The Daily Morning Voice Online Desk: Two children of Bangladesh-born US citizen Imran Sharif and his wife Japanese citizen Eriko Nakano will remain in their mother’s custody, a family court said in its judgement on Sunday (January 29, 2023). It was pronounced by Judge Durdana Rahman of Second Additional Assistant Judge and Family Court of Dhaka while delivering her judgement on early Sunday afternoon. At the same time, the court also said that the mother would be able to take her daughters to Japan if she wanted so.

Defendant Nakano Eriko’s counsel Advocate Shishir Monir confirmed it. Earlier, Judge Durdana Rahman set January 29 for delivering the verdict after the arguments of both sides were closed on January 22. On January 15 last, the same court heard and recorded the statements of two daughters. The High Court on August 31, 2021, ordered Sharif and Nakano to live at a Gulshan flat together for 15 days with their two daughters.

The court finally delivered its order as the couple failed to reach a consensus on where and with whom their two daughters — Nakano Jasmine Malika, 11 and Nakano Laila Lina, 9 — will live, in spite of repeated instructions from the court. The Supreme Court, however, on February 13, 2022, said, until the disposal of the case by the family court, the two children will remain in the custody of their mother, while their father can visit them at their Gulshan flat.

In February 2021, Sharif filed a case with the family court seeking the custody of his two daughters. Japanese mother Nakano Eriko and Bangladeshi father Imran Sharif got wedlocked in Japan in 2008. In sequel to quarrels in their conjugal lives, Nakano filed for divorce with a Japanese court at the beginning of 2020. Then Imran came to Bangladesh along with his two school-going daughters. Their younger daughter remained with Nakano in Japan.