A couple and their two children were found dead in a rented flat in Kolakandi area of south Keraniganj, on the outskirts of the capital, yesterday morning.
Police suspected that the victims were strangled to death a day or two ago as the bodies had already begun to decompose.
As the victims were new in the area and neighbours did not know them, police could not ascertain their identities as of yesterday evening. But the law enforcers and neighbours think the victims belong to the same family.
Police also suspected that the flat might have been used as a hideout of criminals.
The man who headed the family was around 35 years old and the wife around 28; the son was around eight years old and the daughter was not over two, police said.
On information from the caretaker of the house and the neighbours, a team of south Keraniganj police station recovered the bodies from the first floor of the six-storey building around 11:15am.
Owner of the building Mohammad Samsuddin Mia lives in Saudi Arabia.
South Keraniganj police station’s OC Jalal Uddin Mir told the Dhaka Tribune that the killers had tied the victims’ legs and hands with bedsheets and mouth with scarf before killing.
“The man’s body was under a bed and others on the floor near the bed. The bodies on the floor were under a mattress,” he said.
Quoting Sohel, the caretaker of the house, the OC said a local CNG auto-rickshaw driver named Akkas had brought a youth to Sohel two months back. The youth introduced himself as Rafique Hossain and rented the flat for Tk4,500 and an advance security deposit of Tk10,000, saying his maternal uncle – a vegetables vendor – and his family would live there. Rafique is a CNG auto-rickshaw driver.
“After a few days the family and three others – Rafique, a man and a woman – started living in the flat. But later the three were rarely seen during daytime. They would go out in the morning and come back late at night,” the caretaker told police. The children would never come outside to play.
Sohel said he went to the flat to collect the rent on Tuesday but he found the main door closed from the outside. Neighbours in the opposite flat also did not see them or hear any sound from the flat.
“As stink came out, we along with other tenants broke into the flat this morning and found the bodies,” he claimed.
Police picked up Sohel and the CNG driver Akkas for interrogation.
Echoing Sohel, the victims’ next door neighbour Hasina Begum said they knew that the new family had an eight-year-old child but they did not admit him to any local school.
“Perhaps they wanted to keep a low profile,” she said.
After the incident high officials of police, Rapid Action Battalion, Detective Branch and Criminal Investigation Department visited the scene.
Dhaka district Police Superintendent Mohammad Habibur Rahman said: “It is a planned killing. The flat might have been rented to use as a hideout for criminals which suggests that the couple might have been members of a criminal gang or they had witnessed something for which they were killed.”
Police recovered a broken mobile phone set, a belt, a passport, a driver’s licence and a moneybag from the spot. They also found three pipes usually used by yaba addicts. The flat has two bedrooms, a drawing-dining room and a kitchen. “Six or seven people might have taken part in the murder and the murderers were known to the victims,” he said.
The crime scene unit of the CID collected evidence for forensic tests and prepared inquest reports on the bodies. The bodies were sent to Dhaka Medical College morgue.
No furniture or electronic appliances or even a television was found on the moderate flat except a wooden cot and a clothes stand.
A tenant of the house seeking anonymity said the caretaker had asked the victims to shift elsewhere. So, they had been preparing to shift and had already shifted some furniture.
“And surprisingly in the last couple of days we did not see three people of the flat,” she said.
