UK: Court sentences Bangladeshi man to life imprisonment who killed family in UK, lived illegally in India

A Bangladeshi citizen who murdered his wife and two children in December 2006, fled to Dhaka and then lived illegally in India, was on Thursday sentenced to life imprisonment after he was extradited to the UK in April 2019.

Mohammed Abdul Shakur, 46, was found guilty of the murder of his wife, Juli Begum, 26, and their two daughters, Anika Khanum, 5, and Thanha Khanum, 6, at the family home in East Ham. He will serve a minimum of 40 years in jail being considered for parole.

The high court heard that the police were called to the family address on January 1, 2007, where they found the bodies of Juli, Anika and Thanha concealed under a duvet. Shakur was identified as a suspect after it emerged he had purchased a one-way ticket to Bangladesh.

The court was told that chef Shakur and Juli had an arranged married in Bangladesh in October 1999 and she had subsequently sponsored his immigration visa so that they could return to the UK. However, incidents of domestic conflict emerged soon.

The police found that Shakur had obtained a passport from the Bangladeshi High Commission, and then ordered a one-way ticket to Bangladesh from a travel agent in Bethnal Green. He arrived in Dhaka on January 5.

Later inquiries to trace and arrest Shakur were undertaken in Bangladesh and India after information suggested that he was in Assam. The Foreign Office representative in New Delhi informed local police of the details about Shakur, but several years passed without any trace.

However, in May 2013, the representative called the police to inform them that Shakur had been arrested for being in India illegally. It is thought that he had been crossing back and forth between the countries on a regular basis for work. Extradition proceedings began and Shakur said he would not oppose extradition.

The process was not completed until April 2019, when Shakur was finally extradited back to the UK on April 9. He was taken to Heathrow police station, where he was charged with three counts of murder. He did not make any comments.

Detective sergeant Amjad Sharif said: “Shakur’s sentencing brings to a close what has been a protracted and traumatic time for Juli’s family. We will likely never be able to understand what could have driven Shakur to snap and end the lives of his wife and two daughters so violently and callously”.

“I would like to thank our international policing counterparts in Bangladesh and India, and especially the Foreign and Commonwealth representative who assisted us so well in circulating Shakur as a wanted man to local police, and indeed informing us when he was located”.

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