Police have arrested two suspects who allegedly murdered two minor girls after failed to rape them in city’s Demra on Monday evening.
The law enforcers detained ceramics workers Golam Mostofa, 31, and his cousin Azizul Baowani, 32, from Bhanga Press in Jatrabari and Molla Bridge
in Demra on Tuesday night on charge of strangling the two girls to death after abortive attempt to rape at Konapara.
Mostafa was named a suspect in an old robbery case filed with Jatrabari Police Station. He hailed from Madaripur district while his cousin Azizul from Faridpur.
Police recovered the bodies of Faria Akhter Dola, 5, and Nusrat Jahan, 4, under a bed of the detained Mostofa on Monday night, hours after they went missing from their residence area, Police said.
The murdered children were nursery school-goers who lived next to each other at Konapara and were playing outside their homes before being ‘abducted’.
“The victims were so young that we thought that the suspects took them for ransom. But during questioning the men told us that their motive was to rape Nusrat and Dola,” Farid Uddin Ahmed, Deputy Commissioner of Wari Division of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP), told the reporters in a press briefing at DMP Media Center on the Mintoo Road on Wednesday.
“Mostafa and Azizul lured the children to come their home saying they would give them lipsticks”, the police official said.
“The suspects smoked Yaba tablets and played songs loudly while trying to force themselves on the children. They have admitted to strangling the children to death with a gamcha after failing to rape them,” the DC said.
Azizul left the scene after the two hid the bodies under a bed, while Mostafa remained at home, he said.
Mostafa’s wife Akhi is a garment worker and was away at workplace during the incident. After returning home from work on Monday evening, Akhi noticed “a change in her husband’s behaviour”, she told police. Mostafa fled their home while Akhi was visiting a neighbour, the DC said.
Police then recovered the bodies of the murdered children with help from locals. They found the ‘gamcha’, a type of washcloth, used to strangle the children and collected several more evidences from the scene of the crime, he said.
Police have seized the rag, sandals of the victims, lipstick, and the speakers they used to play music during the attack.
Meanwhile, Mostafa and Azizul gave their confessional statements before the Dhaka Chief Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday.
Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Md Jasim Uddin recorded the confessional statements of the accused after Shah Alam, Sub- Inspector (SI) of Demra Police Station and Investigation Officer of the case, produced them before the court.
The magistrate sent both the accused in the jail after recording their statements under Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
“The accused attempted to rape the two children, who screamed. Later, the two murdered the children by strangling them with a rag,” according to statement.
