Auto-rickshaw driver arrested over Cumilla schoolgirl’s murder

Photo: Collected

Police have arrested Suman, a CNG-run auto-rickshaw driver suspected of involvement in the murder of Jannatul Tajmin, a 14-year-old seventh-grade student whose body was recovered from a paddy field in Cumilla’s Lalmai upazila.

Suman was apprehended in Chattogram on Friday (October 9), Additional Superintendent of Police (Administration) Md Lutfur Rahman confirmed. According to police, the suspect went into hiding after the incident and possessed neither a mobile phone nor any other digital device, nor a fingerprint-enabled national identity card, a combination that considerably complicated efforts to trace him. Nevertheless, investigators said his involvement in the killing would be established through interrogation. A resident of Kachua upazila in Chandpur, Suman lived with his wife’s family in Jagatpur, while the auto-rickshaw he drove on a rental basis belonged to Monir Hossain of Bagmara.

Tajmin’s body was recovered on Thursday (October 8) morning from a paddy field in Jagatpur village. The daughter of Abdul Alim, who works for the pharmaceutical company Renata in Cumilla, she lived with her family in the city’s Racecourse area. She left home on October 4, reportedly to visit a friend, and was last seen outside Hotel Noorjahan in Cumilla at 12:19 am on October 7. Later that night, she sent her father a WhatsApp message containing her live location and asking him to collect her; regrettably, he did not see it because he was asleep.

Police subsequently recovered her body and seized an auto-rickshaw found nearby, whereas her father filed a murder case against unidentified suspects at Lalmai Police Station. Consequently, the interrogation of Suman is expected to be pivotal in determining the circumstances surrounding her death, although his alleged role has yet to be established.

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