Actor Ashraful Haque Don arrested in Salman Shah murder case

Police’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID) has arrested film actor Ashraful Haque Don in the murder case involving popular actor Salman Shah, nearly three decades after the actor’s death.

Court-related sources confirmed Don’s arrest on Sunday (August 9), saying he was being prepared to be produced before a court.

Salman Shah, whose real name was Mohammad Shahriar Emon, was found dead at his residence in Dhaka’s New Eskaton area on September 6, 1996. His death was initially recorded as an unnatural death. His family, however, has long maintained that the actor was murdered and that his death was not a suicide.

The case took a major turn in October 2025 after a court accepted a revision petition filed by Salman Shah’s family and ordered the earlier unnatural-death case to be scrapped and the incident to be treated as a murder. A murder case was subsequently filed with Ramna Police Station on October 21.

Don is among 11 people named as accused in the new case. The charges have been brought under Sections 302 and 34 of Bangladesh’s Penal Code.

The other named accused include Salman Shah’s former wife Samira Haque, businessman and former film producer Aziz Mohammad Bhai, Latifa Haque Lucy, Debid, Javed, Faruk, Ruby of May-Fair Beauty Centre, Abdus Sattar, Saju and Rezvi Ahmed Farhad. Several unidentified individuals have also been named in the case.

Following the filing of the murder case in October 2025, a court imposed a travel ban on Samira Haque and Don at the request of the investigating officer.

Don’s arrest marks a significant development in the long-running case, which has remained one of Bangladesh’s most closely watched controversies surrounding the death of a major film star.

The investigation is now expected to determine the circumstances surrounding Salman Shah’s death and assess the allegations brought against the accused.