A jealous husband who stabbed his wife to death as she pushed their baby in a pram was freed to kill by a court months earlier, the Mail can reveal.
Habibur Masum, 26, was yesterday found guilty of murdering wife Kulsuma Akter after she left a women’s refuge where she had tried to escape his violent behaviour.
But Ms Akter’s fate was sealed after controlling Masum, originally from Bangladesh, was allowed back on the streets after allegedly holding a knife to her throat in a jealous rage.
Despite a Crown Prosecution Service lawyer urging magistrates to keep him behind bars, he was granted bail on condition that he stayed away from Ms Akter and their Oldham home.
Fearing for her life, the mother and her baby were given sanctuary at a refuge in a secret location.
But wannabe influencer Masum – who had warned Ms Akter, ‘I am going to murder you, and the police will be taking me’ – used his technological savvy to track her down.
He took advantage of her failure to switch off the location on her Snapchat account to establish she was living in Bradford. He was spotted on CCTV ‘loitering, watching and waiting’ near the refuge in the days leading up to the fatal attack, jurors heard.
Masum even sent Ms Akter a picture of the front of the building, with a message that said: ‘I know that you are living in this place. I knew from the first day you moved here.’
Habibur Masum has been convicted of the savage murder of his wife Kulsuma Akter (the pair are pictured together on their wedding day)
Habibur Masum, 26, walking with his wife Kulsuma Akter and their baby
Masum was caught on CCTV ‘smiling’ as he got onto a bus to make his escape, jurors heard
After Masum threatened to kill her family members, Ms Akter again reported him to the police, and arrangements were put in place to rehouse her.
After taunting her that he had found the refuge, Masum laid a false trail to trick her into believing he was on holiday in Spain.
Thinking it was safe to take their son out among the Saturday afternoon shoppers on April 6 last year, Ms Akter – who was due to be rehomed two days later – was instead confronted by Masum.
In a brazen daylight attack of barbaric ferocity, he repeatedly plunged the blade into his screaming partner, stabbing her more than 25 times before slitting her throat.
After the ‘cold-blooded’ killing, Masum was captured on CCTV grinning as he boarded a bus to make his escape, having left his wife for dead and abandoning their baby in the street.
Police launched a manhunt and Masum – who had shaved off his beard – was traced two days later after seeking treatment for ‘lockjaw’ 170 miles away at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Buckinghamshire.
Masum, 26, pleaded guilty to his wife’s manslaughter and possession of a bladed article but denied murder on the grounds he had lost control.
But yesterday a jury at Bradford Crown Court convicted him after deliberating for less than six hours.
Masum ambushed his wife as she was pushing a pram with their baby in before repeatedly stabbing her and slitting her throat (he is seen pictured at Bradford Crown Court in a sketch)
Ms Akter said after an assault that her husband would ‘be okay once he kills me’ and asked Ms Begum to look after the baby
Masum tracked down his estranged wife Kulsuma before he launched ‘ferocious’ and lethal knife attack as she pushed their son in his pram
Masum – who was also found guilty of stalking, assault and threats to kill – wiped away tears in the dock.
Despite two police forces being made aware of the threats Ms Akter had been receiving, a probe by the Independent Office for Police Conduct found there had been no breach of professional standards.
But campaigners said her brutal killing could have been prevented, saying the latest example of a woman murdered by her abusive partner once again underlined the need for change.
‘Her death was preventable, and the loss of Kulsuma is a stark reminder of the deadly consequences of honour-based abuse and coercive control,’ a spokesman for the Karma Nirvana charity said.
‘We must do more to protect women like her.’ Bradford West Labour MP Naz Shah said violence against women was ‘a cancer that needs eradicating’.
‘Kulsuma came to Bradford trying to find safety and her attacker found her,’ she told the BBC. ‘To keep women safe we need to change the culture of misogyny and domestic violence.’
More than a year before murdering Ms Akter, Masum told a doctor he ‘felt like he would kill her’. He stopped his wife from wearing make-up and would check her phone to see who she had been talking to, relatives said.
Masum even stopped her drinking tea, because he didn’t like the drink.
Masum (centre) on a bus prior to him attacking his wife
Masum calmly walking away after he attacked his wife
Police officers in white forensics gear stand within a cordon at the scene of the stabbing in Bradford
The scene in Westgate, Bradford on April 7 2024. A murder investigation was launched after Ms Akter was stabbed in Bradford city centre in broad daylight
Floral tributes left outside a shop in Westgate, Bradford, close to where Kulsuma Akter was stabbed to death on April 6, 2024
Her cousin Aftab Miah told the Mail that Ms Akter – the youngest of five siblings – was ‘a lovely girl and had a great personality. She was always smiling and liked to make people laugh’.
Her killing has left her grieving family in Bangladesh ‘devastated’ and struggling to comprehend how she had been taken from them in such brutal fashion halfway around the world. Masum will be sentenced next month.
