9th grader killed by schoolmates for ransom, 3 held

The body of a ninth grader was recovered early Thursday from his school's septic tank in Comilla's Homna upazila, five days after he went missing. The dead Jahid Hasan, 14, was a student of a student of Dulalpur Chandramukhi High School in Homna and son of Aktaruzzaman. The boy was killed by 10th graders from the same school. Homna police station OC Rasul Ahmed said Jahid went missing from in front of his house after someone called for him and took him to a house in Dulalpur Bazaar. Jahid's father filed a general diary with Homna police station the following day. Later, the victim's uncle received a text message and a phone call from an unknown number, demanding Tk50,000 as ransom. Tracking the phone call, police detained three 10th grader students - Emdadul Haque, Jihadul Islam, Khairul Alam - of the same school on Wednesday morning. The three confessed their guilt during interrogation and said they strangulated Jahid to death at a house in Dulalpur Bazaar and dumped his body in the septic tank of their school, the OC said. Based on the information from the killers, police recovered the body around 2am. OC said Jahid's father has filed a murder case in this regard and the body was sent to Comilla Medical College Hospital morgue for autopsy.