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Nasrin Sukhi was supposed to travel to her ancestral village in Cumilla from Chattogram to celebrate Eid-ul-Fitr.
“We bought dresses for everyone. Sukhi was also delighted to have the dress of her choice. My girl is no more. What’ll we do with this dress now?” her distraught mother Bilkis wondered.
The woman stood with her 3-year-old son in her arms at Kotwali Police Station on Tuesday, while 7-year-old Sukhi’s body was at the morgue.
“I want justice for my daughter. The culprit must be handed a punishment more severe than the crime he committed by killing my daughter,” she said.
The woman works as a domestic worker in daytime and then collects scrapped plastic bottles to sell to suppliers of recyclers. Her husband Razzak is a rickshawpuller and they have seven children, including twins.
The couple aged between 40 and 50 married off three of their daughters while one of the twins went missing two and a half years ago. One daughter lives with the mother’s parents in Cumilla.
The family – Sukhi, her parents, and younger brother – lived in the Bou Bazar area.
The mother usually collects the bottles until 11pm at the latest, but she was working late into the night as the markets remain open during Ramadan before Eid.
On Sunday, they came to the General Hospital’s gate in the afternoon and the woman started collecting bottles.
Sukhi usually roams around the area and beg from pedestrians at this time.
Around midnight on Sunday, Bilkis had a cup of tea and returned to the local mosque’s gate to Sukhi. “I asked her if she had any money as I spent mine on tea. She then left in search of money,” Bilkis said.
“But when I returned again, she was not there. I asked many people if they saw her, but no one could say anything. I returned home around 4am (on Monday), but did not tell my husband about Sukhi going missing because he was angry with me. He beat me up the previous morning.”
“I resumed the search in the morning and heard at night that my girl’s body had been found in a dustbin.”
Police used CCTV footage and arrested Mir Hossain, a vagabond who also lived on selling scrapped bottles.
Atanu Chakrabarty, an assistant commissioner of Chattogram Metropolitan Police, said they believe Sukhi was killed after being raped as there were signs of blood in her genital and rectum.
Citing information given by Mir after the arrest, Atanu said the man hired a rickshaw and took the girl to Atmasing bend, luring her with chips and chocolates.
“He then walked her to a hill near Tiger Pass and raped her there. As the girl tried to resist, he strangled her to death. He later dumped the body in a dustbin,” the police officer said.
Bilkis said she also saw Mir on the other side of the street when she went to meet Sukhi at midnight.
