Saima Wazed Putul, daughter of deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina, ended her 25-year marriage to Khandker Mashroor Hossain through a divorce settlement.
Under the agreement, she received $250,000 in cash, worth slightly more than Tk3 crore at current exchange rates, as well as two residential properties in the US state of Florida with an estimated combined market value of about Tk10.45 crore.
These details emerged from US government property records and court documents from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), reviewed by TIMES of Bangladesh.
Putul and Mashroor are both Canadian citizens. They were married in Dhaka in 1995, when Sheikh Hasina was serving as Leader of the Opposition in Bangladesh’s parliament.
The divorce settlement was signed in 2021 before a court in Dubai. Under the agreement, filed with the Family Guidance and Reformation Department of the Dubai Court, Mashroor agreed to pay Putul cash and transfer two Florida homes, one located at 456 Bay Point Way in St Johns County and the other at 845 York Way in Maitland.
It further states that the two properties would be transferred to NEFA Incorporated, a Florida for-profit corporation. It identifies Saima Wazed Putul as the company’s legal owner and sole beneficial owner.
Beyond the real estate, Mashroor also agreed to return all gifts and personal belongings Putul had received during the marriage, including wedding gifts, household items, personal furniture, clothing, jewellery and other memorabilia. The agreement required him to deliver those belongings to any location designated by Putul.
After transferring cash and assets worth approximately Tk13.52 crore in total, the documents do not reveal how much wealth remained in Mashroor’s possession. Nor do the available records indicate the extent of his remaining assets.
Also, TIMES found no evidence of any visible business activity or professional career conducted by Mashroor in Bangladesh. Nor could it identify reliable information showing that he had been engaged in any business or employment abroad. As a result, the available records do not establish how those overseas assets were originally acquired.
According to official property records, the St Johns County residence was jointly purchased by Mashroor and Saima on 01 November 2005 with $245,000. Its current assessed value stands at $359,440.
The Maitland property was also jointly owned by the couple. The single-storey house, featuring four bedrooms and two bathrooms, is currently estimated to be worth between $484,000 and $500,000.
They have four children. Under the divorce deal, Mashroor was to remain the legal guardian of their two minor children at the time of the settlement, while Putul would have their custody. The children would be free to pursue their education wherever they wished, with Mashroor assuming full responsibility for all education and future living expenses.
Mashroor, Putul’s former husband, is the son of Engineer Khandker Mosharraf Hossain, once one of Bangladesh’s most influential cabinet ministers. Yet Mosharraf himself had no political career before the marriage of his son. It was only after becoming Sheikh Hasina’s in-law that he entered politics, eventually becoming a member of parliament and a cabinet minister.
Before entering politics, Khandker Mosharraf had served as a mid-ranking civil servant in Bangladesh before joining an international organisation.
Within a year, he secured the Awami League nomination for the Faridpur-3 parliamentary constituency in the 1996 and 2001 parliamentary elections, but was defeated.
His fortunes changed in 2009 following the Awami League’s landslide victory in the 2008 election. Mosharraf won the Faridpur-3 seat and was inducted into Sheikh Hasina’s cabinet.
He initially served as Minister for Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment before emerging as one of the most influential members of the cabinet. During the Awami League’s second consecutive term in office, he was appointed Minister for Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives, one of the government’s most powerful ministries.
At that stage, Putul and Mashroor’s marriage appeared stable. But by 2019, strains had begun to emerge in their relationship.
That same year, although Mosharraf retained his parliamentary seat after the 2018 election, he was dropped from Hasina’s cabinet. He, however, was appointed member of the party’s central advisory council.
As relations between Putul and Mashroor continued to deteriorate, Mosharraf’s political standing also began to fade. From 2020, when the couple’s marital relationship reportedly reached a critical stage, he was removed from the Awami League’s advisory council and also dropped from the Faridpur district unit of the party. That year, official campaign began against the persons who were associated with Mosharraf.
Following Putul and Mashroor’s divorce in 2021, Mosharraf lost everything. The following year, he left Bangladesh for Switzerland and has since living there.
Toward the end of the Awami League government’s tenure, Putul secured a senior position at the World Health Organization through a government nomination. She was based at the WHO South-East Asia Regional Office in New Delhi, India.
However, following the ouster of her mother from the power, the interim administration objected to Putul’s appointment and subsequently she was placed on indefinite leave by the global body.
According to people familiar with the matter, Putul now travels on her Canadian passport between Dubai, where her children live, and New Delhi, where her mother lives after fleeing from Bangladesh in the face of a mass uprising.
Zulkarnain Saer is an investigative journalist based in London.
