abdullah Farhad was present. He had come to borrow some money from Sakhawat. At one point of their argument, Sakhawat asked Farhad to strangle her and he complied. Later, Shimu fell to the ground and Sakhawat stood on her throat until they realised that she had passed away.

The two men carried the body in a car all day.

In his confession, Sakhawat said that he and Farhad packed Shimu's body in a sack. Sakhawat himself sewed the sack with plastic thread. As they were carrying the body downstairs, they realised that they needed to disconnect the CCTV camera. They went back to snap the CCTV connection and carried the body to the car, meanwhile sending off two security guards to stores.

Farhad, in his confession, said that as per Sakhawat's instructions he took Shimu's phone away from the Green Road area and went to Azimpur, switched it off and then returned. The duo then went to Mirpur but could not find a suitable place to dump the body. At around 7.30pm Sakhawat's daughter called and told him that her mother's phone was off. After a while, Shimu's sister also called with the same concern. After evening, the duo crossed through Dhanmondi, Mohammadpur and Bosila before dumping the body in a secluded place after Alipur Bridge.

Mystery unravelled from a plastic thread

"No crime is perfect. No matter how desperately the criminals try, they always leave some clues," Additional Superintendent of Police (Keraniganj Circle) Shahabuddin Kabir told The Business Standard.

"Within 24 hours of the incident, police uncovered the murder mystery through a plastic thread that was used to sew the sack over the corpse," he added.

Police found a bundle of the same thread from Sakhawat's car. They also found that the car had been washed and bleaching powder sprayed on it to remove the odour.