Man arrested 17 years after killing his wife 

The Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) on Thursday arrested Ashraf Hossain Kamal, 47, who killed his wife by suffocating in front of their child over a family feud and then made up a story of suicide by hanging the corpse from the ceiling fan in 2005.

After the incident, the police arrested him as a suspect but he secured bail after 12 days. Then he moved to Savar from his home in Sonargaon, Narayanganj and has been a local journalist and member of a journalist organisation since 2006.

Later, the truth came out in the police investigation and he was sentenced to death by a court in September 2020.

RAB spokesperson Khandaker Al Moin at a press briefing on Friday said Ashraf was arrested from the Savar area on Thursday night.

He became a member of Ashulia Press Club in 2009 and held various important positions including executive member and organising secretary. He also worked in local newspapers as a staff reporter and assistant editor. He has never kept in touch with his children and relatives.

Photo: Courtesy

The RAB official said that during the preliminary interrogation, the accused acknowledged that he was involved in journalism to avoid the suspicion of people and law enforcement agencies.

The operation to arrest him started based on a mobile number registered in Ashraf's name but he could not be traced as he stopped using the SIM and the mobile company sold the SIM to someone else. Later, Ashraf's whereabouts were identified through cyber patrolling, he added.

"We collected his photo and talked to some people who can recognise him. The cyber team scanned the social media to find persons named "Ashraf Hossain". Later, two Facebook pages were found from where two of his photos were matched," said Khandaker Al Moin.

Kamal passed Bachelor of Commerce (Pass) in Accounting in 1998 and started working in an established cement company in Sonargaon in 2001. He married the victim in 2003.

One year after he left Narayanganj, he married for the second time.