The High Court (HC) of Bangladesh has imposed a travel ban on a father along with his two Japanese children from leaving the country for a month.
The two children were also asked to appear before the court on August 31. officers-in-charge (OCs) of Gulshan and Adabar police stations in Dhaka were asked to implement the directive.
The HC bench of Justice M Enayetur Rahim and Justice Md Mostafizur Rahman issued the order on Thursday (August 19) during the hearing on a writ petition.
Advocate Mohammad Shishir Manir, a lawyer of Bangladesh Supreme Court, filed the writ with the High Court on behalf of the Japanese woman named Erico Nakamo, a doctor in Tokyo of Japan, seeking the court’s directive to produce the children before the court. In the writ petition, the Japanese woman also sought directive of the higher court to take custody of her two child daughters.
Advocate Shishir Manir stood in the court for the petitioner as well as the Japanese doctor, while Deputy Attorney General Bipul Bagmar represented the state.
Advocate Shishir Manir told media that Dr Erico Nakamo, a 46-year old Tokyo resident who comes to Bangladesh for legal battle, and Sharif Imran, a 58-year old Bangladeshi-US citizen, got married on July 11 in 2008 in Japan under the Japanese law. After getting married, they started living in Tokyo. In their 12-year marital life, three daughters were born. They are Jasmine Malika, 11, Laila Lina, 10, and Sania Hena, 7. All three are students at a school in Tokyo.
According to the lawyer, the couple was divorced on January 18 in 2021. On January 21, Sharif Imran appealed to the Japanese school authorities to take his daughter Jasmine Malika away. However, the school authorities rejected his application as Dr Erico Nakamo did not agree in this regard.
Later, Sharif Imran picked up Jasmine Malika and Laila Lina while they were on their way home from school and came to Bangladesh with them on February 21.
Advocate Shishir Manir said that on January 25, Sharif Imran, through his lawyer, applied for the transfer of the girls’ passports from Erico Nakamo. However on February 9, he received a new passports for his daughters by providing ‘false and fake information’. He later came to Bangladesh along with Jasmine Malika and Laila Lina on February 21.
Earlier, he submitted an application to a Japanese court to divorce his wife. However, he did not appear before the court on the scheduled dates of hearing.
In this situation, Dr Erico Nakamo filed a lawsuit with a Tokyo court on January 28, seeking an order to take her children into her custody. The court ordered the woman to meet the girls on February 7, 11 and 14. However, Imran violated the court order and came to Bangladesh.
Against this backdrop, the Japanese woman has moved to Bangladesh and started a legal battle. The children are now staying with her divorced husband.
Dr Erico Nakamo arrived in Bangladesh on July 18. In her petition, she mentioned that Sharif Imran, who now lives in Mohammadia Housing Society at Adabor in Dhaka, may leave Bangladesh with their daughters. She prayed to the HC to issue an order upon Sharif to produce the children before the court in three days to demonstrate that they have not been confined illegally.
In the petition, she also alleged that Sharif took her daughters and was harassing her by not letting her speak to them.
