Film actor Salman Shah, whose real name was Chowdhury Mohammad Shahriar Emon, was found dead on 6 September 1996 at his rented apartment in New Eskaton Garden. He was only 24.
His wife, Samira Haque, told police that she found him hanging from a ceiling fan in the dressing room. He was rushed to Dhaka Medical College Hospital, where doctors declared him dead.
The death shattered a promising career that had made Salman one of the country’s most popular actors in just a few years.
But almost from the beginning, questions surrounded the circumstances of his death. Three decades, multiple investigations and several court orders later, those questions remain unanswered.
A death that never found an answer
Salman’s father, the late Komr Uddin Ahmed Chowdhury, filed an unnatural death case with Ramna Police Station on the day of his son’s death. But in July 1997, he asked the court to treat it as a murder, alleging that Salman had been killed.
The CID investigated the case and concluded that Salman had died by suicide. Its final report, submitted in November 1997, was accepted by the court.
The family refused to accept the finding.
A judicial inquiry was ordered in 2003, but the report came nearly 11 years later, in August 2014, and described the death as unnatural. Salman’s mother, Neela Chowdhury, rejected that finding too, alleging that 11 people could have been involved.
The case then moved through another series of investigations. RAB was initially ordered to investigate, but the order was later overturned and the PBI took over.
In February 2020, PBI submitted another final report, again concluding that Salman had died by suicide. A metropolitan magistrate accepted the report in October 2021.
For the family, however, the case was far from over.
Murder case opens a new chapter
On 20 October 2025, the Sixth Additional Metropolitan Sessions Judge Jannatul Ferdous Ibn Haque allowed the family’s revision petition and ordered that the allegations be registered and investigated as murder.
That day, Neela Chowdhury’s brother Mohammad Alamgir Kumkum filed a murder case with Ramna Police Station against 11 people, including Samira Haque, her mother Latifa Haque Lucy, businessman Aziz Mohammad Bhai and actor Ashraful Haque Don.
Don was arrested at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport on 9 August and later placed on five-day remand. He remains in custody and is the first person arrested in the case.
The latest investigation, however, has yet to produce an answer.
CID Inspector Mujibur Rahman, the investigating officer, said Don had not yet been interrogated and investigators hoped his questioning would yield important information. A court has set 29 September as the new deadline for submitting the investigation report — the ninth extension.
Meanwhile, the family continues to insist that Salman was murdered.
The complaint alleges that several people were present at the apartment on the morning of his death and that his body bore marks around the neck and had turned bluish. It also raises questions about the state of his marriage and alleged attempts to isolate him. These remain allegations and have not been established in court.
Alamgir Kumkum has further alleged that Salman’s brother Shahraan received death threats after Don’s arrest and was warned against pursuing the matter.
Don’s lawyers have denied the allegations, saying he is innocent and has no connection to Salman’s death.
After 30 years, the case has come full circle – from an apparent suicide to a disputed death, from repeated findings of suicide to a murder investigation.
And the question that has haunted Salman Shah’s family for three decades remains: what really happened inside that apartment on 6 September 1996?
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