A reinvestigation into the mysterious death of a garment worker in Tangail seven years ago has revealed that the woman was killed by none other than her father for eloping with a man from the same area.
Then the father subsequently attempted to frame the son-in-law in the murder, reports bdnews24.com.
At a press conference in Dhaka on Sunday, the Police Bureau of Investigation or PBI chief, Additional IGP Banaj Kumar Majumder, said a Dhaka judge recorded the confessional statement of Quddus Kha, 58, the father of the victim Parul, identified by a single name, on Friday.
Quddus’s friend Mokaddes Mondal was arrested in this connection as well, AIGP Banaj said.
Quddus, according to Banaj, filed a homicide case against Md Nasir Uddin Babu, Parul’s husband, and his family on Aug 4, 2015 with a court in Tangail, claiming Nasir and her family beat Parul to death for dowry, weeks after Parul’s body was found floating in the river near Joypurhat’s Panchbibi Upazila.
Quddus, in the case statement, wrote that Nasir and his family had been torturing his daughter for dowry since the couple eloped in 2012.
Tangail’s Kalihati police were initially tasked with the investigation, but the investigation officer was unable to carry out the inquiry since the scene of the murder was beyond Kalihati police’s jurisdiction.
The Tangail units of the Detective Branch, PBI and Criminal Investigation Department all reported the same.
Later, based on a recommendation from the Tangail court, Quddus submitted a petition with a Dhaka court on Nov 27 last year under the Women and Children Repression Prevention Act to file a case against the son-in-law and his family.
The court on Nov 30 asked Ashulia Police Station to record the case and ordered PBI’s Dhaka district unit to investigate it.
Post-wedding, Nasir and Parul had been living in Dhaka’s Ashulia and started working at a garment factory before Parul was killed.
Nasir was subsequently arrested after Ashulia Police Station recorded the case on Dec 11.
PBI, however, started to smell something fishy as the father’s statements since the launch of the investigation sounded contradictory.
“Most of the information Quddus shared with us were contradictory. That’s when we started to suspect him. Eventually he could not keep up his lies and admitted that he was the one that killed his daughter,” AIGP Banaj said.
“Quddus told us that he felt Parul dishonoured the family by marrying Nasir and had been pressuring her to leave him for a while, promising to find someone better for her. Parul finally succumbed to the pressure three years after the marriage and went to visit his father on Jul 18, 2015 to discuss it further with her father.”
Quddus took Parul to his friend Mokaddes’s place in Bhuapur and the duo conspired to kill her, Banaj said.
“A few days later, Quddus and Mokaddes took Parul to Panchbibi Upazila and at one night, tied Parul’s hands and feet with her own cloth, choked her to death by using a towel, threw the body to a nearby river.”
Sub-Inspector Bishwajit Bishwas, the PBI investigation officer, said he collected pieces of evidence, inquest and autopsy reports from Panchbibi Police Station which match Quddus’s confessional statement.
“Parul’s husband Nasir will be released soon,” the SI said.
